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Like most knowledge-work functions, the task of social media management is changing rapidly with new innovations in digital tools. For example, over half of enterprise marketers at large companies have experimented with artificial intelligence in their role, according to a new survey from research firm Ascend2 and email marketing agency RPE Origin—double the figure from their 2022 survey. 

As marketers, social media managers, and other workers who use social media in their roles continue to tinker with new technologies, the potential toolbox for streamlining and augmenting workflows is larger than ever. Today, we’re highlighting the best tools available to aid workers at every step of the content-creation process, drawn from past Charter Work Tech picks.

The best generative AI tools for brainstorming post ideas and drafting post copy

With tools like ChatGPT Plus, workers can use chatbots to help brainstorm content for social campaigns, summarize longer articles for the purpose of social posts, generate first drafts of social copy, and adapt posts across platforms, among other uses. For the best results, fine-tune prompts to be specific about the format, purpose, and audience for the outputs. As with all public-facing content created with generative AI, have a human take a final pass at social copy before posting to check for tone and content. 

Our picks for the best AI text generators of the nine we tested:

  • ChatGPT Plus (GPT-4 model) is the strongest of the tools we tested, with the highest level of creativity, high overall writing quality, and an ability to take feedback well.
  • Bing’s outputs, while solid, were less interesting and creative, but its access to the internet and free price point make it our second-choice pick.
  • Notion AI is easy to adopt for those who already use Notion in their daily work, and among the fastest of the text generators we tested.

Note: Since we released our review, AI company Anthropic released its new version of Claude. It’s currently free for users, and it does a great job generating text, especially when users provide specific prompts that specify the length, audience, and purpose of the text. 

Read our full review here.

The editor browser extensions to make your copy shine

These tools provide holistic help to improve written text, from spelling and grammar corrections to suggestions for improving tone, clarity, and length. Once enabled, these browser extensions automatically flag text to consider revising, making the editing process as easy as a few extra clicks before hitting “post.”

Our picks for the best editor browser extensions of the six we tested:  

  • Writer was our top pick, with its easy-to-understand explanations for changes and a high level of detail in rephrasing suggestions. However, it was also the most expensive of the tools we tested. 
  • ProWritingAid was just a little less streamlined, but its detailed customization settings, educational dashboard, and free tier make it a solid option.

Read our full review here.

The best inclusive-language tool to ensure your social copy reflects your values

Consider adding an inclusive-language tool for your most important social campaigns to flag potentially offensive or biased language. Inclusive Language Checker, one of our two picks for inclusive language tools, allows users to make their writing more inclusive across varied use cases (the other tool featured in our review is designed to help talent teams design more inclusive hiring processes). It flags potentially problematic terms based on a database of non-inclusive language, recommends alternative phrasing, and provides context for their recommendations, noting if a word is, for example, gendered or outdated. Users can check their text for bias by copying directly to the site, entering a URL, or uploading a PDF. 

Read our full review here.

The best AI tools for editing audio and video

As short videos continue to dominate feeds, from TikToks to Instagram Reels to YouTube Shorts, generative AI offers low-lift ways to experiment with the medium. Our picks for AI podcast editors, for example, allow users to easily generate graphics and captions from an audio clip, while our picks for AI video editing tools allow users to combine original footage, images, and graphics for high-quality social videos. 

Our pick for the best AI podcast editors of the four we tested was Descript, which offers a suite of different text-based editing features, including AI transcription and the ability to edit audio and video by editing the transcript directly. It also presents a waveform editor below the transcript if you want to clean up any rough-sounding edits you’ve made.

Our picks for the best AI video editing tools of the five we tested:

  • Lumen5 is primarily a tool for turning text—such as a blog post, article, or research paper—into video. It automatically summarizes longer texts and uses AI to create captions, match footage and images, and cut the script into scenes. Users can also upload their own images and footage to place in the video.
  • Runway is geared more towards those with video-editing experience, but it has the fullest suite of AI tools, including the ability to generate video and images, train custom models to generate images based on existing data sets, erase backgrounds and objects, generate transcripts, and automatically detect scenes in longer videos to cut into shorter clips. 

Read our full review of podcast-editing tools here and our review of video-editing tools here.

The best cross-platform social media management tools

Finally, keep your feeds in order with a platform that allows you to draft and schedule posts across multiple social accounts on TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and more. Our picks for social media management platforms offer users a suite of tools to plan and evaluate campaigns, including new AI tools that assist users in generating post ideas and drafting copy. 

Our picks for the best social media management tools of the six we tested:

  • Hootsuite is our all-around pick for its intuitive and easy-to-use tools for editing, scheduling, uploading, and posting, although it may be pricey for teams with smaller budgets.
  • Buffer is an excellent budget-friendly pick for teams looking for more flexibility in pricing with fewer social accounts to manage. In spite of its lower price tag, users will make few compromises in terms of base functionality, although we did experience more performance issues than while using Hootsuite. 

Read our full review here.

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