Content is the fuel that powers so many of our modern marketing strategies. From blog posts, to email campaigns and those ever present social media activities — they all need content. But here’s the rub. Content is time consuming and difficult to create. This inconvenient truth is especially accurate when your marketing output requires a constant flow of actionable content.
If only there was an AI tool that could help us create more content and make our lives as content marketers easier. You’d be delighted, right?
Introducing ChatGPT
ChatGPT is an AI-powered chatbot that has really caught content creators’ attention in recent months. Much of this excitement occurred after journalists discovered the free tool could be used to help students cheat on their homework. And if it could help students cheat on their homework, imagine what a clever marketer could do with it.
While the core function of ChatGPT is to mimic a human conversation, it has also been noted for its ability to write and debug computer code, compose music, write short stories, essays, and articles, and even compose music. Channeling the 1980s movie, War Games, it will even play a decent game of tic-tac-toe.
So could a system like ChatGPT be used to create marketing content?
If only it was as easy as that.
The Problem with AI Generated Content
While ChatGPT’s output might initially appear brilliant, it isn’t always accurate.
Counterbalancing the argument that the AI tool could be used to cheat on homework, later research revealed it was far from an A+ student.
When researching this article, I asked ChatGPT to review a book I was reading. Somehow, along the way, it managed to mistake a gentle travelogue following the Camino de Santiago (an ancient pilgrimage route across Europe) for a high-octane crime novel featuring a protagonist (not featured in the original text) who appeared to be on the run from the law.
But accuracy isn’t the only problem.
According to Google’s search advocate, John Mueller, AI produced content is against the search engine’s webmaster guidelines and may be flagged as spam.
While there is some debate as to whether Google can actually spot high-quality AI-generated content, you wouldn’t bet your house against Google quickly finding a solution to block it. Science fiction fans might enjoy, and maybe ever fear, the premise of AI-powered tools seeking out and punishing AI-generated content.
There’s also the legal minefield of copyright. If an AI tool produces content based on machine learning (basically copying other people’s content), who ultimately owns the copyright of that material?
It’s also worth highlighting the fact that AI-produced content can appear quite vanilla, and read in a very similar voice.
Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately for those paid to produce content), AI tools aren’t quite the magic marketing silver bullet you’ve been looking for. At least, not just yet. However, despite all these challenges, I’m still very optimistic about the ability of AI tools to make us all better content marketers.
AI is the Content Marketer’s Friend
If you are anything like me, you’ll find the hardest part of writing new and engaging content is getting started. This is particularly true if you are not a 100% bona fide expert in the topic you are tasked to write about. No matter how experienced you are, writer’s block is very real. It sometimes takes me more time to write the first sentence of a blog post than the rest of the entire expert. This is where AI comes to the rescue.
AI tools like ChatGPT are incredibly useful at providing the inspiration for great content.
Simply ask the AI to write a simple blog post on a given topic and you’ll have the foundation to create your own work. I personally find AI particularly useful in producing the inspiration for top tip-based articles and listicles.
As a content marketer, after AI has produced a reference document, it’s your job to fact-check the details, add your own points of interest (remember all great content should work towards an objective), and then re-write in your own or your client’s voice.
AI Tools Will Make Us Better Content Marketers
While AI tools can provide the inspiration for content marketing campaigns, the technology can also help us become more efficient and polished creators.
I’ve long been a fan of grammar.ly to edit the first draft of any content I produce. The technology not only helps spot those pesky spelling and grammatical errors. It also makes suggestions about word choice and sentence length that can help with SEO.
Will AI tools ever replace the need for an editor? Definitely not with longer texts, where a second pair of eyes can add incredible value. However, for simple blog posts, email campaigns, and social media activities, when time is of the essence, it gives you the confidence to hit the publish or send button.
Learn More
As it stands, AI will not replace a good creative marketer. However, it will help them to produce more, better polished content, giving you a competitive edge over your slower moving (dare we say, less intelligent) competitors.
To learn more about how the marketing experts at emfluence can help you use AI to improve your content marketing output, contact us today at expert@emfluence.com.
