4 AI Tools for Community Managers You Can Start Using Today
It’s no secret that the world of AI is larger than ever. While some might be afraid to use the new technologies, some are afraid that AI will take their jobs. But I believe that we can leverage such tools to work better and smarter. And when it comes to communities and especially virtual communities, AI tools can help us create more effective communities.
In this blog post, I’m going to show you some tools, and their pros and cons. I’ll also explain how I wrote the post using them and some tips that can help you.
Is the result good? You’ll decide.
Let’s start.
How do AI tools usually work?
AI assistants use the power of artificial intelligence to create content from scratch. Literally, from nothing but the user’s input. And the user is you. There are tools for writing, editing, generating images and videos, creating art, utilizing work processes and workflows, and more.
Which AI tools should you use as a community manager and why?
There are many tools, so I had to pick up some for this post. However, you’ll find at the end comprehensive lists with further tools that you can check out, thanks to the internet.
ChatGPT
ChatGPT, the rising star by OpenAI has everything a rockstar wants: Remarkable fame, worldwide fans, ongoing mention in social media and news, and great anticipation for future features and products.
I asked the ChatGPT “What are the best AI tools for community managers?” and this is what I received:
As you can see, the chat explains why it’s good to use such tools. Here’s my “translation” of what it says:
- Research potential community members and build personas over them.
- Automate the community’s management processes.
- Generate content such as posts, videos, images, and more, and adjust the content to different community platforms and communication channels.
- Track the community’s content.
- Analyze the community’s patterns to help create more engagement. Patterns may be the most-discussed topics or the most-engaged members (such as Facebook’s Top Contributors).
- Provide community members a quicker response or equip them with the community’s resources.
Well, the chat absolutely gave me more ideas for how to convince you that you too should use AI tools. However, I didn’t receive an answer for tools’ examples, so I asked the same question with a small addition:
Since I already know some of the above examples, and I also did some Google research before writing this post, I didn’t expect this answer.
Some of the tools, such IBM Watson Assistant, or Zendesk chatbot, are more related to customer success, and not necessarily to community management.
Through Hootsuite Insights you can receive insights about your social media channels’ trends, marketing campaigns, and your users’ response to your brand. Sprout Social is much the same, but also provides you tools for managing your social media. I haven’t tried any of them.
Finally, I found it a bit hilarious that the ChatGPT is recommending itself as a “cutting-edge AI tool,” as you can see at the end.
ChatGPT — Why is it good for community managers?
- Researching – understanding trends and industry’s knowledge for the community content strategy.
- Creating and adjusting community content.
- Writing and editing community general resources such as community guidelines and FAQs.
ChatGPT — Pros:
- Affordable – it’s currently available for everyone to try.
- It has various uses that can help you while managing your community.
- ChatGPT can help you generate ideas and content very fast.
ChatGPT — Cons:
- If you haven’t subscribed to ChatGPT plus, you might need to wait some time to use the chat.
- Looking for information? It’ll only show you data up until 2021.
- It’s not always accurate, and it is recommended to double check its suggestions with other tools.
How to build a community?
CopyAI
Let’s see what CopyAI suggested to me for this part of the blog:
I chose the “Bullet point to blog section option” and the “friendly” tone.
And here are some of the results:
As you can see, the answers are pretty diverse. Personally, while it has some good suggestions, it also might be confusing to receive endless suggestions and to decide what to use. I do suggest to keep experimenting and write better inputs, until the answers will be more accurate and satisfying. Also, I recommend using your critical sense in understanding what text to use and what’s not. For example, one of the answers suggested that “CopyAI has a feature of member tracking — track who joins your community and when they left it (or were banned),” which is not true (at the time I wrote this post).
CopyAI — Why is it good for community managers?
CopyAI can assist you in generating different types of text: Posts, copy for different social media platforms, emails, SEO, and more. It also has brainstorming tools and it can help you adjust your writing and content and turn it to a more engaging one, according to your needs.
CopyAI — Pros:
- It’s affordable – it has a free, wide version. It’s also free for up to 5-member teams.
- CopyAI has various templates that can accelerate your writing process.
- You can choose the tone of your writing — friendly, professional, bold, and so on.
- It’s great for your copy work.
CopyAI — Cons:
- You have to learn how to write the inputs in order to receive good suggestions.
- It might be less creative than what you expect it to be, and lacks a personal, human voice.
Jasper
Similar to CopyAI, Jasper is an AI writing assistant. That’s why I asked it for the same input and chose the same tone:
I pressed the “compose” button to continue receiving suggestions.
And one more:
Jasper — Why is it good for community managers?
As written above, it is similar to CopyAI and can help you effectively generate different content types. And fast. It also has a long-form assistant who can help you write long content outputs. In contrast to the suggestions that you see in the picture, it can’t really help you moderate and monitor your community. Unless it’s about improving the content.
Jasper — Pros:
- Has all the features CopyAI has, and also an art generator to create images, illustrations, and more.
- Has more integrations than CopyAI.
- Better for long texts, with its long-form assistance.
Jasper — Cons:
- Pricy – it has a free trial of 5 days, but afterwards you’ll have to upgrade to a paid plan. You have to provide your card details for the trial and cancel the plan if you wish to not continue. For me it’s a big downfall, since I usually avoid plans like this. And they also make it very hard to cancel the free trial. But hey, what I’ll do to provide you tips :).
- Registering and setting up was very slow (and it had nothing to do with wi-fi connection).
Canva
Canva is a graphic design platform I’ve been using for a long time now. It has many design tools for creating various social media graphics, presentations, and other visuals. They popped into the AI world too, with the Canva AI Image Generator (not surprisingly), and the Canva Magic Writer for content creation.
Let’s start with the later.
I added a similar prompt to the request I used in Jasper and CopyAI:
And the result:
What do you think?
I loved the AI answer. While it’s still just a general answer, it answered my question pretty nicely. It gave me the willingness to read until the end and also included the critical warning of the tools limitations.
Canva Magic Writer — Why is it good for community managers?
If you and your team don’t have a designer and you’re not using Canva already – so you should start. The Canva Magic Writer is an AI assistant that can help you brainstorm ideas and create content quickly.
Canva Magic Writer — Pros:
- There’s a free version with up to 25 queries.
- It’s intuitive, especially if you already know Canva.
- You can create content and design it in one place. Content might include tables, charts, and all of Canva designs too.
Canva Magic Writer — Cons:
- The content generator is limited; there are no templates.
- It’s better for the ideation part or short posts, but not for long ones.
How to attract new community members?
Canva Image Generator — Why is it good for community managers?
The Canva Image Generator allows you to create different image types from text prompts. You simply add a description of your desired image and it’ll create it.
Let’s try it out for creating images for this blog post:
The images are ok, but weren’t accurate and didn’t deliver what I wanted. It looks more like a very formal business meeting. Additionally, if you take a closer look at the faces, they look weird.
I tried another prompt:
This one is a bit better, but still very generic, and does not deliver any sense of community. That’s why I added to tweak the prompt:
I tried again, creating an image of real people, so inserted another prompt:
Unfortunately, while you could recognize our friends Elon, Mark, and Bill, the faces still look weird. Sam Altman (from OpenAI) is missing from all the images’ suggestions. So I gave up on featuring humans. Apparently they are not necessary in communities…
This prompt was the better one so far, and I liked the first suggestion (upper left).
Canva Image Generator — Pros:
- There’s no cost for using it.
- It can generate images quickly.
- You can add to your generated images all of Canva’s current design features: text, elements, and more. That’s a big plus if you’re already using Canva.
Canva Image Generator — Cons:
- The generator distorts human faces.
- The illustrations can get too generic.
Let’s sum it up
I could keep writing this post with more and more examples of experimenting with AI tools. But I had to stop so my personal editor (the human one) wouldn’t roll her eyes because I wrote too long of a blog post. I can write a whole post just on MidJourney and Dall E, which help you generate images too.
These tools definitely helped me in researching, gave me ideas, and hopefully added value to this blog post. They also amused me and scared me a bit (what weird images!).
Here are some final tips for using AI tools:
- Lack of creativity or find it hard to concentrate? The AI tools will help you generate ideas.
- You should play with the tools and find the right prompts to make the most out of them.
- Always check out the information and use your critical and logical sense to examine the information you received.
- We’re community leaders. Robots might help us manage the community, but the personal connection will always be a critical part.
- There’s no replacement for the human brain. Your own creativity, way of thinking, and the inputs you provide, can never be replaced.
- That’s why I still look for advice in communities. I found out about Jasper, for example, through an online community of community managers.
On January I saw on LinkedIn a post of Open AI, the company who runs ChatGPT:
This post went viral and I shared it as well (and was deleted for some reason after a few days). It sums up what I believe in. We should stay updated and adopt technology to make our work and life better. It’s no difference with these AI tools.
It might be overwhelming to understand how these tools work, so choose one at a time. Don’t be afraid to experiment, you might find wonderful results!
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Did you try any of the tools? What are you using them for? Please share so we can all learn.
Have questions about using AI tools as a community manager? Let’s talk and I’ll help you, step by step.
Bonus – more AI tools for community managers that you can explore
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