In this episode, Louise Brogan, a specialist social media consultant, discusses the impact of AI on social media, particularly on platforms like LinkedIn. Louise shares her journey from being an IT professional to becoming a social media expert and how AI has become a valuable tool in her work. She highlights the importance of using AI as a tool to enhance content creation and research rather than relying on it to generate content entirely. Louise also emphasises the need for human interaction and the human touch in social media, as people prefer to connect with real individuals rather than AI-generated content.

Takeaways

• AI can be a valuable tool in social media, particularly in content creation and research.
• Using AI to enhance content and generate ideas can save time and provide a starting point, but it's important to add a human touch and personalise the content.
• LinkedIn has integrated AI features, such as profile enhancement, post suggestions, and message responses, but it's crucial to use them mindfully and maintain authenticity.
• AI-generated content should be labelled as such to ensure transparency and help users distinguish between human-generated and AI-generated content.
• Human interaction and the human touch are still highly valued in social media, as people prefer to connect with real individuals rather than AI-generated content.

Hello and welcome to Women WithAI, the podcast dedicated to amplifying the voices and perspectives of women in the ever-expanding field of artificial intelligence. Today, I have the pleasure of introducing you to a specialist social media consultant who's an expert in using LinkedIn. So I'm really looking forward to hearing her insights on how AI is impacting on social media. But before we jump into the podcast, let me tell you a little bit about her. Louise Brogan is a YouTuber, podcaster, writer and small business champion. She's a CEO with over ten years of experience supporting small businesses and runs a boutique marketing agency working with entrepreneurs, SME and professionals who want to grow their business and raise their profile through LinkedIn in a genuine and valuable way. Louise is an international speaker on the topic and hosts the LinkedIn with Louise podcast and YouTube channel. So, I'm hoping to pick up some valuable advice from her today on those skills as well.

In 2019, Louise was invited to attend number ten Downing Street to represent small business.

Thank you so much, Jo, I'm really excited. I'm really looking forward to it.

Fantastic. Maybe we can start. We'll just jump right in. Can you tell us a little bit about how you came to be doing what it is you're doing and how AI has sort of become part of that?

Oh my gosh, yes, absolutely. So my background is actually IT. So I was a software engineer back in the day about, oh, 2020. No, we're in 2024 now. I got my master's in 2000.

I know that feels about four years ago.

Four years ago. That's horrendous. That's horrendous. I was about to say in 2020. No, yeah, 24 years ago and I worked as a software engineer, and then I worked as an it project manager for about eleven years. And I always thought that's what I was going to be; I was going to work in it, and it was going to be great, and it's good money, it's a steady job, etc., etcetera. And then when I had my kids, I went part-time, and when I went to my employers, I said I was ready to, you know, I wanted to apply to the next level to be a program manager or a senior project manager. I was basically told that I could apply, but I wouldn't get it unless I went back full-time.

And I think, Jo, I don't know if any of the other women in your podcast have talked about this yet, but it is challenging for a woman who wants to have a family and also build the career that she wants. So I started looking around thinking, well, that's not going to work for me. I'm not going to be held down because I want to work and be able to.

You've got three children, I think, in nursery and.

Yeah, I've got three kids, and now they're all the youngest, now 14. So they're all, they look after themselves now. But back then, I wanted to be flexible, and I wanted, but I also wanted. I was ambitious for my career, so I looked around at what else I could do, and I kind of fell into social media. I actually started a craft shop business that was a disaster and made no money. But the people who were advising me pointed out that I seemed to know what I was doing on Facebook, and that's how I got into social media management. And that was in 2013. And then fast forward to about five years ago, I started to focus specifically on LinkedIn, and then in the last couple of years, I pivoted slightly again and started to build a team around me.

And I became a LinkedIn marketing agency, and marketing agencies in 2024. Cannot ignore AI. So I started to, you know, I think, with the IT background as well. I've always been into tech and I've always been interested in computers and computing and all that stuff. And I liked, I like fact finding, I like figuring out how things work. So it's a natural thing for me to start looking at this AI thing and see how it was going to actually impact my business. And then this year, when I went to social media marketing world in San Diego, I would say a good ten of the talks were about AI. So it was really interesting to see how we could use AI in our business but still stay true to the business that we built, which is, you know, our whole ethos is, it's not, it's not.

I'm going to get you 10,000 lead gen, lead generations on LinkedIn in a month using automation. That's not my thing. My thing is using LinkedIn in a genuine way that people feel comfortable with. And where can AI slot in there to be used? Because if you ignore it in market, ignore it at your peril, it's a bad idea. So it was. Yeah, yeah. So it was kind of looking at it as a tool that we could use, but still staying true to the.

Way we work because I noticed, well, just this morning, I went on to LinkedIn to do a post and straight away asking, do you want AI to help you write this, like before you've even had a chance, you know, you could just ask it to do something because, and I heard you talking about on your podcast about how Microsoft and nearly half of ChatGTP and OpenAI. So how do you see that affecting, like, how has AI impacted on what you do?

Yeah, so, yeah, well, that's the other thing is because we are specialists in LinkedIn and LinkedIn is owned by Microsoft. And Microsoft also own, I think it's 49% of OpenAI who own chat GPT. So they're heavily invested in it already. So you can see lots of AI on LinkedIn if you know where to look, if you have a LinkedIn premium account. So that is when people pay for additional services. So for people who aren't really using it, LinkedIn who are listening, LinkedIn is a free-to-use social media platform. It's really, it's more B two B professional focused. It used to be where people went when they wanted to get a new job.

Now, it's more about building relationships and building networks. And of course, you can use it to find a new job as well. But when you have a premium account, which is, I think it's about 49 pounds a month starting price, you get all these extra AI tools. So there is, they can improve your, enhance your profile with AI. They will write your headline with AI; they will help you write your posts. They already, what people don't realise is if you've been using LinkedIn for the last few years and you send someone a private message, LinkedIn's AI tools have been reading those messages and suggesting, oh wow, responses for you. So the last time you sent a message to somebody, you may, you might. Now that I tell you this, you'll totally notice it, but it'll say, if you and I sent a message, Joe, and it was really casual and chatty, it would suggest responses like, yeah, no, not bothered.

If we exchanged a message that was more formal. So maybe I'm writing to my CEO or something. The automatic responses offered to you are much more formal. And that is the AI figuring out what is the tone of this conversation. Can we help with the messages and the responses to this conversation on LinkedIn? Those are like three of the, like dipping the two in the water of what they are doing.

Cause it sounds like that could be a positive cause it's helping people. But also, I think also a negative because you're taking away that human element and it could be that you are speaking to CEO, but maybe you know them, maybe you've met them, maybe it is more casual and then you'll come across quite formal and they might be thinking that isn't how they were when we spoke. So I think I would say the negatives for that would be that. Then suddenly you've got AI talking to AI as well. Maybe, you know, if you've got AI helping you write your post, and then you've got an AI answering it, and then I'm hearing that recruiters, as you mentioned, people use LinkedIn for jobs, recruiters using AI to filter through CV's. But has that been written by an AI? I mean, do you think that is a negative or can you see it as.

I think that LinkedIn has been using these technologies for far longer than people have any idea about. So with the private messaging piece, those suggested answers, you have to select them. It doesn't send them without you choosing one of them. And that is where I see LinkedIn and Microsoft behaving differently to maybe other areas of the Internet, because it's all your choice. So, for example, if you look at somebody's profile on LinkedIn, you might see some of them say enhanced AI. Well, I. So I have not chosen to use that. These are all the little things that you don't notice until someone mentions them.

You're like, oh, okay, now I see it. So when I log into LinkedIn and if I opened up my profile, my personal profile. So for people who are really savvy about LinkedIn, you've got personal profiles and company pages. On my personal profile, it says, would you like to enhance your profile with AI? And I have never clicked the yes button because once you click it, you can't reverse it. So it. Yes, even if you use it and it suggests 20 things to change and you only pick one of those things to change, it will say your profile is enhanced by AI, whereas I have really specifically chosen what I want to show in my profile, and I don't want people to think that's been generated by AI.

Noticed that you said you like to have Fridays off, but I think that's it. That's the human element. I don't think an AI would come up with that. I used to have in mind that I was very good at reverse parking up hills just to see if anyone was actually reading the profile of my description of what I just to see, would anyone pick up on that one. So you're very good at reverse parking. Yes. Especially on hills, but yes.

So, yeah, yeah. So the other areas that the AI showing up on LinkedIn are, as you say, suggesting. It's not that they're writing your posts for, for you, they're suggesting, would you like to rewrite this with AI? So where I, I think AI is fascinating, and what I really learned over in San Diego was the way we should be using it as a tool to prepare the work that we're doing, not to use it to create the content. So if, when it says, would you like to rewrite this with AI? So if I've written, you know, the way I do posts on LinkedIn is, it's quite specific. I'll introduce a topic, I'll share some useful advice about that topic, and then I'll ask a question of my, of my audience. If you click on the rewrite with AI, it just becomes so generic. And there's no examples from my experience in there anymore and there's not really any of my personality in there. So I have tried it out and I think it's, it could be interesting to do that and then pick out what you like about it and then add it back into what you want as your original piece.

But the way we are looking at using as a tool is actually all the research for, you know, for we do a lot of our whole business is content for clients on LinkedIn. And if I'm working with, say, a private equity firm and they say, so, we want you to do the post for our LinkedIn, Louise, and you say, well, okay, what are the core things people ask you about? And they might come up with three or four overarching topics. Well, if I then go to chat GPT and type in, I am working with a client in private equity, their company size, is this their ideal target audience? Is this. Here are the key things they want to be known for. Can you generate 20 post ideas that we could use for LinkedIn? So it generates all of these ideas. The last thing I'm going to do is copy and paste those over to LinkedIn. I'm using those as a starting framework, and then I'm looking at my client and feeding in bits that make it relevant to that, make it personal to that business, that company, and of course, a lot of it. You need to fact check it as well.

But it's a really, really good starting point tool, in my opinion, for planning content. And that's just another way people can think about it.

That's the positive. I think you're right as well, because it gives you more time as well to be creative and to do that. And as you say, add that human touch and then as well, they can wholeheartedly, you know. Well, I suppose you have used AI to do it, but I'm saying, you know, it's a human generated post, really, because that's the same as reading anything. You know, I write press releases, and a colleague of mine, one of the first pieces of advice was, there's no need to rewrite the wheel. You know, if you have to write something, see what other people have written, you know, because that's a good basis, a good starting point. You're not copying and pasting it, you're just using it, you know, as a kind of springboard.

Yeah, it's research to me. It's research so that, you know, one of the things that I think makes us stand out ironically from the crowd is that we're educated about AI. We know how to use it as a tool, but we do not write it, use it to write posts or create the posts for our clients. My team does that. We use it to come up with the ideas that we can then base our content around. And I think that is, that was the key thing. You know, before I went to that event in San Diego, I was like, oh, this is, this is scary. AI is coming.

And if people are just going to say, well, we don't want to pay Louise and her business to manage our company page, we'll just use AI to do all our posts. But you can see already when people are doing that, that it's.

Yeah, because it will be the same. Yeah, it's sort of generic.

It's so generic. It's so generic. And then one of the big things I've, I don't know if you've noticed this, Jo, but you can spot the AI generated comments on LinkedIn, I think. Yeah, the responses.

But then I think that the worry is the more that the AI is doing that, then the more that AI is reading that and using it and then just reproducing the same thing and just replicating it. So you need that human element to come in there and change it. And as you say, you've got to check it. You've got to fact check it. You've got to, you know, if you've used it, it's generally probably had an american spelling. And I've said that before and other podcasts, but you have to change, you know, the zs to S's unless you're doing it to, you know, an audience that is in the States. So I guess that's how companies can use it. Well, it's like being aware of the negatives to then spin it and use it for positives.

But because I think. Have you been using it on YouTube as well?

Yes. Oh, yeah. So it's really cool, actually.

How do you use it there? What's the difference?

It is, again, it's generating the ideas and the script. So for YouTube, for me, my videos are short. So somebody Google types into Google, how do you create a LinkedIn newsletter? And one of my videos pops up in the search results. So they go and they watch the video. And where I'm using AI is to, if I have, I have ideas about what my clients and customers and audience want to know about LinkedIn. So let's take the newsletter example. So I can go to chatgpt and say, I'm creating a YouTube short video to. To answer a question for.

And then I say for b, two B professional clients who want to use LinkedIn newsletters in order to. And then you give it specific prompts and reasons for doing these things. Can you please create a script to use for YouTube and then it generates this entire script? Well, I do not use that script word for word, but I can see it breaks it down into, like, different sections. So what I do is I'll read through their script and I'll write little key points on it for myself. And then I go and record the video that I want to make, but I make sure that I'm not missing out all the different steps because you could miss something that you hadn't really thought of. And then I've done images with AI, and they are. I was talking to my husband about this yesterday. They're really, they're gloomy.

AI images are. That's how I would describe them. They're kind of dark and gloomy. And I'm like, who's making these? Who's making the language and the computers behind this? Because it's, it's all like, it reminds me of, like, the kind of gaming gloominess. It's a lot of dark and grey.

And it's that Blade runner future, isn't it? Dystopian nightmare.

It is really dystopian. And I'm like, this is where, you know, they need to get more women behind the scenes in the engineering of the AI, because this is like, this is. Nobody wants to look at this. This is quite depressing. But I have so I have used it to generate images for presentations of talks I've given. It was really funny because I did a big talk in Birmingham in March and I did my slides and I thought these slides are quite cool. I quite like these AI generated images of my slides. I submitted them and the conference organizer came back to me and said, so, louise, the screen's quite large, so you might want to look at some of those AI images you've generated.

Some people had three legs. The language is all AI generated images. They cannot, cannot quite get the wording right on them. So the words look like they're kind of like rusty.

I am quite pleased about that. I mean, that kind of gives me hope that we're not all just going to get sucked into believing that, you know, these are, you know, it's like when you see someone's got three arms. Yeah. As well as three legs, and the skin just doesn't look quite right. And you're right. I mean, this is good. And as you said, is it about getting more women into maybe that side of it as well and just making sure that it's equal in that sense? Because, you know, as you say, gaming, you know, I don't want to generalize, but, you know, if you look at Lara Croft, tomb raiders, I mean, I don't know, I might be making it up, but, you know, a lot of these games are sort of aimed at men, aren't they? I would say, I mean, that's totally generalizing and people probably shoot me and say that in the comments, but I think it's, you know, what do you want to look at? And maybe you need.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But to go back to the YouTube video. So the scripts, it helps to come up with the scripts, but as I say, I don't, I don't read from the scripts. It just gives me ideas again. But one of the software companies that I use, I have a subscription to something called Vidiq, which I can send you guys a link to and it will take my description. So on YouTube, you upload your video, but you also need to write a headline and you need to write a description of what's in the video. And that should be really written in a keyword friendly way so that when someone is typing something into Google, those videos come up in the search results. And that's based off of what I say in the video, but also what's in the description.

So I'll put in my description and then with this Vidiq tool, you can click it and say, generate a new title or headline, and it'll give me six different options that they have used from AI based off of what I've said the video is about. And again, some of them are like, well, I would never say that. I would never use those words, but actually I could tweak that little bit. So I'm testing that out and that's kind of interesting to see. I know there are people who are creating whole videos and whole mini books with AI and I think, honestly, jo, I think people are just playing and finding their way and it'll probably turn out all right in the wash. But at the minute there's some rather interesting, challenging, I think it's about anything new, isn't it?

You're going to try it and you are going to put it. And I use it for work, you know, I use it to generate ideas or for ideas for posts or for titles, for press releases, that kind of thing. And you're right, sometimes you think no. And I think, and I sort of say, give me three examples for this. And then it kind of, you know, on chat GPT and I've just got the free version. You give it a little thumbs up or a thumbs down or you say yes or no, but quite often I haven't. Don't give it the thumbs up or thumbs down. I just copy and paste into a word document and then off I go.

So then I think, well, let's. But then it isn't not learning. I'm not giving anything back because I'm not saying, well, actually, I'd write it like this, I'd do it like that because I tell you what, have you heard of PI, the PI, the personal assistant? I can't think now. We'll put a link to it. But there was a, over on the creators with AI podcast, David did a conversation with PI, and that's a lot. It's different because it kind of comes back, it's more conversational. You can either speak to it or just type and it will type back. But then it sort of says, did that help? And I felt like I had to go back to it, say, well, yes, that was very helpful, thank you, or yes, I'll try that, I'll let you know how it goes.

And then I didn't. And about three days later, a pie sort of pops up going, hello, Joanna, how do you, how are you, how are you getting on with that issue? And I was like, oh my God, I didn't really mean I was going to come back to you, but I guess that's the machine trying to learn or, you know, the way it's been written to actually learn, because otherwise it won't change or get any better, maybe unless we interact with it more, to say, yeah, I do.

I do think that. And, you know, there's. There's colleagues of mine who are creating their own cheapy tea. So it could be, Louise, cheapy tea. And then you would. You would create it, and you would say, this is the style in which I speak. These are the clients who I'm serving. And if you could focus all the material based on those people, and I do think that's a really interesting use of it.

So there's, I think, and it kind of comes back to, if I was not looking at this stuff and keeping ahead of it and learning about it, I would get left in the dust by the agencies who are doing that. And I think that's where it's really important for people who, if you're a small business owner, an entrepreneur, or you're, you know, you're running an agency, you got to really, you really keep yourself up to date with what's happening, because the clients, you know, our clients want human writers. That's why they've hired us in the first place, because we have copywriters who are professional copywriters who write copies specifically for LinkedIn. But if they said to me, well, Louise, what are you doing about AI? And I said, oh, we're just ignoring that. That's for, you know, techie geeks, they'd be thinking, oh, well, she's not really keeping up to date with what's going on in her industry, is she? So I think it's. It's, you know, learn it, use it for a tool. But also remember that, you know, at the end of the day, I think the human brain is smarter than the computer brain. And also, people go with personality anyway.

I mean, people, you know, everyone works with people who they specifically like to work with them. And, you know, not everyone wants to just interact with a computer all day. Some people want to get on a call with a. Oh, yeah, people buy from people.

As well. And it is, you know, I had my little chat with PI, and the funny thing was, I was then talking to a friend, and she came back with the practically word for word, the exact same example for something that, you know, should have been written in this situation. I was like, that's like, is my friend. Is she a digital twin? Yeah. And that's me. I mean, that would be quite nice, wouldn't it, actually, instead of just talking to a faceless AI, maybe. I mean, that's what we do, isn't it? I mean, I've got friends.

You do.

You just text or you leave voice notes for each other and you're asking a question, and then your friend comes back with their advice, and then it's, you know, choosing, choosing the friend or the chat GPT or AI that suits you. Isn't it the one that you sort of like the sound of?

Yeah, I do. I think that. I think AI is really handy, it's really convenient. But at the end of the day, it doesn't really beat having a call and conversation with somebody. So one of the, it's actually, it's pushed us down a road faster than we possibly would have gone on our own. And that is, we are doing video content for our clients now, for LinkedIn. And that's because video is not AI generated. Now, I know there are some people out there who are playing around with that to make it, but I don't think most people that I know, and it could be different.

People who are in their twenties now might view this completely differently, but I don't think that anybody who I know over the age of 40 really wants to put their voice and their face into a computer. So it creates an AI version of them. So we interview our clients on video, like you and I are here right now, and then we take the video of the client speaking and answering the questions, and we create all the content from that. So we post video of our clients on LinkedIn speaking to camera, and then all the content is surrounding that. And that is because everybody knows it's really that person. Whereas if it was text only posts, you know, you could think, well, have they written this themselves or have they used a computer to write it? But right now, uploading video of people speaking into the camera is, we know it's genuine and authentic. So it's becoming our main offer to our clients now is the video pieces for LinkedIn, for that very reason. And I don't think I would have gone down the road so fast with video if I hadn't thought, well, how do we show people that we're not just using AI to create content? I know.

So it has been a really useful tool because I was going to ask you, how do you see AI shaping social media? And I guess that's. That's one of the ways it's helped you.

Well, the news has come out this week from Facebook. A friend of mine called AI content, synthetic content. So I'll have to, I'll have to introduce you to her, Jo. She can maybe come on the podcast and talk about this, but she said that link that Facebook are so concerned about the use of AI generating content that there's going to be rules around anything that's created with AI is going to have to be labeled as such so people know what they're watching. I think this all like Facebook is. Facebook and Instagram are used as weapons during the elections. And there's a lot of. Apparently, apparently half the world is elect, is electing people this year.

I read it in the Guardian at the weekend, which is mad. And they're really worried about foreign powers using AI to affect people's views in democratic elections. And Facebook was really, I'm not sure if you're abused is the right word, but was really used heavily for that in the previous american elections specifically. So they are trying to get ahead of that. And so they're bringing out some rules and boundaries around use of AI. And whether you have to, something has to be marked.

I think we should generate it or not. That would be the biggest learning curve for all of us.

I think so, yeah.

To be able to spot it, as you say, that's why it's important to get in there now and learn as much as we can.

Yeah. And I think this is where. This is why I like LinkedIn. I mean, I like LinkedIn anyway, but this is where I like their behavior. Because anything that is generated with AI or AI enhanced on LinkedIn is marked by LinkedIn. This profile has been enhanced by AI. This post has been written by AI. There's another funny use of it, actually, Joe, that they are slowly rolling out and it's a comical disaster is the best way to put it.

And that is they're using AI to summarize a whole conversation and a post. So if someone, so say, my friend Jeremy did a post about a charity that helps to raise money for the deaf, and one of our other friends has the new AI roll out. So at the bottom it said, please, you know, use AI. To summarise this post, who is Jeremy talking about? And it came up with a, it called the deaf charity. It said it was like a software company. It was used for like generating leads in South America or something. So it was like absolute nonsense. It was a complete gobbledygook.

So I think you've got to just trust your own gut a lot of the time as well, and say, well, do I want to use these tools? And of course, they're all in their infancy. A lot of them are, you know, are in their infancy and they will get better. But for now, the AI, I would not enhance my profile with LinkedIn and AI. I wouldn't allow it to rewrite my posts. And I certainly wouldn't believe it when I, when it says, would you like me to summarise this conversation?

It's a tool, but don't trust it. You've got to reread it. You still need to keep the human element, your personality.

Yeah, yeah.

And it's like just, yeah, asking anyone for something and then, yeah, you've got to check it.

But, yeah, I mean, it's kind of like the real world, right? You know, you'll read articles in certain newspapers and part of you goes, I don't think that's true. I don't actually think that that really happened or that's the way that happened. And you trust your own instinct and you trust your gut. And I think we've got to do.

The same with AI, especially in social media. Thank you, Louise. This has been a really interesting chat. I think because you are such an expert on LinkedIn, it makes complete sense, everything that you said and how to use it. So where can people find out more about you? Where are you online? How can people get in touch with.

Yeah, so it's Louise brogan on LinkedIn. You can connect with me there. You can send me a human message. You can send me an AI one. And my podcast and YouTube channel are LinkedIn with Louise. And if you are looking at LinkedIn as your social media platform, I have a free download to help with that, and that's over@louisebrogan.com. Download. People can go and check out that.

And I do actually have videos walking through the AI pieces of LinkedIn.

Brilliant. Yeah, we can put some links to that in the show notes. Yeah, definitely. I think that's great. I'm going to go onto LinkedIn immediately after this now and look for all those things you've said. I'm definitely not going to be using AI. It's 100% me. Oh, that's brilliant.

Well, thank you so much for coming on. It's been so much fun. I've learned a lot.

Oh, thank you, Jo. Thanks for inviting me. I really enjoyed it.