
Virtual influencers and AI avatars are handling the marketing efforts of many brands these days. This proves that consumers don’t care who promotes products.
Brands are ditching human influencers for AI-generated avatars that never age, never have scandals, and work 24/7. Virtual influencers like Lil Miquela and Shudu are racking up millions of followers and major brand deals, proving that audiences don’t always care if their favorite creators are real. We explore how companies are building these digital personalities, why they’re often more profitable than human influencers, and what this means for the future of social media marketing when authenticity meets artificial intelligence.
What is an AI avatar?
You’re probably familiar with avatars as the cartoon, or digital version of yourself that may or may not really look like you. Couple this with AI influencer technology, and you’ve got a marketing combination that can work around the clock. Once the programming is in place, virtual avatar marketing campaigns can boost your visibility and reach more customers than ever before. Avatars typically mimic actual human movements, making them useful in your marketing efforts.
Create a virtual social media presence
The next development of marketing involves virtual social media personalities instead of actual human endorsements. This could lead to virtual celebrity endorsements. If you’re a member of Gen X, think Max Headroom and the digital disruption created. Some brands are using digital human marketing, which means the virtual personalities can match human movements. This method of synthetic media marketing is catching on, and that makes it easier to keep your marketing updated and modernized. You’ll need to add a few more lines to your reports so that you can trace the artificial influencer engagement rates and understand how well your virtual presence is doing in the marketing world.
How does marketing change with AI avatars?
Brands embracing virtual influencers and AI avatars for marketing are stepping into the next generation of marketing. These AI avatars become digital spokespersons for the brands, completely representing the values of a company while engaging with the audience in a personal and relatable way. These avatars don’t need a day off, and they are limited by their programming, which means the company can control them, unlike real influencers and employees that could have human-like scandals, require sick days, or get tired of a company and quit.
Fit your brand image
If you want your AI avatars to offer a digital personal branding presence, this can be done. One of the best parts of an AI avatar as a brand ambassador is that it can be customized to fit your image. You can have various avatars to appeal to a wide array of subsets of your audience, helping to promote your products and services the way you intend to. In many cases, the avatars can be made to appeal to younger, tech-savvy consumers, which is likely the audience that will see this digital marketing the most.
AI can generate your influencer
Instead of hiring a social media influencer, one that every company in your industry wants to have speaking for their brand, you can enjoy AI-generated influencers using AI image generators to create the avatar. This is a fantastic way to create virtual influencers that will be your AI avatars in the digital marketing world. By feeding the AI image generator with specific details, such as the appearance, style, and background, you can create a personalized world with avatars that align with the brand message that you want to convey. This is extremely useful in the world of social media.
Does this replace your human messaging?
Just because you create digital personalities and virtual influencers does not mean you should abandon your human-based marketing efforts. It’s important to embrace both types of marketing. Some audience members want to see your face and the human influencers they know and trust, while other people enjoy the digitally created AI avatars in your marketing. This means you should add this new type of marketing to your business and increase the variety of marketing to spread your message and reach more customers.
Virtual influencers and AI avatars in your marketing can make a huge difference and allow your brand’s message to reach more customers at any time, day or night. These AI avatars can continue to promote your brand when you’re not around and have a consistent feel to them. While they don’t replace the human-based marketing that you’re using now, it can be important to add these new processes to your digital marketing world.
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