AI adoption soars as APAC social media teams face resource gaps

More than half of businesses in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region are increasingly turning to artificial intelligence (AI) to augment their social media efforts in the face of limited resources and reduced team sizes, according to Meltwater's State of Social Media 2024 report. The report highlighted that 55% of APAC businesses view AI as crucial for their social media programmes, a notably higher percentage compared to 44% globally.

The adoption of AI tools is becoming more prevalent among APAC marketing and communication professionals. According to the survey, 55% of respondents plan to ramp up their use of AI tools in 2024. A significant 64% believe that these tools help save time on content creation, and 36% reported improvement in their copy quality due to AI assistance.

Despite the increasing importance of social media for businesses this year, many teams are grappling with constrained resources. The report revealed that almost half (48%) of the surveyed APAC teams acknowledged that social media would play a more pivotal role in their company in 2024. However, even large companies with over 1,000 employees often operate with small social media teams comprising just 2 to 5 members. Furthermore, 34% of respondents admitted they are still working on defining a strategy, while 25% have a strategy but lack the resources to execute it effectively.

The survey also shed light on the platforms of interest within the region, with Instagram leading at 45%, followed closely by TikTok at 43%. Unlike their global counterparts, who are increasing social media budgets, APAC teams are more inclined to maintain their 2023 budget levels. Additionally, 64% of respondents in APAC agreed that social listening is a critical aspect of strategic planning. The majority use social listening to better understand their target audience and manage brand reputation.

Interestingly, despite the global popularity of video content, APAC companies favour written content and single imagery. This trend likely stems from the operational reality of smaller teams and limited resources for creating video assets. The contrast is stark given that TikTok, which boasts the highest average engagement time per user globally, sees its average Android user spending an impressive 34 hours per month on the platform. Nevertheless, balancing the high potential return on investment and production time remains a strategic challenge for APAC teams.

Mimrah Mahmood, Vice President of Enterprise (APAC) and Partner at Meltwater Asia-Pacific, commented on the findings, "Social media teams are in an unenviable position of doing a lot more for their organisations this year with limited resources and budget. Concerningly, not having a defined social media strategy is a more prominent challenge in APAC than in other regions. With the typical social media user using 6.7 platforms each month, brands need to understand the usage intent of their target audience for their platform of choice."

Mahmood further emphasised the role of AI in addressing these challenges: "Brands typically post three to four times each week, and the challenge is to consistently create engaging content in a scalable way. AI will continue to be a technology of interest as it augments the capabilities of social media teams."

"Meltwater's writing assistant, powered by ChatGPT, helps marketers brainstorm, create and improve their social copy, speeding up the writing process by up to ten times. While the usage of AI is currently centred around finding inspiration and creating copy, we can expect greater usage of AI to further boost content creation as text-to-image and text-to-video AI models improve and become mainstream."

Meltwater's adoption of AI tools, such as the DALL-E powered image generator, exemplifies how AI can help brands save time and money by reducing reliance on external content production agencies. As AI models continue to advance, their role in streamlining content creation for social media is set to grow, offering a lifeline to resource-strapped teams.