Using AI Is Not a Social Media Strategy

TL;DR: 

• AI is a tool, not a strategy.
• Overreliance on AI-generated content erodes trust and credibility.
• Businesses that do well on social media use AI thoughtfully while still keeping humans in control of the stories and experiences they share.

If you’re on social media as much as I am, you are likely aware of the shift happening in these digital spaces. Content posting has become more frequent and pervasive, more artificial, more salesy, more of the same. To put it bluntly, AI has made its way onto every platform, either as a tool or chatbot, or as the content itself.

While many feel that the advent of AI on social media offers endless opportunities for content production, others are beginning to notice that the original purpose of social media is eroding.

So, how do you stay relevant and unique in an age when everyone, from individuals to businesses, is beginning to sound the same online? How do you make you or your business stand out amid all the noise?

What Is the Purpose of Social Media? And What Happened?

I remember how it felt years back to log on to the social platforms. They were a place for forming genuine connections, no matter the distance. Facebook was for connecting with friends, family, and acquaintances and sharing life updates. Instagram was for sharing photos with short captions. Twitter (X) was a space for short snippets of news and short, funny quips.

It didn’t take long for businesses to hop onto these platforms, using the free space to promote their products and services. Social media marketing became a way for small businesses to build brand awareness and build trust with current and potential customers.

The function of social media did not change overnight; it shifted with each new feature being launched. Facebook introduced a feature that showed users posts that may be relevant and interesting to them, based on an algorithm. Then the “TikTokification” trend began, where every platform quickly adopted short-form video as the new way to grab people’s attention.

Just as brands were learning to navigate all of the new algorithm and platform changes, another force entered the picture—AI.

“AI Slop” and the Erosion of Trust

Many were unsure of how artificial intelligence would fit into the world of content creation. AI-generated videos, music, and posts started cropping up all over the internet. At first, it seemed relatively harmless, as AI-generated content was easily identifiable with its imagery and cliché writing style. But we were not ready for the scale at which this content was being made. Viewers coined a term for the content that proliferated on every platform: “AI slop.”

What Is AI Slop?

AI slop, in short, is any digital content generated by AI with little to no effort, quality, or meaning.

It often looks like:

• Generic, cliché phrasing
• Overused buzzwords
• Quite verbose
• Incorrect or misrepresented facts
• Content with no clear point/audience in mind
• Phrases like, “This isn’t just about X, it’s about Y.”
• The infamous em-dash

I’m certain that you have come across some of this slop on your own time while scrolling. This seems like a non-issue; you can just scroll past and ignore it. But this slop is eroding the quality of all platforms and diminishing the original purpose of social media as an authentic means of communication and connection. It’s flooding feeds and making it harder for audiences to distinguish between thoughtful human expertise and automated noise.

The Single Biggest Mistake Businesses Make on Social Media

There is no doubt that it is becoming more difficult to earn trust online. Feeds are crowded, attention spans are short, and audiences are increasingly skeptical of what they see. In that environment, the worst response is to simply join the wave and outsource all social media management to an AI chatbot.

It’s true that AI can help you a lot with posting more consistently on social media. But fixating on content quantity can lead you to lose out on content quality. Content frequency is not a primary strategy anymore, and low-quality posts can lose your business’s unique voice and tone. AI does not go through the experiences that you have. AI does not have lived experiences or original thoughts. You can prompt it to “sound witty and professional” or “create a thought leadership style post,” but there will be no thought behind what it generates. You must understand that LLMs, as they are today, are little more than a glorified predictive text tool.

Beyond grammatical shortcomings, AI has a tendency to hallucinate. A study by the BBC found that AI routinely misrepresents news content, regardless of language, territory, or AI platform. They found that around 45% of all AI answers had at least one significant issue. All it takes is one issue with your business’s data in a social media post for the company to lose credibility. The trust can’t easily be rebuilt, so it’s very important that things be fact-checked and reviewed by a human before they’re ever posted. It’s the best way to stand out against all of the noise and slop.

How to Use AI Without Losing Authenticity

There is nothing wrong with using AI for content creation. It can help with idea creation and caption writing to a certain extent. But it should not be the end product or the posts that get published. There must always be a human who critically reviews and edits the work. I myself have noticed that even if you give an LLM your brand’s tone-of-voice guidelines, it will steadily slip into its style of AI writing.

Examples of this are the overuse of the em-dash and the semicolon. There is nothing wrong with using these in the right context, but AI models frequently place them where they do not belong, making it easier for potential customers to realize that your posts are AI-generated.

If you are going to use AI in your social media content production, here are the things you should and should never do:

As more businesses continue to adopt AI as a part of their social media strategy, it’s important to keep in mind that automation is not a strategy. LLMs can be helpful tools for brainstorming, but they should not be the finished product.

Social media was built on connection. If your content does not feel thoughtful or human, audiences will sense it. The goal of posting online is to earn trust, one intentional post at a time.