Is Artificial Intelligence the Future of Content Marketing?
The use of Artificial Intelligence, or AI, has been a hot topic for a while, and with the recent emergence of ChatGPT, it seems to be all anyone is talking about. Since the turn of the new year, you can’t be online for long without someone mentioning how vital it will be for marketing in 2023 – some saying it will make or break your business depending on how and to what extent you’re using it.
So, what’s the deal?
Should your business lean into using AI-Generated Content, or is its vitality being overblown? Are these technologies really becoming an integral part of every marketing strategy? What are the risks?
Let’s dive in.
The game has changed
Whether you like it or not, AI is already being widely used by marketers in a variety of ways. In the past few years, embracing this technology has been fairly optional – depending on your business’ goals, framework and financial capacity, it wasn’t necessarily a make-or-break component of your marketing methods. Although this may not be the case for much longer.
We’ve seen businesses use it to enhance online shopping experiences, provide personalized product recommendations and connect instantly with their customers through chatbots – all of which have proven to be profitable, drive efficiencies and provide competitive edge.
With the recent rise of content generating AI, however – like the ever-popular ChatGPT and other copywriting AIs – marketers are asking themselves how they can use them to save time, increase profitability and be technologically forward-thinking.
Can AI-Generated content really be what sets apart your business?
Where AI can help your content creation
Let’s start with this: if you’re not incorporating AI tools in some capacity into your workflows, you should be.
Enhancing workflow is one of the greatest advantages of using content-generating AIs. These technological copywriting tools are particularly helpful in the face of blank page syndrome and the early stages of brainstorming/ideation. Sometimes you have many ideas but are unsure how to mesh them altogether – these tools can be great at collecting your initial thoughts and recrafting them into something lucid.
Another amazing feature to this tech is their content optimizing capabilities. By simply dropping in your draft copy these tools can simplify sentences, adjust your tone, pack in SEO keywords, or suggest a supporting call to action – and so much more.
The potential of this technology is limitless and we’re excited to see it continue to improve and be used as a supporting resource for marketing teams and content creators, BUT – with great power comes great responsibility.
A word of caution
Just like other tools, there’s a safe and not-so-safe way of using AIs.
These bots are natural language processing tools that were trained using content on the internet. Because of this, they sound confident and authoritative. They sound really human! This is your friendly reminder not to trust everything you read on the internet (except this).
Just because it’s called Artificial Intelligence, doesn’t mean it’s smart. These tools will spout out all sorts of nonsense which can be really hard to detect because it’s nearly impossible to trace the source of their information. You’ll want to fact check before you hit PUBLISH.
One of the bigger red flags with this technology is the lack of emotional intelligence. As robots, they technically have none. It can be easy to forget though when it feels like you’re speaking to a human. Content-generating AIs – the ones people are starting to use to write blogs, articles, social captions, etc. – have on occasion been accused of having racist, sexist and other problematic content. Even the king of the space at the moment, ChatGPT, includes this disclaimer when you first sign up concerning offensive content:
Traits like emotional sensitivity and creativity are distinctly human, and robots like these might never possess them. Don’t underestimate the value emotion and sentiment plays in marketing – this is one, if not the biggest area of weakness for AI.
Final Thought: It’s Just Another Tool – But It’s a Great One
Our recommendation in sum: Use AIs. Absolutely use them. Even outside of content generation, use ones that help your programmers, web developers or other skilled members of your marketing team.
But don’t let it become your marketing director, replace any of your marketing team or even be used unedited, for that matter. It still needs hand-holding, and a human touch.