Boosting Creativity: How BU’s Social Team Uses AI for Brainstorming and Ideation
By Dave McDonald, Director of Social Media
Artificial Intelligence has got everyone talking. Just scroll through your favorite news or social media app, and it’s all anyone can seem to post about. While the jury is still out on whether or not AI will turn our world into a science fiction novel, it looks like, for now, it is here to stay. Everywhere you look, a new AI tool is popping up, which means for those working in communications and marketing, it’s only a matter of time before one crosses your desk. If this makes you nervous, fear not; as it turns out, AI tools like ChatGPT and Google’s Bard, to name a few, can be incredibly helpful and, when used correctly, can help streamline your workload. To help explain, here are a few ways we’ve incorporated artificial intelligence into our work at Boston University.
Ideation: Make AI Your Brainstorming Buddy:
Using AI to do all your work for you is never a good idea. Not only is it wrong and lazy, but there’s also a good chance the information it spits out will be inaccurate. However, using these tools during a project’s brainstorming phase is one of the best use cases for artificial intelligence. Putting together a short-form video and need a list of ideas and a script? Ask AI to give you a rough draft. Writing a blog post? Ask AI for an outline. Need help writing social media captions? Ask AI. Are you seeing the pattern here? The idea is not for it to do the work but to get the ball rolling. From there, you can edit, check for accuracy, and build upon the initial ideas in ways that work for your organization and brand.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO):
Crafting a searchable header, subhead, and page description is an art form, and if you’re not an SEO expert, it can take more time than you may think. Moments like these are perfect for enlisting the help of AI. Once you’ve completed your initial draft of a webpage or blog post using your created content, ask AI for help creating a title, subhead, or description, or all three at once. Doing this will save you time and help you take the guesswork out of which writing formats work best for SEO. Not sure where to start? Here is a prompt I give ChatGPT when I’ve hit a roadblock.
I want you to act as an SEO specialist. Write me five article titles using the suggested content below:
{enter content from blog post draft}
Once you have a good result, you can edit it to ensure it matches your brand’s style and voice and double-check it with your organization’s SEO experts to ensure accuracy.
Psst…I used ChatGPT to help me craft the title of this post.
Create Social Media Captions and Listening Queries Using Sprinklr AI:
If you use Sprinklr as your social media tool, the platform is releasing a whole suite of AI tools in partnership with the creators of ChatGPT that you can use to streamline your work. Boston University is one of the organizations beta testing this new tool, and here are our favorite features so far:
Suggest possible post captions:
Need help with how to phrase an Instagram post? Trying to cram the key points of an article into a single X (Twitter) post? Sprinklr AI can help. Just answer a few simple questions, designate your target audience and tone, and like magic, the platform will create a list of possible captions for you to choose. To reiterate: You should always edit the captions Sprinklr suggests to match your brand’s style and voice.
Shorten and lengthen your posts:
This feature can be beneficial when drafting X posts and you’re constrained to a character count. Just click a button, and just like that, you have a shorter or longer caption to work with.
Translate your copy:
Marketing to audiences across the world? No problem. If you’re like our team and have social channels dedicated to an international audience, Sprinklr can be a great tool to help you quickly translate your copy to speak to your audience directly.
Note: Ensure you check this copy with a native speaker, if possible, to ensure accuracy.
Quickly build social media listening queries:
Gone are the days of guessing which keywords to include in your listening queries. With Sprinklr AI, just type in a few keywords, hit the AI button, and Sprinklr will automatically give you suggestions to add to your listening topic.
Accessible and affordable A.I. tools you can use:
If you want to incorporate Artificial Intelligence into your social media workflow but don’t have access to an enterprise platform like Sprinklr, below are a few powerful tools you can look into with free and low-entry paid options.
Canva
Everyone’s go-to design tool has multiple AI features built into the platform (and more are coming!) Some of our favorite Canva tools include:
- Text to image generator — Quickly generate an image by using descriptive text
- Magic Eraser — No Photoshop required. Just highlight the image you want to remove from the picture, and POOF, it’s gone.
- Beat Sync — Working on a TikTok or Reel within Canva? Use beat-sync to match the beat to the flow of your video to help keep your viewers hooked.
ChatGPT
The OG AI tool. ChatGPT is the perfect tool for creating anything from SEO headlines, wireframes of TikTok and Reel video scrips, social copy, and more. Just sign up for a free account and ask away!
Copy.ai
This tool uses machine learning to create any type of copy you need. This includes blog headlines, email subject lines, social media copy, and more. If you can think of it, Copy.ai can help you do it.
Grammarly
Grammarly is like having your copy editor in your pocket. Since social media managers typically work at warp speed, Grammarly can help you reduce those (aggravating) helpful comments from your followers whenever you make a typo in one of your captions. The best part is that it offers multiple extensions for web browsers to check your work wherever you’re typing.
And there you have it, folks. Although we’re just starting to dip our toes in the AI waters, we are excited to see what’s next. How are you using AI to optimize your efforts? Sound off in the comments.
