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This is the final article in our 3-part series on AI in social media for small businesses. In Part 1, we explored "AI tools that save you time." In Part 2, we looked at "AI analytics that show what works." Now in Part 3, we’ll discuss how to balance AI’s efficiency with human creativity, ensuring your social media stays authentic and engaging.
While artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots and image generators started out as a novelty, they've quickly become essential to business management. In fact, learning how to use AI in marketing in 2025 could streamline your workflow, generate more leads, and help you outpace your competitors.
Still, synthetic media can't replicate the human touch. If you rely too heavily on AI, you might drive away followers with an endless feed of bland, error-ridden content. Successful marketers take time to learn about balancing AI and human creativity in social media. Once AI is part of your workplace, you can efficiently produce content while leaning on your team's expertise.
In the past, you needed writers, artists, filmmakers, graphic designers, editors, and photographers to create content for your social media feeds. Putting together one blog or slideshow could take days and cost hundreds of dollars. If you didn't already have creators on the payroll, you'd have to hire contractors and hope they met your quality standards.
Before AI, you could save time and money by downloading free resources, such as stock images and audio. However, you'd still have to assemble these elements into attractive content for your followers. You could also use Canva and other platforms with free templates, but they usually require a subscription to unlock their full potential.
AI changed everything. Suddenly, you could ask software to write a blog post, generate a flyer, or create an illustration in seconds. These programs are available 24/7 and operate at a fraction of the cost of human employees. Many programs even offer a limited number of generations for free.
This doesn't mean that AI is perfect. Many companies have faced controversies after misusing AI or firing their workers to replace them with machines. Since this technology is relatively new, businesses are still learning about balancing AI and human creativity in social media. The key to smart, ethical usage is teaching your employees to use AI effectively instead of eliminating your team.
After learning about AI, you might feel tempted to use ChatGPT to generate a year's worth of materials for free. Unfortunately, AI tends to struggle with small details. Your synthetic drawing or poster might look perfect on first glance, but when you look closer, you'll probably find strange artifacts that give away their origin.
Common issues with AI images include:
Despite its popularity, AI usage is also controversial. In September 2025, fans criticized Sabrina Carpenter for sharing stickers that looked synthetic instead of hiring real artists who need the work. People have quickly trained themselves to spot artificial content, and if you overload your social media profiles with fake images, you could face similar backlash.
Factual errors are another issue. AI is infamous for confidently stating lies, leading to more controversies and Internet memes that damage the general public's perception of the tool. Whether it's a minor percentage error or an outrageous claim that humans should eat mucus, any false information could ruin your reputation.
Additionally, AI simply lacks the human touch. Bots might be able to write short stories or technical manuals, but they struggle with humor, poetry, vibrant characters, and genuine moments that create a human connection. After scraping the Internet for content, all they can do is remix pre-existing works.
Ethical AI usage is the art of balancing AI and human creativity in social media. For starters, you'll view AI as a tool that could increase productivity instead of a replacement that forces people out of their jobs. While this software can automate certain tasks, such as proofreading, brainstorming, and inbox management, you'll trust real people to oversee the final product.
When you use chatbots for writing or research, you'll verify every claim instead of potentially harming your audience with false information. A single error might not seem like a big deal, but misinformation spreads quickly--and once it's traced back to your company, people might think you're too lazy to hire fact-checkers. Worse, they could assume that you lied deliberately.
To use AI ethically, you'll also have to keep an eye out for plagiarism. Sometimes, chatbots steal content from writers and forget to include the source. The best way to prevent these accusations is to avoid copy-and-pasting AI-generated content. However, if you have to use synthetic text, try running it through a plagiarism detector first.
On another note, always disclose your AI usage when sharing artificial content. Otherwise, people might think you're trying to pass them off as original writing or illustrations. They might even feel the images are authentic if you share photorealistic pictures without a disclaimer.
Finally, never show a chatbot a picture of an artist's work and ask it to recreate the piece or style without their permission. This newer form of plagiarism could result in serious backlash from artists.
AI provides a virtually limitless fountain of inspiration. When you're not sure where to start with your marketing campaign, you could ask one of these basic questions:
In seconds, the bot will generate a list of ideas. You could choose one and ask the AI to elaborate on this thought or regenerate a new list of options. Once you have a project in mind, you can ask more specific questions, such as:
If you're truly stuck, you could forget the ad campaign and ask the AI about anything. Eventually, the software might say something that sparks inspiration.
While AI is a valuable tool, it's important to note that it's not a marketing professional. The software might overestimate your campaign's potential success or leave out essential facts when it makes recommendations. For these reasons, make sure you talk to human coworkers before you launch your campaign.
Similarly, AI can be infamous for flattering users. When the software starts making outlandish claims, such as "This campaign you invented will revolutionize the industry forever" or "Your genius ideas are going to make your brand bigger than McDonald's," try guiding the program back toward the facts.
Still, if you stay grounded while using AI for brainstorming, you could end up with fresh, engaging ideas that transform your social media campaign and guide you toward a new audience. Plus, you'll get insights from real people along the way.
Sometimes, you have a project idea and a goal in mind, but you're not sure how to make your plan a reality. AI can generate plans, outlines, and roadmaps that guide you through the project from beginning to end. Talk to the chatbot about your ideas, and you'll get a clean, orderly list that may include deadlines, budgets, and tools.
Once you've received your basic plan, you can ask the AI to incorporate more specific elements, such as risk assessments, contingency plans, safety requirements, budget allocation, and employee assignments. The software could also break each step into smaller tasks to make it easier to understand.
Before you download the roadmap and email it to your team, ensure you've reviewed each step for errors and inaccuracies. Afterward, ask your fellow professionals to review the plan. AI doesn't know all your business's specifications, so it might set unrealistic deadlines or budget allocations.
On a similar note, AI can generate rough drafts for blog posts, commercial scripts, personal stories, Facebook posts, and other creative assets. When dealing with writer's block, you'll tell the program about your concept and find out where to begin. Try generating a first sentence or paragraph if you're staring at a blank Word document, or ask for an entire outline if you're unsure about the ending.
AI has a distinctly "artificial" voice, so if you copy-and-paste the draft into your social media profiles, your followers will catch on immediately. For this reason, it's best to use chatbots for drafts and outlines instead of asking them to complete your entire project.
Social media users tend to have short attention spans. By the time you've completed your trendy ad campaign, the Internet has already moved on to the next viral moment, making your brand look out of touch. Unfortunately, building your marketing materials could require weeks of effort.
Even AI isn't powerful enough to launch an award-winning campaign with pictures and videos in seconds. However, you could use AI's automation tools to speed up the process. For example, if you spend a lot of time answering emails, AI can generate quick responses, categorize messages, automatically add dates to your calendar, and sort your contacts. This saves hours of effort that you can spend working on projects instead.
If you have marketing assets scattered everywhere, try using AI to organize your materials and make them searchable. Many businesses invest in comprehensive AI platforms that gather data, save files, track projects, and host communication channels from a single dashboard. This makes it easy to reach out to the writers, artists, and editors on your team.
On another note, AI can make predictions about future advertising trends. No product has 100% accuracy, but when you ask the program for evidence for its claims, you might be able to kickstart successful projects ahead of time.
AI can build basic apps for your operation if you can't find the right tool online. You don't have to write a single line of code--input your prompt, and the software will do the rest.
These apps might have some instabilities on the backend, so you don't want to build an entire business suite without talking to a professional. However, you could generate apps that help your creative team with your projects, such as image croppers, word counters, product mockup generators, background removers, and brainstorming tools.
Most of these platforms require a paid subscription. Once you've signed up, you'll start generating and integrating apps into your company's existing software. You can edit and fine-tune your apps by writing more prompts until satisfied with the outcome.
Uplifted uses AI to tag and sort your marketing assets. Once it's organized, your files, you can easily search for images and videos and view performance metrics. Uplift's AI Creative Strategist offers marketing advice and gives you the tools to maximize your campaign's chances of success.
You can start with a free plan that organizes up to 250 assets for three users. The Starter plan sorts up to 2,500 assets for five users and comes with three custom AI tags. If you're running a large operation, sign up for a Core plan to organize 7,500 assets or a Scale plan for unlimited assets.
AdCreative generates professional-grade stock photos and videos, allowing you to create a custom media library. Their editing software can turn basic pictures into "photoshoots," create eye-catching advertisements and produce synthetic models to advertise your product. You'll also view insights to see where you rank among your competitors.
Sign up for a Starter plan to get ten monthly downloads, text generation, and AI platform integrations. Professional plans offer fifty downloads, custom templates, fashion videos, and storytelling ads. Ultimate plans come with everything in the lower tiers, plus 100 monthly downloads for businesses with extensive marketing campaigns.
If you're tired of searching for royalty-free music, Soundraw generates personalized tracks in minutes. Soundraw's producers write music that the AI uses for inspiration instead of scraping data from musicians without permission. This allows you to generate ethical, royalty-free music for your ads, videos, and podcasts.
Soundraw offers a variety of packages for creators, artists, and businesses. Each package allows you to use your tracks for commercials, advertisements, and background music. Most plans even let you download tracks on Spotify and Apple Music for monetization, giving you an extra revenue stream.
Midjourney is an AI image generator that can produce virtually anything. Ask Midjourney to produce a "painting" of glittery roller skates, a picture of an extinct species, or a full fashion photoshoot, and you'll get results in minutes. You can explore recent generations or join Midjourney's official Discord channel for inspiration.
To sign up, you'll use your Gmail or Discord account. Afterward, you could start with a Basic plan to get about 200 images per month. The Standard and Pro plans generate images at varying speeds when you need unlimited assets. Midjourney also produces standard- and high-definition videos.
Notion is an AI-powered workspace that simplifies your workflow, making it easier to complete creative projects, stay in touch with coworkers, and stick to your schedule. The software takes notes during meetings, automates basic tasks, and includes a comprehensive search engine. With Notion AI, you can ask questions and complete research in a fraction of the time.
The free plan allows one person to use Notion and create simple forms and websites. With a Plus plan, small teams can access unlimited charts, collaborative blocks, and file uploads. Business plans offer features for large companies, including domain verifications and private workspaces. When managing a large operation, look into a custom Enterprise account.
Mastering AI usage is only a fraction of the battle. To make it easier, we've created a sales enablement newsletter that helps you find customers, market your business, stay on top of trends, and establish a strong social media presence. Enter your first name and email address, and we'll send updates straight to your inbox.
E-Marketing Associates offers a wide range of products and software that help small businesses succeed. When you discuss your pain points, we might recommend search engine optimization, ADA compliance, reputation management, website design, social marketing, and more. Schedule your 15-minute discovery call today to get started.
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AI in Social Media: A 3-Part Series
👉 Part 1: AI Tools to Save You Time on Social Media
👉 Part 2: How AI Analytics Can Show What Works
✅ Part 3: AI and Human Creativity: Finding the Balance
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