Episode 297 / Paola Rosciano / Remote / Social Media Manager
Is Using AI in Social Media Marketing Cheating? Here’s Why Not
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Paola Rosciano is Social Media Manager at Remote, where she believes that AI is fundamentally changing social media marketing and can be both a threat and a great tool for marketers.
Firstly, AI savvy content consumers are becoming more wary of AI-produced content. This means that it’s more difficult for brands to simply get away with automatically generated marketing that doesn’t have a human input, which can lead to a disconnect with consumers. Of course, this awareness is limited to AI fluent people, but it is slowly growing and making it more important than ever to edit, filter, and improve AI-generated content before publishing it.
At the same time, Paola believes that the productivity and brainstorming power that AI can add to marketers are absolutely worth adopting it. However, “you have to be smart enough to do it without going into [the number one risk], which is customers just getting smarter than you.”
Learn how she’s using AI tools and her top tip for making the most of data in social media marketing, in the full episode.
Transcript
The following gives you a good idea of what was said, but it’s not 100% accurate.
Paola Rosciano 0:00
If you don't have the curiosity to drill into the data, then there are no insights. There's no actions you can take from it. It's literally just numbers. Without curiosity, data is just numbers on a spreadsheet.
Speaker 0:20
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Tom Ollerton 0:53
Hello and welcome to the shiny new object podcast. My name is Tom Ollerton. I'm the founder of Automated Creative, and this is a podcast about the future of data driven marketing. Every week or so I have the privilege and the pleasure to interview someone exciting about their vision for the future of the industry and what makes it exciting. And I'm sat in a bank vault in central Amsterdam with Paola Rosciano, who is head of social media at Remote. So Paola, for anyone who doesn't know who you are and what you do, can you give us a bit of background?
Paola Rosciano 1:25
Yeah, so I've been working on social media for about 13 years. I started my career on digital marketing and fell in love with it, and when social started in Mexico, where I started working, about 15 years ago, I just jumped on it and didn't leave. So that's my story in 10 seconds.
Tom Ollerton 1:47
And how did you how did you end up coming from Mexico to Amsterdam?
Paola Rosciano 1:51
I really wanted to live in Europe, and it was an opportunity I didn't have when I was growing up, so I decided I would quit my job and give it a shot. And it worked.
Tom Ollerton 2:01
So you came here without a job, and you just thought, right, yeah, tell me all about that. What was the... How did you make that work?
Paola Rosciano 2:07
I started in Germany because I was working for Volkswagen, so it seemed like an obvious choice to go to Germany, and I realised it was very hard for an English speaking person to work there, and then I moved to the Netherlands, where English is so spread out that it came easy to find a job here.
Tom Ollerton 2:28
And for anyone who's less familiar with Remote, could you give us a bit of background on that business?
Paola Rosciano 2:33
Remote is a company that helps other companies hire employees or contractors all over the world, so we can pay, hire, manage people anywhere and all through a shiny, pretty platform. That's what we do.
Tom Ollerton 2:46
So in the last five years or so, what have you become better at saying no to in your career?
Paola Rosciano 2:54
I've become a lot better at protecting my time and saying no to unnecessary meanings, creating like a nice agenda, and making sure that I protect my time and my team's time, so that I think at the beginning of my career, I thought I should be in all the meetings, because that's exposure, and you're going to learn something from this meeting, and that shows you're productive. But that's not always the case. It can, many times, just be a waste of time. So I've become much better at deciding which meetings I should be at and which I shouldn't be at, and really putting down straight rules, with strict rules, with suppliers, vendors and so on to understand this is what this meeting is going to be about. This is the agenda. This is the points we're going to cover, and not straying too far away from that, because I really don't like people wasting my time in a like two hour sales pitch when I can get the highlights on a document, instead of being in a meeting for two hours.
Tom Ollerton 4:03
I really noticed a change of tone of voice when you started talking about a two-hour sales pitch. Oh, gosh, sounds like a lot. So how do you know a meeting isn't worth showing up to?
Paola Rosciano 4:16
If I have an expectation of the meeting and I join and it's not what I thought it would be that's like, a clear answer of like, oh, this is not going in the right direction. I thought we were gonna get started with this project, and instead, we're working on the presentation to start the presentation for the project. That's a no for me. Like, we can do that offline. We can work on it. There's so many collaborative tools these days, and then we can have the meeting to kick off or answer any questions that couldn't be done async, but otherwise, yeah, if you don't have an agenda for this meeting, it's probably not worth my time, because then I don't know what's going to be discussed.
Tom Ollerton 4:52
You're a serious customer here. I'm going to move on.
Tom Ollerton 5:01
So, apart from not showing up to unnecessary meetings and working asynchronously, I'd like to know more about that later. What is your best bit of advice when it comes to data driven marketing?
Paola Rosciano 5:11
Staying curious, because without curiosity, data is just numbers on a spreadsheet or on a PowerPoint. If you don't have the curiosity to drill into the data, then there are no insights. There's no actions you can take from it. It's literally just numbers. So I think that's my biggest piece of advice for anyone that's looking at numbers trying to understand what is happening. Where do you see something like it's an anomaly, or if everything is trending, then why is it trending? You still need to know the whys so staying curious and asking questions.
Tom Ollerton 5:51
I heard an interesting quote on a podcast this morning. The person I was interviewing said that if your data doesn't surprise you, it's just confirming your bias, a nice way of saying a similar thing. So So staying curious, get it... got to drill into the data. How do you do that? When it comes to data driven marketing, you got a spreadsheet or dashboards and some such and such as trending. Is there a process that you follow for digging into it and being curious?
Paola Rosciano 6:22
I'm an intensely curious person, so when I see a number that doesn't make sense, I will go as deep as I have to. So I will go to check out each and every single post on that document, if I need to. And I will drill down from the graph to the spreadsheet to Okay, show me the post, and let's see why did this work. Why didn't this work? What are the exact numbers? I yeah, I like knowing everything, so I will dig as deep as needed.
Tom Ollerton 6:52
So we're going to talk now about your shiny new object, which is AI for social media marketing. So we could talk about a day, about this for a day, it's a subject very close to my heart. So how we let's start off at a high level. What is it about AI that you think is going to be changing social media marketing?
Paola Rosciano 7:16
I think there's two parts for how it's going to change. One side is consumers starting to believe less in what you're saying, because they're going to think everything comes from AI. And then the other side is as people working on social media, all the productivity that it can add and the brainstorming and the lessons we can learn from Ai, but you have to be smart enough to do it without going into number one, which is customers just getting more smart than you.
Tom Ollerton 7:50
Right. So let's look at number one so consumers believing less because they know it's coming from Ai. Help me understand that better.
Paola Rosciano 8:00
I think now that AI has become so popular, users out there know that you can create deep fakes with video. They know that you can create an image with AI. They know that you can have AI models, and you don't really need to have actual models for your clothes. And they know you can just put everything on chat GPT, and get all the posts you want for your content, and that makes it inauthentic. And if they feel like your brand is inauthentic and you didn't have enough effort to write the content yourself and make sure that it's your brand voice, then they're probably not going to like your brand that much, and they're not going to believe in your message, because it might all be fake.
Tom Ollerton 8:44
So your point is that a consumer who is AI fluent, which isn't everyone, but consumers that are AI fluent, will be able to spot the tropes of AI produced content. They see that within your content, and they go, are you chat GPT, yeah, and it's but it's interesting that whole there's a kind of shaming culture around that, isn't it? It's just like what you should have done is worked your ass off all night to get the result that Chat GPT came up within a second. Why is that?
Paola Rosciano 9:12
I think it's actually quite the paradox, because you must be super productive and fast, but at the same time you must not cheat around any corners.
Tom Ollerton 9:20
But why is it cheating, if you get the result?
Paola Rosciano 9:23
I guess, because maybe they didn't think of it. It's like, when you see this beautiful art piece and you think, oh, a three year old could have done that, yeah, but they didn't. You know someone else was the one that put paint on that canvas. So it's like, maybe a bit of jealousy, of like, Oh, why are they cheating? And making it so easy when it's not cheating, you need to still get the right prompts and review the content and make sure that you check your facts. Does that make sense?
Tom Ollerton 9:49
Yeah, absolutely. I think there's we're all trying to work out what AI culture is right, what what is acceptable. I got some guidance recently who said you got to own it, right? So you don't. So you may well have used chat GPT, but if you sit there in a meeting, go, oh yeah, chat GPT, this, it's got, it's almost like a get out of jail card, like, well, I, you know, I just fucking typed it into the machine, and there you go. Whereas what you got to do is go, No, this. This is the answer. How I got there. You can talk about that if you want but that is the answer. I believe you have to own it. You have to believe that.
Paola Rosciano 10:24
Definitely. I think it's also a bit like saying your source is Wikipedia. You know, it can be a very relevant source. There can be a lot of information in there, but you should still dig into where did Wikipedia get that from? Because somebody wrote it, and somebody had to have a source behind it.
Tom Ollerton 10:49
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Tom Ollerton 11:25
So have you seen any examples of consumers calling out brands who've AI'ed stuff? Or is this your feel?
Paola Rosciano 11:34
I can't remember any. But as I said, I'm super curious, so I always go into the comments of all the content that I see out there, I'm the kind of person that will see every single Tiktok video and look at all the comments, because I want to see what people are saying. So I have come across some that you see immediately, these people that are just angry and upset at how fake they feel the content is. And I think AI will make that even more as people learn more about how easy it is to construct content without putting, I don't know, 2000 hours of video and photo and copywriting behind it.
Tom Ollerton 12:17
You know, I saw a really worrying... it wasn't a TikTok, sorry, it was a podcast, right? So I'm doing this challenge at the minute, which is listening to a new podcast every day for a year, not an episode, but a whole new show for a year. So me, and my nephew are doing it. We take turns anyway. We've done as many as, however many days there are in a year, I've listened to a lot, and there was a podcast. I can't remember what it's called, but certainly, the subject was, here's five businesses that you can set up tomorrow using chat GPT. And I'm like, brilliant. Let's have a listen to this and then can you guess what one of them is? very difficult question. I apologise. Just curious to know.
Paola Rosciano 12:55
I'm gonna guess, like a shop on Etsy.
Tom Ollerton 13:00
tThat might well have been actually, but the first one was a branding agency.
Paola Rosciano 13:04
Okay?
Tom Ollerton 13:05
And it was like, you can set up a branding agency because you can get chatgpt to design logos, come up with brand names, come up with positioning. And I think that's the worst idea. Like, I think yes, like, that's like saying that all the subtlety of brand is just completely automatable and but the reality is like, if you, if you automate a brand, you're it's just going to fit in with other brands.
Paola Rosciano 13:32
It will be like every other brand out there. How do you make it special or unique?
Tom Ollerton 13:37
And then the final one, the number one business you can set up on Chat GPT tomorrow is an email marketing organisation, which I think is quite the obvious one, right? So you get AI to find a long list of people to sell to, and then you automatically email all those people. I've got a service that does ABC and chat GPT comes up with all the copy. And all you got to do is, like, press a button, and then money will come into you, right? And then you and then you just automate all of the work. And I was just like, wow, because your inbox, and probably... definitely my inbox. It's like, every day there's a new email marketing organisation reaching out to me, and then it's probably a bunch of lads in, I don't know insert name of country, that have just listened to that podcast. Anyway, I'm having a rant now, so I'm just like, I just want to learn more about this idea of authenticity and what brands need to do differently.
Paola Rosciano 14:32
I think that's where the human touch comes in, opposed to just being AI, because you need to have a human behind that prompt on chat GPT or wherever, that actually makes it unique. You need someone to read the content before you shoot those 2000 emails for your email marketing agency.
Tom Ollerton 14:55
And so. So there's a kind of philosophical thing there where you know you need to have a human at some point, right? We can't just if it was just all automated, there'd be no need for marketers, right? We'd all be out of a job. So, so tell me about the productivity stuff they talk about brain brain storms. Is that? Is that what you mentioned?
Paola Rosciano 15:15
Yes. So I think brainstorming is a good way to use chat GPT, and get some interesting ideas that maybe you hadn't thought of, and then reviewing like, okay, yeah, for this product, we can't do that, or my brand cannot do that.
Tom Ollerton 15:29
How do you do it? What's What's your process? Do you do it within a room of people, or is it just yourself?
Paola Rosciano 15:34
Like I said, I really love working async, so usually we kind of do it ourselves. There's another teammate and me, and we will brainstorm async. We will work ourselves and then get together and then chat about what we found and how we can apply it. So the first part of it will be alone, and then collaboratively.
Tom Ollerton 15:57
And where does AI come into this when you're doing it alone, when you were doing it alone. Yeah, right. So you'll go, I'm gonna give myself 15 minutes to come up with ideas for the and then you'll refine, and you'll come up with all the good ones. Then you'll get together and get what I came up with this. Yeah, right, okay. And what have you got a result out of that?
Paola Rosciano 16:16
We do have good results out of that. We have certain campaigns that I like to call nurturing, which are not really selling a product, but just connecting with our audience. So we get a bunch of ideas in that might maybe come from either our people team or the product marketers, and then get that into chat GPT to brainstorm additional ideas. And that has worked really well. And then we can create a nice carousel for Instagram with the ideas that we got that then we pass through each other and to our design team.
Tom Ollerton 16:48
And are you honest about where that came from with your bosses, or do you just go...
Paola Rosciano 16:53
No, we love AI at Remote, so that would not be an issue at all.
Tom Ollerton 16:57
So you go to the to the boss lady man, and go, Yeah, chat GPT came up with it?
Paola Rosciano 17:03
Not quite, because it wasn't just chat GPT. We did put some work behind it. We talked to our team.
Tom Ollerton 17:08
It's interesting, isn't it? It's we have to justify our existence alongside this technology, you know, yeah, well, you know, we, yeah, we did use chat, but we did loads of work as well. It's crazy. Like, you know that? Like, the business surely should be, well, did you get a result? Great. You're, yeah, I don't need to know how the sausage is made but...
Paola Rosciano 17:26
To be honest, I don't think my manager would care if I just came like, we put it through chat GPT, I mean, be like, Oh, great. What was the result?
Tom Ollerton 17:34
You've got a great manager. In that case, I should say.
Tom Ollerton 17:43
So how else brainstorms? How else are you using it in productivity?
Paola Rosciano 17:46
One of the things that I recently discovered was Gemini on Google spreadsheet, and it's amazing.
Tom Ollerton 17:54
Tell me, tell me, I have not yet unlocked the power of Gemini. I have dark thoughts about Gemini. So tell me.
Paola Rosciano 18:00
I have to say, I'm sorry, Microsoft, but Clippy was nowhere near this. You will start working on your spreadsheet. And I love pivot tables, so I'll build my pivot tables and start working on graphs, and Gemini will suggest your next move. So it'll actually try to tell you what you want to do, like where you want to take this graph, or where you want to go with the data that you're looking at and analysing. It was quite surprising.
Tom Ollerton 18:28
Could you tell? I obviously can't give anything away, but can you I can't really, well, I get what a pivot table on the graph is. But like, could you give me a bit more detail on the use case?
Paola Rosciano 18:38
Like, obviously, I'm looking at social media engagement. And I want to know our results for the month, for instance. So I'll be working on a table comparing, I don't know, LinkedIn versus Instagram, and trying to see the results there. And as I'm choosing filters, Gemini can come in and tell you, like, oh, is this a graph you want to build? And you're like, yeah, actually, that's the graph I want to build. Thank you. Or this is a formula you want to use. And it's like, yeah, thank you.
Tom Ollerton 19:04
Okay, so you're so Gemini is going, do you want to compare LinkedIn, Scrap and Pinterest, whatever? Yeah, let me build that for you.
Paola Rosciano 19:11
Yeah. So it'll suggest other things you can see on the, I don't know, 2000 items spreadsheet that you've got there, and say, like, hey, maybe you also want to add this other thing, or give you a formula for what your next move would be.
Tom Ollerton 19:25
So AI is coming up with all of your ideas, sort of and then AI is also helping you report back on your ideas. How else you using it?
Paola Rosciano 19:34
I think those are my main use cases, but personally, for pantry recipes, I'll throw into chat GPT, like I've got this in my pantry. What can I make with it? And it will come with a great solution. And I've tested it that three times this week, and it was amazing.
Tom Ollerton 19:52
Well, look, that is, that is a strange but interesting place to leave it, but for anyone who wants to get in touch with you. Where is the best place to do that? And what makes a message that you will actually respond to?
Paola Rosciano 20:05
LinkedIn is the best place, for sure. I always respond to messages there, so that's a great option. A message I will always read is straight into the point. If you just message Hello, then I don't know what you want. I don't know how to reply to that. So, like I said, I don't like wasting my time. So if you're like, hey, I listened to this podcast and I wanted to reach out, because x, y, z, I love that.
Tom Ollerton 20:28
Brilliant Paola, thank you so much for your time.
Paola Rosciano 20:30
Thank you. It was great.
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