The APAC edition of Meltwater’s State of Social Media 2024 report reveals a significant embrace of artificial intelligence (AI) by businesses in the region. According to the report, 55% of APAC businesses consider AI crucial to their social media programs, surpassing the global average of 44%.
AI Enhancements in Social Media
Marketing and communication professionals across APAC are increasingly utilizing AI tools to enhance their social media efforts. Over half (55%) of those surveyed plan to expand their use of AI tools in 2024. A notable 64% of respondents in APAC reported that AI tools help them save time on writing content, while 36% indicated improvements in their copy due to AI assistance.
Challenges in Execution
Despite recognizing the growing importance of social media, with 48% of APAC teams anticipating a greater role for it in their companies this year, many struggle with limited resources. The survey found that even large companies, with over 1,000 employees, often operate small social media teams of just 2 to 5 members. Strategy and execution also present challenges, as 34% of respondents are still defining their strategies, and a quarter have strategies but lack the resources to execute them effectively.
Key Findings:
- Instagram and TikTok Popularity: Instagram leads as the top channel of interest (45%) for APAC teams, closely followed by TikTok (43%).
- Budget Allocation: APAC teams are more likely to maintain the same social media budget as in 2023, unlike global counterparts who are increasing their budgets.
- Importance of Social Listening: 64% of respondents in APAC agree that social listening is critical for strategic planning, using it to understand target audiences and manage brand reputation.
Interestingly, despite the global trend favoring video content, APAC companies show a preference for written content and single imagery. This preference may stem from smaller team sizes and limited resources for creating video assets.
Video Consumption Trends
The report highlights the high engagement with video platforms, noting that TikTok users spend an average of 34 hours per month on the platform, surpassing YouTube’s 28 hours per month on its Android app. This underscores the need for APAC social media teams to balance the higher ROI potential of video content against production time constraints.
Mimrah Mahmood, Vice President – Enterprise (APAC) and Partner at Meltwater Asia-Pacific, commented on the challenges faced by social media teams: “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 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. With bandwidth being a major concern, it is crucial that teams identify which are priority channels and customise content accordingly.”
Mahmood added, “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 centered 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. For instance, Meltwater uses a DALL-E powered image generator to use natural language text prompts to create royalty-free images. This can help brands save time and money as it reduces the need to outsource content production to an external agency.”
