Artificial intelligence (AI) is on the minds of all content creators. Some are embracing the technology wholeheartedly while others are more wary, and rightly so. We’re already seeing the effects AI is having on content marketing, but not all of them are good. This blog explores what impact AI is having on content marketing in 2023 and how you can make the best use of technology in your content creation process.
Recently, AI-powered tools have become even more proficient at generating content. AI generators are now good enough to create blogs, articles, and even videos. Video content is becoming more important to marketing efforts. Some AI tools can automate video creation by assembling clips, adding effects, and suggesting visual elements based on the target audience and content goals. Although AI is a great addition to the content creation process, we don’t recommend that you leave everything to AI. In our guide to content creation using AI, we recommend using AI in the planning stages of content creation to generate outlines and ideas but taking over yourself at the writing and editing stages to add more humanity to the content.
For content creators, perhaps the biggest benefit of AI is SEO optimization. AI SEO tools can conduct sophisticated keyword analysis and provide more content optimization recommendations and strategies for increasing organic reach. There is a persistent rumor that AI is bad for SEO, based on a statement by John Mueller, Google’s Search Advocate, in 2022. But Mueller has since clarified Google’s position, saying that the organization won’t penalize content created with the help of AI, but it will penalize content that uses AI solely to rank higher in search results without considering quality. So companies shouldn’t worry about using AI for SEO to aid them in creating content.
AI tools can analyze vast amounts of data to provide marketers with actionable insights about their content’s performance, engagement, and conversion rate. This capability is beneficial for companies to see whether their content is working and to refine their strategies accordingly. Inefficient content is not good for companies, as we’ve discussed before. But AI might also be used to predict trends and audience preferences, meaning content creators can write material that is suitable in the first instance (rather than rework their content), thereby streamlining their content creation process.
AI-powered tools are enormously helpful in social media content creation and management. They can help craft posts and create images, but some tools can help you analyze the optimal posting times (when you will have the most eyes on your content), analyze user sentiment toward posts, and automate responses to common inquiries or comments. One overlooked element of social media marketing that AI can help with is finding social media influencers. According to Forbes, AI can provide in-depth insights about influencers, predict how well an influencer will align with the company’s brand vision, and assess and calculate the return on investment for influencer campaigns. Every size of company can benefit from using AI in their social media.
AI-powered chatbots are integral to customer service, but they’re also becoming more important in content marketing. They can engage with website visitors, answer questions, guide users to relevant content, and provide personalized recommendations. Whole Foods introduced AI chatbots in 2016 to provide personalized recipes for its customers using emojis as its feedback, as Marketing Drive notes. Content that directly answers a user’s question will be much more popular than content that feels irrelevant. AI-powered personalization is pivotal for this.
One aspect of personalization that is becoming increasingly popular is voice search. Most of the big tech companies – Apple, Google, and Amazon, for example – developed voice-controlled home assistants years ago, but with improvements in the technology, more companies are implementing voice recognition software in their platforms and optimizing their content for voice-based queries. The BBC launched a digital voice assistant in 2020 that allows users to search for programs using only their voice.
As AI has become more sophisticated, many people have raised concerns about the ethics of using this technology. Large language models (LLM) have been accused of infringing content creators’ copyright because LLMs use content produced online (which is subject to copyright) to train its models. LLMs have been found to regurgitate content nearly word for word. Although we believe that AI is perfectly safe to use if doing so helps you, we advise using caution.
LLMs gained massive popularity in 2022, but at the same time as their meteoric rise, there was concern about the legal aspects of using generative AI. The issue is that these models are so new that there has been no chance to create a robust legal framework that covers the ever-changing AI landscape. That means AI-generated content is not covered by the same laws as other content forms. Notably, AI-generated content cannot be copyrighted (as of 2023). But as The Verge noted, the problem is that no one knows what will happen, and that makes generative AI unstable. These are things that content creators need to consider when using AI.
The question that is often asked in content creation circles is whether AI will ultimately replace human writers, editors, and proofreaders. At the moment (and certainly for the foreseeable future), AI is not advanced enough to replace humans. LLM, like ChatGPT, can only summarize information that is already available online; it cannot create something from scratch. It cannot, for example, understand emotion, sarcasm, or dialect.
We tested ChatGPT, and although we found that it has its benefits, it was no replacement for human editors. Human creativity, strategic thinking, and emotional understanding are aspects of content creation that will always remain pillars of successful marketing strategies, and it’s unlikely that AI will be able to accurately replicate these aspects anytime soon.
The customer should always be at the forefront of your mind when you’re creating content. In our blog on writing customer-centric content, we advocate for using the customers’ language. This will appeal to them, meaning they will be more likely to return to your content the next time they need information.
You’re an expert in your niche, and it can be easy to forget that in the daily grind of creating content. What knowledge do you have as an expert that your audience would benefit from, and how can you display that information in a way that your audience will find useful? Koozai has some fantastic tips on how you can add value to your content. Focusing on value will bring customers to you.
It can be tempting to use AI to create content so you can save time and speed up the process, but we would strongly advise against this. AI is just not reliable enough to be allowed to create without human intervention. But you can incorporate it into your content creation process.
The influx of AI tools has greatly affected content marketing, even though these tools are still in their infancy. They can help content creators generate content, drive data insights, manage social media, and personalize content. The content landscape has changed since the introduction of AI tools, most notably in the ethical and legal aspects of content creation. Because there is no consensus on how protected AI-generated content creation is, it’s important that we use AI in a way that assists us rather than replaces us.
We said it’s a good idea to have a human edit your content to ensure it doesn’t come across as robotic. And that’s where Proofed can help. Our team of editors can help you revise your work to ensure it meets your quality standards. When you’re ready to see what Proofed can do for you, schedule a call.
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