Content Marketing Embracing AI Technologies
Automated Intelligence (AI) might be the “shiny new toy” in content marketing that everyone wants to get their hands on. It’s rather like Aladdin’s Lamp. One wish and a click can lead to instant gratification. Seamless content can emerge instantly from a sea of big data and stuff floating around on the internet. Yes, content marketers can, and do, leverage the power of AI to save time and grow their business. A HubSpot 2023 survey discovered that “62% of business leaders say their company has already invested in AI” with positive ROI and employee productivity increases.
If you would like assistance in leveraging AI effectively for content marketing, it is always beneficial to work with an experienced digital marketing agency. If you’d like to consult with a content expert today, contact V Digital Services.
Be Cautious When Using AI for Content Marketing
There’s a joke about a student under the influence of drugs who mistook a pizza restaurant for a meditation hall. He walked up to the counter and said, “Make me one with everything.” AI is rather like that. It can sometimes hallucinate, with either funny or seriously bad results.
Then there are the risks described in the Forbes Magazine Online Article, The 15 Biggest Risks of Artificial Intelligence. Specifically, the author Bernard Marr highlights risks that include lack of transparency, bias, and discrimination, as well as ethical, security, and privacy concerns.
Item numbers 12 and 13 on the list, “Loss of Human Connection” and “Misinformation and Manipulation” have to be the most disconcerting. To mitigate those and other risks, “the AI research community needs to actively engage in safety research, collaborate on ethical guidelines, and promote transparency in AGI development.”
In your quest to harness the power of AI in content marketing, be aware of these steps in laying the groundwork:
Never consider AI as a replacement for human thinking and strategic processes
AI is essentially a word mill that harvests information. It regurgitates that information in a programmed way, without regard to accuracy and transparency.
Don’t look at AI as a substitute for human intelligence
Humans must be the final arbiters of what AI produces. Don’t let your clients get the impression that the content you produced was the product of a bot. Otherwise, they’ll wonder why they are paying you.
Think about how AI works best as a content delivery tool, not just as a content creator.
AI can respond to user input on a website and produce an engaging and more personalized experience.
With the cautionary advice out of the way, let’s see how carefully leveraging AI can be a golden tool in the content marketer’s bag of tricks.
Generative AI is Where It’s At
Sometimes referred to as “gen AI,” it is artificial intelligence that generates original content. The user enters a prompt or request and can produce anything from text, images, video, audio, or software code. Essentially, gen AI simulates human-like intelligence. It is the ingredient that mimics human behavior and performs tasks like in learning and decision-making. AI products like ChatGPT employ Natural Language Processing to create content, as well as understand how people talk and write. It can create almost human-like content with a high degree of accuracy.
Turbo-charging Content Marketing with AI
AI can be the content marketer’s silver bullet in performing the following:
- Researching content and generating ideas
- Creating new content with generative AI
- Breaking down existing content and modifying it into easy-to-digest chunks
- Enhancing search engine optimization
1. Use AI for content research
Generating ideas is how AI is brainstorming on steroids. Content marketers can quickly access a vast amount of online data gleaned from search engines and social media channels.
2. Create new content with generative AI
Gen AI can immediately create anything from marketing emails to blog posts, or any other type of marketing content. It can generate a bare-bones outline or the completed product. Here is where human intervention can improve a first draft and refine the output for brand application and accuracy.
3. Process existing content for summaries, rephrasing, or modifying
In addition to creating ideas and fresh content, AI writing tools can be used to summarize, rephrase, or inject a different tone or writing style. Those tools can even completely rewrite the copy.
4. Optimize search engine and SEO
Content marketers can use AI for SEO and keyword research, as well as other time-consuming tasks like competitor analysis. For example, AI instantly trolls the data universe to find relevant keywords needed to earn that top ranking on Google search results. AI can also perform useful website analysis, repair broken links, and install SEO-friendly backlinks. Read about the recent Google overhaul of its search engine with the help of artificial attention on our recent blog.
Additional benefits include gen AI models that can create graphics, images, art forms, and videos. Also, with gen AI, B2B marketers can analyze their clients’ data and tailor their marketing content for highly personalized campaigns.
Best Practices for Using Generative AI in Content Marketing
As previously mentioned, with AI content marketers can seamlessly create content at the click of a button. However, AI must be used responsibly. AI cannot be regarded as a replacement for human power. It is a tool to utilize and pull in additional content, insights, and free marketers to do their job—creating human-friendly content.
Best practices for content marketers include:
- striking a balance between automation and human input—Use AI-generated content as a starting point. That starting point is where human knowledge, insight, and adherence to the brand’s core principles can create a whole that is more than the sum of its parts.
- being cognizant, aware, and proactive in compliance with ethical and legal considerations when using AI—Be aware of and only use licensed or original content to avoid copyright infringement. Obtain proper the required consent to use third-party data and never use proprietary or personally identifiable information in the content.
- monitoring and analyzing AI-generated content—Track engagement and conversion rates as well as audience comments for troubleshooting and performance monitoring.
What’s Next in the World of AI and Content Marketing??
Moving forward into the future, businesses should put their best foot forward in the utilization of AI. Also, they should be mindful that the best way to personalize content is through human power. According to Gartner, most applications of AI “still require people to set the parameters to guide their learning and provide governance.” Most importantly, Gartner continues, “AI will not evolve to regulate itself – so humans will need to regulate it.” And, as previously mentioned, the best time to identify relevant risks to your organization is before you implement AI.