Corey Walker, The Marketing Specialist
Have you been checking out the latest in AI to help with your Instagram marketing? If you’re anything like me, I have been fully immersed in trying to wrangle this new technology in my favor. If you’re not, let me show you some fun ways I’ve found to use AI to speed up my content creation, and get those ideas flowing!
You may be wondering, as I did, about the lightning-fast integration of AI technology by numerous companies. The solution lies in the ChatGPT model, which businesses can effortlessly plug into their website and customize to perform numerous functions for their clientele. This is precisely why we have witnessed a huge surge in the availability of AI services by various enterprises.
After that quick background on AI, here are a few ways I’ve personally been using AI in my Instagram marketing business:
ChatGPT
ChatGPT on its own is a fabulous tool. I am still using the free version, but will likely upgrade to the premium version ($20 per month) at some point. The upgrade gets you guaranteed access since the free version is sometimes over capacity, and it also gives you the latest version – ChatGPT 4.
By entering a simple prompt, I can have ChatGPT write blog posts, Instagram captions, generate idea lists, produce hashtags for a certain industry, and more.
The trick to ChatGPT is perfecting your prompts. You can tell it to “act like a [insert profession]” when asking it to write something, tell it what tone you’d like it written in, and feed it information to draw from. For instance, you might copy and paste a blog post in about copywriting services in Sacramento, then tell it to “Read this blog post, then act like a social media marketer and write a short and friendly social media post for small business owners. Be sure to include the keywords small business owner, Sacramento, copywriting.” It’s not always perfect, and I always need to edit a bit, but it often kicks my brain into gear to write something better.
Canva
Last month, Canva did a huge release of AI tools for their platform. I’m still learning and playing with them! The ones I see as most useful for Instagram are Magic Write, Magic Design, Magic Edit, and Magic Eraser. Here’s what they do:
Magic Write
Magic Write actually came out a few months back, and works similar to ChatGPT, but it’s located within Canva. I have tested the outputs of both, and have found I like the outputs of ChatGPT better, but if you don’t want to mess with two websites, Magic Write does fairly well.
Magic Design
Magic Design is a tool that lets users upload an image and then select a style to get a curated selection of personalized templates that you can customize. It can be a great way to get your design started, but as you can see, you’ll need to play with it more to get it just right. I need to do a deep dive on this one soon!
Magic Edit
Magic Edit is a feature that lets you add or replace anything in an image. In this image, I’m taking myself out of the pic and will replace it with something else. You can tell Canva where you want to add something (like a vase with pink flowers) and then describe it in text to Magic Edit. It will then place what it comes up with on your graphic. You can ask it to regenerate something different if you don’t the like image it placed on your existing graphic. This one definitely takes a little playing with to get it to work in a way that looks right. I think it will keep improving over time, though!
Magic Eraser
Finally, a new Magic Eraser tool lets you clean up unwanted image details by brushing over the area. Instead of the erased area being blank space or a grey checkboard pattern, the AI fills in what it thinks would be in the background like the rest of the blue sky. As you can see from my test above where I tried to remove a woman on the left, it still needs some work, so you may want to hold off on that feature. The regular Background Eraser that they have had for a while works really well though, so I highly recommend that one!
Agorapulse and other social media schedulers
Many scheduling tools, like Agorapulse, use AI to suggest the best times to post your content on Instagram. The AI looks at when your audience is online the most and will tell you when to post to get the most engagement possible.
[Editor’s note: Agorapulse is testing an AI writing tool…I’ve seen it…it’s handy! ETA June is what I’m hearing. We will do a piece in Mission: AI about it! - @deb]
These are just a few ways I have been using AI to create more content for my clients’ businesses and my own. As more AI possibilities arise, I will be sure to share them on my blog at www.themarketingspecialist.com. You can also find me on Instagram at @coreycwalker.
Corey C. Walker @coreycwalker
Corey C. Walker is the co-author of Instagram for Dummies, and Instagram for Business for Dummies, a how-to guide for using Instagram to market your business. She is also the owner of The Marketing Specialist, a digital marketing agency in El Dorado Hills, California.