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As time has progressed, globally more and more people have and maintain some sort of

social media account. The uses for these accounts include a variety of things, keeping up withfamily, staying up to date with different hobbies (gaming, anime, politics etc.) and to discuss oldand new businesses to name a few. With social media being a place where many can expresshow they feel in both positive and negative ways at times popular and at times unpopular peopleand businesses can be impacted in both positive and negative ways. The positive expressionsmay help a business or influencer grow a massive following overnight or in a negative light teara business or influencer down and end it all together. Businesses, especially smaller ones, face amajor issue with social media for multiple reasons. Since they are smaller, they usually havesmaller budgets, with no budget it is likely there is no one they can pay to run and maintain anentire account to help positively grow a brand. With no budget that means other alreadyemployed personnel have to be able to find time and hopefully are experienced enough to take onthe task to run and balance the business brand on the different platforms which may be anotherissue. The employed personnel already having other daily work tasks will be tasked withproducing new content, interacting with people commenting on posts already made, and knowingwhich platforms to choose to help the business and brand to name a few. Data from December of2022 shows that “twenty% of new businesses fail during the first two years of being open, 45%during the first five years, and 65% during the first 10 years. Only 25% of new businesses makeit to 15 years or more.” (Michael Deane). New and small businesses just are not likely to make itand have continued success. A major contributor and factor that can continue to grow and main asmall and new business is the understanding and usage of social media. “Despite research contending that marketing is a pivotal factor in small business success, many small business
owners continue to underutilize low-cost marketing options available to them. Of these options,social media marketing is a useful tool to maintain competitiveness in the larger marketplace.However, the adoption of social media best practices in small business remains deficient. Thelandscape industry is a large and growing field with small businesses making up a large andgrowing share of the industry. “(Crystal Lupo) Even though research supports that businessestaking steps and utilizing social media which is at free to no cost in most situations to them willhelp secure and raise revenue, raise overall customer experience, and increase brand recognitionthey are not using it and the reasons do vary.What if there was a possible solution for smaller and newer businesses to not have to runsocial media accounts but have software do it for them? Small businesses could not understandhow to navigate social media or even deal with it much and it could still positively impact thebusinesses just because they have accounts being run by someone or something. With ArtificialIntelligence continuously advancing and, on the rise, there could be an effective way for softwareto completely and effectively maintain a business’s online social media footprint. Before gettinginto that artificial intelligence must be explained. “Artificial intelligence is the simulation ofhuman intelligence processes by machines, especially computer systems.” (TechTarget) “It usescomputers to simulate human intelligent behaviors and it trains computers to learn humanbehaviors such as learning, judgment, and decision-making” (Caiming Zhang). In simpler termsit is the use of machine learning to train tech specifically computers to learn and make decisionsdepending on what it is being coded to learn, and the task needed to be completed. Currently onsocial media AI has had a massive surge over the last 5 years. AI systems are now capable ofwriting children and adults’ books, drawing images to include paintings and even designing

tattoos, making/mimicking musicians in music, and lastly even responding to questions being
asked. Making software based Artificial Intelligence solutions with the target audience of smallerand newer businesses without the budget or resources to maintain their own social mediaaccounts would be beneficial to them and an effective solution for them. AI is currently beingused every day around the world and is something people are becoming more and more familiarwith. “Many people think of AI as a tool that businesses employ, and of course business actuallyis applying AI very widely. However, consumers also use AI, and it is having a profound impacton how regular people live their lives.” (Roland Rust) Smartphone users now have assistants likeSiri for Apple users and Google Assistant for Android users. Mobile phones also have facialrecognition and maps that now have AI implemented in them. Even social media platforms haveAI in them to help provide users with connections to things they may like or people with whichthey might mesh. It is already being used in different ways that many don’t think about, so usingit in this way shouldn’t be thought about in a negative light. The major picture for consumersalready using AI in everyday life is how easy it is and how convenient it is, and smallerbusinesses and businesses just started utilizing this could feel the same way. The software wouldlearn and be able to post and upload taken pictures for the company with a catchy “hip” captionthat the target audience could relate to. It would be able to reply and keep up interactions withpeople that are talking about the business and be able to work and maintain all the platforms thebusiness would like to be on. This small list of things takes a new business with the priority onother things and tasks able to focus and keep those up without a team or a lot of thought or workbeing done. For already established small businesses without social media at all or the onesstruggling with the ins and outs and constantly having to maintain it, the Artificial Intelligence

software taking care of it all again would be perfect. It maintains all the accounts across
platforms and leaves owners with less worry and stress.There is research and findings about how small businesses specifically benefit from usingsocial media. Findings show “Benefits from the use of websites and social media sites include anincrease in awareness and inquiries, enhanced relationships with customers, an increase in thenumber of new customers, enhanced ability to reach customers on a global scale.” (Nory Jones).The big emphasis on that quote is communication. Smaller businesses without social media aremissing major opportunities for growth and profit. In this day and age as well not having nosocial media can lead to businesses having to become smaller than they already are and, in somecases, cause them to be forced to close completely. Social media is widely used to communicate.Communication is not always positive but knowing what consumers are saying about a businessin both a positive and negative light are important as well. If the word around town or the globeis that a business is declining in consumers’ eyes on social media in terms of quality of productor maybe new employees a consumer may not know because of the lack of social media use. Ona positive side, maybe consumers are happy about a product that was only available for a limitedtime. Then there is the opportunity to add it again soon or make it a permanent product theyprovide. There are also ways that communication can help bring different ideas for the businessto implement. Suggestions from consumers on social media can come from having some sort ofusage. There are also opportunities with taking what other businesses are doing and havingsuccess with and adding those ideas into a business’s own.Artificial Intelligence as mentioned before learns and then works in specific ways.Implemented correctly the AI software would work and learn appropriate responses to interactwith consumers. A small-scale similar example of something like this already being used would be online AI websites where the AI responds to input text on the site. When in charge of a social
platform the AI would see a message directed at the small business. Be able to decipher themeaning and context of the message and appropriately reply in a way that would help thebusinesses. Let us use Twitter for example. Twitter is one of the major platforms that most majorbusinesses have a team of individuals run that interacts with customers daily. The small businessin this scenario is a bakery that makes different cupcakes. In a positive light consumer coming tothe bakery are tweeting about how they really liked the limited time packaging they were puttingaround the cupcakes and were hoping they came back soon because it is something they wouldcome back for. The AI replies to the tweets with a message like “Hey we see they you like those,and we take into consideration bringing them back. Will tweet out when and if we decide to saythanks.” Consumers see that as a positive interaction that the business sees and value theiropinion on things and just social media interactions like that are beneficial overall. In a negativesituation someone could send a tweet about a bad interaction with an employee or did not like aspecific batch of cupcakes they received. The AI would be capable of sending back a replyingtweet apologizing about the experience the customer had and ensure that the next time they visitthere would be a more welcoming and overall better experience. This is not anything big but it isagain an interaction with the consumer on social media showing the businesses sees what isbeing said online and will make changes to ensure they keep their business. This would be agreat opportunity for a small business to not have to take time to think of appropriate responsesor possibly having to struggle with an overwhelming number of replies. Instead, the AI wouldtake care of this constant communication with customers and business owners are able to puttheir efforts towards other parts of the business. Smaller businesses in current times have a greater chance of failing than they used to.
Bigger businesses, corporations, and chains have taken over and are supplying people with alltheir wants and needs. An easy big example is Amazon for supplying all types of everydayproducts and Starbucks or Dunkin’ Donuts for chains that supply people with their coffee needs.These businesses are flourishing more because of advertisements on Tv which helped withgrowth and now they have switched over to ads and contents on social media sites. While manypeople do prefer the convenience and how easy it is to work with the bigger businesses andcorporations there are the group of individuals that like the experience you get with when goingand being a part of a small business. Some feel that the customer experience and product is betterat times with smaller places because they take the time and effort into it all and care more. Thesame experience can be given in terms of social media. Since bigger corporations have teams andbudgets for social media and marketing in those ways, they are always seen but as beforementioned AI is smart enough to place social media posts and images right where the targetaudience is. Following people, they know are in the area and have an interest in the product isanother way that smaller businesses using the AI software benefit and grow and continue to stayafloat.Communication with already current customers that have come into the business to keepthem interested, informed, and coming back which would help the business continue to go isimportant but what about growth. Small businesses that have the issue of small or social mediafootprint will not have the marketing to help bring new people in. Appealing pictures that makepeople stop and think oh what is that is an important factor that can get more people in the doordepending on what the product is. Not only is the image if it is an image important but also thecaption. Catchy captions and words on photos or in the replies of pictures are something else that

draw consumers into a business. Taking pictures is fine, yes but where do you put them and
when is a good time for them to go up is also important and something they would have to thinkabout. With the AI in place this is not or would not be an issue. Although it cannot take theimage it would be able to cut and edit images to overall look appealing to the targeted audience.This also applies to shorts or videos chopped down to a few seconds with usually popular tunesin the background, which are really popular right now and an effective marketing strategy forbusinesses. Implementing this strategy plays a big role in growth. Consumers knowing about abusiness brand and product goes a long way in generating a bigger customer base and in termgenerating more revenue and sales. Images and posting on different social media platforms makeit easier to get known globally as well. Consumers may now look forward to opportunities tovisit an area and know this small coffee shop exists and are interested in trying their productwhile a neighboring coffee shop with no social media images or branding is missing thoseopportunities and hinders their business and brand growth. Studies recently have shown that 55%of consumers first discovered a business on social media and that is what drove them to try andwork with the brand or business. “Social media marketing influences consumer trust inbusinesses, and trust accounts for about 37% of consumer purchasing decisions.” (Abrons, 2018)It is 2023 and there is now an expectancy for businesses to have social media. A largepercentage of small and big brands both rely on and use social media for a multitude or reason.Mentioned before is communication between the consumer and the one providing the service andcontent and post to show product in hopes to gain more customers and increase not only sales butalso grow in the amount of people knowing the business exists. “Social media applications havebecome the most efficient tool for small business entrepreneurs to advertise their products; giventhe proper approach, small business owners can better reach and build long-term relationships

with their target customers” (Shabbir, Ghazi, & Mehmood, 2016). Consumers are less likely to
know about a business without any social media but also none means they could potentially beless willing to try the businesses products. People expect to now go to a business Facebook,Instagram, or Twitter page to gain some insight on how the brands are doing, services provided,and to see what other people think about them and experiences they may have had. Smallerbusinesses and less experienced smaller businesses when it come to social media will sufferbecause of this and it only becomes more of an issue with the growth of social media.Some small businesses may already have someone in charge of their social media postsand tasks but may not have the most experience and also may not want to just leave the AI incharge trusted to work and run multiple sites. The AI software can help and be run in a moresuggestive way as well. It would be smart enough to give suggestions on how to respond tocustomers in an appropriate manner but if the person feels like they want to go a different routethey can always choose exactly what they want to say as well. Another example mentioned wasthe editing of images and video for post with captions. Well maybe the business like that cantweak the images for them but not the idea of producing the captions soi they do that part as well.It will be set up to best help and impact the business in the ways they want it to make it anoverall good solution for the majority of small business owners with or without the budget inplace for team or single individual.Cost was mentioned earlier and if small businesses cannot afford a team to do it howwould they be able to afford computers and software to do all this. In the beginning the planwould be that the businesses use the software, and it helps them grow. After seeing thenoticeable growth in customers and profits the charges accumulate for the software. Also,businesses are all charged differently based on what the Artificial Intelligence is doing. If it is

just used for Twitter for example and interacting with customers back and forth, that business
would be charged the same as a business using it for multiple platforms and doing differentthings, like replying to tweets, posting images and shorts on IG, and editing content.This may sound good but how effective would this be, and could it actually work?“Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies are highly effective in monitoring social media in orderto get a complete picture of what people interacting on social networks are discussing about abrand in their posts and comments.” (Alexandru Capatina 2020) AI is already doing a portion ofthe solution. Businesses and social media platforms currently use AI to know what is going onwith sites, to know what people are saying about a business and to overall just keep up. Artificialintelligence is already being used in a way to react and respond to people. Apple users have Sirias mentioned before as an example. When asked a question about the weather in Florida rightnow or what is on the schedule for today Siri can answer back almost instantly. So, ArtificialIntelligence is already being used in a way to respond to what people are saying. Editing picturesand images was another solution that this Artificial Intelligence could work and again it isalready something that is being done. There are currently tools consumers use that can editpicture images and chop and edit videos. An example of a tool doing it now is in Adobe. InAdobe premiere pro AI can change things like the lighting and vividness of an image. Anapplication called “InVideo” Artificial Intelligence works and makes video happen. All theseexamples are exactly what the Artificial Intelligence software would do and provide forbusinesses but meshed all in one to provide an all-in-one solution.Since it would be possible does it mean it would be effective? Artificial Intelligence issomething that is not currently in any way, shape, or form perfected. Twitter in 2016 had aMicrosoft AI as a Twitter bot. In less than 24 hours on the social media platform the bot had

picked up a lot of bad and was replying to other users in the worst ways. Using racial slurs,
inappropriate words and talking about feminist in a negative way. The most popular one at thetime was referencing building the wall after interacting with Donald Trump supporters on theplatform. When the AI bot was announced and released Microsoft mentioned that like any otherArtificial Intelligence the more you say and interact with it, the more it learns and the smarter itgets. It was meant to be in a playful and casual manner but turned tragic and had to be shutdown. That example is what could go wrong with a business using the software and it is doing orinteracting in any way that could be detrimental to the business. Extensive testing would have tobe done on each and every business that planned on using the software but on a smaller scale toensure that bad things aren’t picked up by the AI and used in a bad way. Since a big part of theplan is for new and smaller businesses to just be able to implement it and let it go with theassurance that it can take care of it all, it is important that nothing goes wrong. Another needwould be for possible a few more advancement in Artificial Intelligence. It could 100% bepossible that a solution like this does not exist currently and is not widespread used becauseArtificial Intelligence just is not at a point where it can do all of this. After some working on thesoftware and inhouse testing questions like this can happen and a business plan can start to seewhat needs to be done to implement this. The biggest thing would be trust. With the majority ofpeople interacting with businesses online and how when things are on the internet they are thereforever, even when deleted. A business using the software and having a situation similar to theMicrosoft AI on the Twitter platform would be extremely detrimental to both the businessesimpacted and the Artificial Intelligence software. Depending on how big the issue is, thebusiness could lose countless customers because of a racial or any type of offensive reply orcomment online. That would in turn force the business to explain that this comment or bad

situation did not stem from them or someone that works for them but the Artificial Intelligence
software. That would turn heads and attention towards Artificial Intelligence. One badexperience with a business could force other people trusting the Artificial Intelligence softwareto turn as well.So, ensuring that the Artificial Intelligence software can be trusted without flaws like thatis very important. After that a business willing to give the software, a try is very important. Itwould take a business already with a small social media presence to give the ArtificialIntelligence software a try to have some real-life examples of it working as an effective servicefor at least six months to a year. During this six month to year period the Artificial Intelligencesoftware would have to display and show that it could do every aspect of maintaining multiplesocial media. This should and would have to include replying and having daily interactions withcustomers that have already been in and used whatever product the business provides and newcustomers that may want to try the product or service the business provides. The software wouldhave to show good interactions for customers speaking in a positive light and a negative life.Taking a given image and video and showing that it could post them during the best times andhave captions and appealing noises to draw people into the posted content. It would also have toshow that it can be used as an option and not always doing all the social media work itself.Advising the business or replies and captions and letting them decide that it is something theywant to go with or figure it out for themself.Along with a business willing to try it needed would be a team to create the ArtificialIntelligence software. Since it would be a sort of all-in-one type of solution different teams ofcoders and developers would be needed to come together to make something like this work. Tocaveat to that funding would be needed. A product like this would take big funding because of

what is needed to make it work. An inexperienced team would not be the best option to work on
this, but already experts and professionals that have worked with different Artificial Intelligenceprograms would be best and needed.What is next is learning as much as possible about what is happening in AI innovationand how I can make this come true and work for new and small businesses. Figuring out how bigof a budget is needed to make a team. After a team is made a discussion about how long it wouldtake them to make the product and what type of testing would be needed before it is introducedto an initial business. After that comes how much the product costs and how it gets implementedinto the business. Is it contracted so that the business must keep using it for a certain amount oftime or is it a service that is provided at a monthly cost. What in the contract ties us to them sothat it is guaranteed that the products keep going themselves and keeps the businesses growingand flourishing. After that is maintaining and supplying the product to as many new and smallbusinesses as possible. Advertisement and Artificial Intelligence software social media pages forthe same reasons that other businesses use them.What I learned from this project and work is that thinking deeply about something and inanother way can make anyone think in a business way. I personally do not have any interest inbecoming or working on things like this but after thinking about it deeply ideas start to come toyou, and I got increasingly indulged in learning about what my product could do and how itreally could benefit businesses if implemented. I learned a lot about myself, and I would havelearned more if I were not forced to work on it collaboratively. It was hard at times and ideas hadto change because collaborating with other people you must compromise and come together ofcourse but that’s another learning process in itself.

Differently I would have given myself more time and thought about the work and project
itself. I thought the work would be easy and something I could just put together, but it turned outto not be that simple. Finding articles is not easy and the articles have so much information youhave to take in and read to find out how it relates to what the innovation is. I also would havecollaborated more with my group. I did not share enough of my ideas or any of my ideas and Ihad plenty to say and talk about but that is something I struggle with when working with a groupanyway.

Works Cited
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