Five AI Mistakes that are Damaging Small Businesses on Social Media

I was at a networking event last week and someone said “I’ve just cancelled my contract with my social media person because AI now does it for me automatically”

Most small business owners I work with now use AI somewhere in their social media plan. I am all for using it to save time and write in a better way, but beware how it is used. Some write every caption with it. Some use it to get past a blank screen. And some who outsource have no idea whether their freelancer uses it at all.

AI is here to stay and as I say, used well, it saves hours. Used badly, it fills your feed with posts that could belong to anyone as they are bland and boring.

A recent survey found 82% of social media professionals now use AI to create content. Only 7% said that faster production means that their content is better. So, the main issue I have with using AI is: Before AI there was a lot of very average content out there, now, thanks to AI, there is even more! Why? Because business owners and agencies are not “feeding” AI with enough personalised information to create unique standalone content. They are sharing posts but many are not worthy of being shared.

Here are 5 points to bear in mind before you type “write a social media post…”

1. Posting because it’s easy

Writing a post used to take effort, and effort made you think. Now a week of content takes ten minutes, which is exactly why so much of it says nothing of relevance to either you, your business or your audience. Only 32% of teams in that survey had clearly defined who they were talking to. ONLY 32%!

Before anything gets written, answer two questions. Who is this for? What should they do or feel afterwards? If you can’t identify this, then please don’t post it.

2. Thinking more posts means more results

I know you know this but daily posting isn’t a strategy. The survey describes a drinks brand that jumped to three posts a day with no plan behind them. The algorithm started treating the account like spam, and engagement took months to recover. If you have been to any of my workshops you know I always bang on about Quality over Quantity!

Platforms now show content based on interest, not just who follows you. Three good posts a week will beat seven forgettable ones.

3. Feeding AI the wrong material

AI produces the average of whatever you give it. Ask it to “write a post about our autumn offer” and you’ll get the same post as every other business asking the same thing. So feed it relevant info.

Give it your best-performing posts, the words your customers actually use, and a clear brief. Show it how you sound with real examples. “Friendly and professional” means nothing to a machine. Or to anyone, really. And when you have the finished article feed it back to AI so it understands the way you write even more specifically.

4. Skipping the human read-through

AI gets things wrong with total confidence. It will invent a statistic, get your opening hours wrong or promise a discount you’ve never offered. Check every fact. You may feel like you are becoming a glorified copywriter but that’s the trade-off, I’m afraid!

Then try this test. Could a competitor post this unchanged? If yes, it’s just noise and isn’t worth posting. Add something only you could say: a customer story, a local detail, a proper opinion. I’ve used AI to help draft this and then inserted my own comments and amendments like this one!

5. Handing over what isn’t yours to give

Depending on the tool and its settings, remember that what you paste into AI may be stored or used to train it so customer names, email addresses, complaint details and unannounced plans should not be added. You’re still responsible for that data under UK GDPR, whoever typed it in. The same care applies to AI images. Check you have the right to use what you post, and look really really closely before you hit publish.

What to do this week

If you do your own social media: take your last five posts. For each one, write a single sentence on who it was for and what it was meant to do. The ones you can’t explain are your noise.

If you outsource it: ask your freelancer or agency how they use AI and who checks the output before it goes live. A good one will give you a straight answer.

If someone in-house handles it: sit down together and each write the three things your social media should make people believe about your business. Compare notes. The gap between your answers is where generic content creeps in.

Alternatively get in touch with me and through my Power Hour service I can help you map out what it looks like to use AI in your social media.

Statistics from Agorapulse’s 2026 Social Media Playbook, “The AI Content Trap”.