When I think of influencers, I think of smiling content creators posting unique, relatable content promoting a service or product and how their work helps humanize brands and tap into audiences.
So, how could artificial intelligence change influencer marketing if the goal is to humanize a brand or organization to boost awareness and profits? It turns out, like all things marketing, AI has the potential to alter influencer marketing significantly.
I spoke to creators Ramon Berrios and Blaine Bolus, who are hosts of the podcast DTC Pod (DTC meaning Direct-to-Consumer) and co-founders of the AI audio conversion tool Castmagic. Through them, we will learn how AI could change influencer marketing and what it can mean for influencers and influencer marketers.
I‘m already seeing AI’s impact on the influencer marketing landscape. For example, I was intrigued (and a little weirded out) when Meta introduced new AI chatbot characters based on real-life celebrities and influencers like Paris Hilton, Snoop Dogg, Naomi Osaka, and MrBeast.
One of Meta’s characters introduces herself as Billie, even though she clearly looks and sounds exactly like model and influencer Kendell Jenner.
But celebrities and influencers being immortalized as AI chatbots isn‘t the only impact on influencer marketing we’re seeing, Berrios.
“I think the biggest change I’ve seen is that the creator operation now boils down to one person,” he says. “Previously, a creator would need an agency to be present on multiple channels and handle all operations.”
Ramon explains that AI tools remove obstacles that typically hinder or discourage creators, such as paying to outsource work to a team or managing multiple platforms simultaneously.
Berrios and Bolus understand these struggles first-hand.
“Our podcast, DTC Pod, was born out of us paying an agency $1,000 to do our entire marketing and postproduction,” Berrios recalls. “Now, it’s done by ourselves with our own platform, so I think we’re going to see the operational costs [of being a creator or influencer] go down.”
Bolus shares that sentiment and points to creators like Gary Vaynerchuk, often backed by a team, as an example.
“To pull off his content machine, he has filmers, editors, copywriters, etc.,” Bolus says. “He’s probably spending upwards of half a million to $1 million a year just on producing content.”
Bolus explains that while AI tools may not be able to help influencers and creators deliver content of the same quality as a $1 million production, it can still help creators craft high-quality, multipurpose content on a shoestring budget.
“We’re seeing more of the kind of creator who crafts pillar content and can repurpose it into a podcast or blog and incorporates it into their social strategy,” he said. “And that content lives kind of everywhere.”
Remember what Berrios said about AI removing barriers hindering creators and influencers? By removing those barriers, AI will likely usher in a new wave of content creators who will bring new kinds of projects to the forefront.
“Think about the people making Midjourney content and how that takes a completely different framework of content creation than your typical person who likes to be in front of a camera,” he says. “So, I think it will bring a whole new wave.”
And with more influencers and creators expanding the influencer market, Berrios says costs associated with leveraging influencer marketing could decrease.
“At the end of the day, influencer marketing is a marketplace of demand — the brands and the companies paying for distribution,” Berrios says, “and the supply being the influencers themselves. I think we will see the field level even more, and we might see CPMs and costs go down across the board.
New AI technology and AI-fueled strategies will also lead to more options for upcoming influencers. Again, when we think of influencers, we typically think about a person on camera promoting a brand, product, or service.
Their face and public persona are often crucial to their success and recognition with their audience.
However, what if you want to be an influencer but want your face and identity to remain a mystery, like one of my favorite content creators, Corpse Husband? (Don‘t let the scary name fool you; he’s known to be a sweetheart.)
While content creators who aren‘t focused on influencing can sometimes get away with being faceless, influencers don’t have that same luxury. However, Bolus says AI could change that.
“There are going to be more options … so if you’re the type of influencer who doesn’t want to put your face in front of everything, you can create a faceless YouTube channel and use AI in the background to generate your ideas,” he explains. “At the end of the day, you’re sitting in the creative director’s seat. If you don’t want your face in front of the camera, you can drive your creative influencer lead strategy.”
Meta recently released an AI model that can understand, translate, and transcribe almost 100 languages. TikTok uses AI-generated captions and translation, and YouTube is testing an AI-powered dub tool to translate videos.
In other words, influencers will be able to create content that can be seen (and understood) worldwide.
“AI is allowing creators to translate their content into other languages and tap into new markets,” Berrios says. “It’s going to be really interesting to see how it plays out in terms of expanding creators’ incomes and earnings potential.”
So, I and the co-founders of Castmagic just unloaded a lot of information onto you about the AI-powered future of influencer marketing.
You’re probably wondering what you can do right now to get ahead of the curve and be a part of that future.
Something you should do right now is start testing out different tools and try to integrate them into your workflow. Below are some AI tools influencer marketers should check out.
Bolus describes Castmagic as a digital workspace allowing users to repurpose audio or media content and repurpose it into different AI-generated, text-based content assets. We actually used Castmagic to record our interview.
“We’re having a conversation, and if you want to turn that into a different content asset — like a blog post or an article — or be able to extract all that value, traditionally, you have to get a transcript,” he says. “You have to go through the transcript, find the quotes, stitch together context, come up with a thesis for what you’re writing, and draft a whole piece of unique content.”
Bolus says the point of Castmagic is to use AI as a tool to transcribe content and use all of the user’s media sources as context to write and draft whatever type of content assets the user wants.
And I was pretty surprised at how quickly its co-founders were able to send the full audio of our interview, complete with time stamps and captions explaining who was speaking at different times.
Okay, I can admit I might be a little biased — but hear me out. HubSpot offers a variety of AI tools that can streamline your work, whether you‘re an influencer or an influencer marketer.
Are you struggling to come up with a caption for your Instagram Reel? Our AI Social Caption Generator can quickly create social media copy to boost your content’s performance.
Need copy for your website or blog? Our AI Content Writer can help you ideate and craft copy that will help boost leads.
Other tools include our AI Email Writer, Meta Description Generator, AI Blog Writer, and more.
I recently used InVideo when I created a TikTok using solely AI tools. InVideo is a platform that generates videos for various channels, including social media.
The platform contains various tools, such as AI text to video, which I used to convert my script into the TikTok video below:
The platform is excellent if you’re an influencer looking to make short-form video content with or without a host on screen. To learn more about how I used InVideo, click here.
I tried crafting a blog post using ChatGPT. Though it has its challenges, this generative AI tool is definitely helpful for influencers creating social media captions, blog outlines, or emails.
If you‘re unfamiliar with ChatGPT, it’s an AI-powered chatbot that can answer questions and generate written copy. While using the platform, I learned the best way to get the most out of its features is to be as detailed as possible in my queries.
AI isn‘t going anywhere any time soon, and it’s poised to make influencer marketing more accessible and profitable for both brands and creators.
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