Wednesday at the 2024 Nonprofit Technology Conference (NTC), we’re pleased to be leading a session all about artificial intelligence (AI) for mission-driven social media. If you aren’t attending NTC, don’t worry! We’d love to hear what questions you have about integrating AI into your social media practice, whether you raise your hand at NTC or send us a message later. We’ll share more after the session and dive into some of the questions we’ll tackle here:

Everything’s changing so fast, is everyone already using AI?

AI tools are already being used by many organizations to brainstorm ideas, find efficiencies, and explore new ways of working. Successful organizations are leveraging the power of AI and social media to create more meaningful connections and foster community engagement.

But if you’re just starting out, you’re not behind! The good news is that many tools are incredibly user-friendly, and experimentation can be one of the best ways to learn what works for you. Here are a few use cases we’ve seen (and used ourselves):

• Brainstorming content topics. Ask a generative AI model to act as your target audience (giving it as much anonymized context as possible). For example: I want you to act as an average college student in the Midwest. What are some environmental issues that are relevant to you? 
• Copyediting. Ask an AI tool to help make your writing more succinct or engaging and see what the results are. (It will rarely be 100% on the mark, but can spark new ideas.)
• Template creation. Drafting inbound message and comment response templates. Do you often get the same questions or comments on your posts? AI can help in quickly drafting responses.
• Drafting and testing. Writing multiple drafts for A/B testing on social media.
• Optimizing reach. Generating variations on hashtags and keyword searches.

Beyond ChatGPT, what are some really useful tools for mission-driven organizations?

Organizations that engage with the right audiences, at the right times, with the right content, and in the right places enjoy greater loyalty, retention, and positive word of mouth.

Think about these factors—audience, timing, content, and placement—and where AI can boost your efforts. These are some tools to try, which we’ll highlight in the session: 

• Sprout Social for campaign management: It can also provide alternative message ideas
• Canva for creating visual content: Magic Studio is their premier AI tool
• Lumen5 for video creation: Allows you to convert text like blogs to video scripts
• Jasper for content brainstorming: Their AI copilot is effective for marketing teams specifically, who can feed the language model with internal guidance like websites, reports, and style guides, to build a brand voice, with templates for specific content types
• Hubspot for social posts: Using their Social Caption Generator you can easily create multiple posts for various channels and audiences
• Yoast for SEO: The Yoast Premier web plug-in creates AI-optimized SEO titles and meta descriptions for your posts and pages to rank higher in search engines

What are the benefits of using AI? (And is it so good that it will put me out of a job?)

AI is an impact multiplier for mission-driven organizations since nearly all already do a lot without enough resources. There is a scary elephant in the room: efficiencies can also mean a team can do more with fewer people, but resisting change isn’t the way to approach this. Rather, we see effective teams being able to turn their attention to new ideas and approaches they didn’t have time for before. 

While the increased productivity you can achieve with generative AI may be measured in return on investment (ROI), the larger impact is seen in the day-to-day lives of marketers and content creators who can focus on activities that deepen campaign engagement. This could mean, for example, more in-person events with small groups of highly engaged donors: a development team freed from repetitive tasks like email and CRM management could focus on “high-touch” experiences like this. 

What should I look out for when using AI?

Of course, what AI generates is never perfect right out of the gate. Content needs to be checked and referenced, and sometimes falls short. Outsourcing your marketing entirely to AI will result in bad marketing and will hurt your brand. 

There are complex copyright and fair use issues, and new PR and crisis communications challenges. We’ve already seen high-profile malicious uses of deep fakes and Generative AI also makes it easier for users or bots to create spam messages and misinformation at scale. 

Effectively integrating AI into your work means being clear-eyed about the challenges. We’re seeing many organizations employ AI strategies and policies that guide integrations across departments. 

How can I learn more and get started?

Of course, if you’re at NTC, join our session! Otherwise, watch this space for updates after, and get in touch below with your questions! We’re always eager to problem-solve with you.