Dek: From AI-powered content creation to social media-powered customer service, technology is driving unprecedented changes in how, where, and when brands communicate with their customers.
It’s no secret that the overwhelming majority of Americans own smartphones: 96% in the 18-29 age demographic, 95% in the age 30-49 group, and 94% in the age 50-65 cohort.
Virtually all smartphone users use SMS to communicate with friends, family, and brands. Most (72% and rising, according to Pew) use social media to do the same. And most take advantage of cutting-edge technologies like ultra-fast 5G networks, connected device clouds, and AI-enabled apps.
Even if none of this comes as a surprise, let’s step back and consider what it means for the future of communications. In an increasingly interconnected world, successful brands will leverage new technologies to reach, market to, support, and gather data from their customers, employees, shareholders, and other stakeholders.
How Is Technology Transforming Brand Communications?
Many conversations about cutting-edge communications technology focus on some distant future when we’ll all live in a virtual reality cloud built on decentralized digital currencies. That’s a tantalizing prospect for some—but for now, it’s still a daydream that overshadows the exciting, even groundbreaking work being done in the present.
Here’s how technology is transforming the way we communicate and how these transformations could play out in the near future.
1. AI-Powered Tools are Maximizing Content Resources
HubSpot’s research reveals short-form video as the reigning champion among media formats used by marketers. Despite the heavily favored medium, studies still show that companies who maintain active blogs experience a 67% jump in leads compared to those who don’t. So, how do brands find the best of both worlds? Crafting high-quality content takes time and resources. That’s where AI comes in.
AI podcast summarizer tools help brands maximize video or audio media by simply repurposing it into a blog post. Imagine a tireless AI assistant that watches your videos, transcribes the dialogue, and intelligently identifies key points. Tools like ArticleX don’t just provide transcripts – they analyze the content, extracting the most valuable takeaways. Unlike other transcription services, this technology transforms a video’s core message into a compelling blog post in a fraction of the time. This technology saves brands time, money, and resources, all while delivering quality content that speaks to their customers.
2. Customer Support Has Been Transformed by Social Media
For most consumers, “social media customer support” sparks a polarizing mix of memories. Some are positive; others are painfully negative.
The truth is that some consumer-facing brands do social media customer service very well, and some do it very poorly. But at this point, most do it simply because they must. Most of their customers are active social media users, and for better or worse, the most active social media users among that customer set often have outsize power to damage their reputation. A single viral complaint on Instagram or X can offset thousands of dollars worth of advertising and brand ambassadorship on those same platforms.
Brands that want to avoid this fate can look to role models like Spotify, an exemplar of high-quality social media support. Spotify’s social media team has a zero-tolerance policy for unaddressed pain points, like playback issues or bugs in library recall.
Spotify and other brands known for great social media support still largely use human agents, but that’s likely to change soon as generative AI advances. That change could further improve customer sentiment since generative AI is always on, enabling real-time response and resolution around the clock.
3. Messaging Apps are Personalizing the Customer Experience
SMS and push notification usage among smartphone users is even more significant than social media uptake. That’s led to an explosion in personalized marketing and lead management innovation among forward-thinking marketing and business development teams.
These teams use platforms like SimpleTexting, a text-based lead gen and customer management solution that boasts a 98% open rate. For comparison, email open rates typically average 34%. There’s simply no comparison, even after accounting for relatively low SMS conversion rates.
With such a clear value proposition, adherents like Starbucks, Samsung, Chick-fil-A, and a large majority of other household-name brands utilize this type of service. As in the social media support space, gen AI and higher-quality analytics could boost user satisfaction and conversion rates in the near future.
Working Toward a More Connected Future
Recent communications technology and process advances show that the connected future is already here. But we’re not yet at our destination.
The near future will be more connected than today, and the far future will be more connected still. After all, humanity is a social species, and our collective impulse is to find new ways to connect, gather, and collaborate.
Thanks to steady, rapid advances in the technology underlying solutions like generative AI and real-time communication, we’ll soon find new ways to explore this impulse. At the same time, we all share some responsibility to ensure that these technologies remain safe and accessible for all. A more connected future can be a more productive and prosperous future for everyone—but only if we work together toward that shared goal.