Are you wondering if your content team should let AI write their next blog post, website article, or white paper?
Stop.
Now back up because you’re moving too fast – and possibly in the wrong direction.
For all its remarkable potential, AI can’t tell you where it can best serve your team’s needs. To help you find that answer, we asked some of the knowledgeable presenters speaking at Content Marketing World this year for their top usage tips and recommendations.
These activations may not all be as game-changing as prompting a robot to do your creative bidding, but they can add up to more productive teams, more tasks managed, and better marketing performance.
Brainstorming brand-friendly content ideas
“Generative AI tools can help you overcome “blank-page syndrome” by acting as your research and brainstorming buddy,” Trew Marketing’s Wendy Covey says. Try feeding it a few of your rough ideas and see if it can offer unique story angles or other novel ways to approach the topic with your content.
But remember, general-purpose AI tools can produce outdated or inaccurate information. And without well-constructed prompts, Wendy says, the output can turn out generic or lack contextual relevance. So, be sure to thoroughly edit and fact-check any AI-created copy before you publish it.
(If your editors could use a refresher on how to verify the accuracy of your content, you can point them to this helpful checklist on the Content Marketing Institute website.)
Acting as a writing coach
Don’t limit your AI explorations to writing full-length copy or generating content ideas. Try generative AI to help your team communicate more clearly and effectively. Marcus Sheridan suggests the best way to use AI for content can be summed up by this phrase: “Say it better.”
“The best way to use AI for content can be summed up by this phrase: ‘Say it better.'”
“Anyone who has ever created content (especially text-based content) knows there are times when what you’ve expressed just isn’t what you want it to be – something is missing, or confusing, or simply “off,” Marcus says. “It’s in these moments that AI has incredible value.”
Summarizing and atomizing team-written content
Generative AI’s tendency to introduce factual inaccuracies and biases is well documented. So, you may get better results if you leverage these tools to help repackage and repurpose assets written by your team or trusted freelancers.
“Generative AI is pretty bad at generating big things, but it’s pretty good at taking big things and breaking them up into little things,” says Lusha’s Inbar Yagur. Inbar suggests using it to pull out key insights from lengthy content articles or webinar transcripts, which you can then reuse in many ways.
AgentSyn’s Ellen Lichtenstein agrees with this idea: “I’ve used AI to generate really good recaps, social posts, and bullet points,” Ellen says. Keep in mind: The content assets you input should be well-detailed and high-quality. “You can’t just give it a one-sentence command and expect it to do anything but produce garbage.”
“You can’t just give it a one-sentence command and expect it to do anything but produce garbage.”
Maintaining brand consistency
Your brand’s content should project a consistent voice, tone, and style, no matter who (or what) writes it. But achieving that level of consistency can put a lot of strain on your editorial staff – especially when they’re managing external contributors or outsourced talent.
Bully Pulpit Interactive’s Karen Hopper shares a time-saving tip for this: Input key stylistic details and successful examples into your AI prompts and ask the tool to replicate them. “I love pasting in emails that have been written by a particular person in a particular tone, then asking it to draft a similar email,” Karen says.
While the AI-generated version will still need (human) oversight, it can give your team decent starter copy that to build on and refine.
Answering questions about your audience
Convince & Convert’s Zontee Hou notes another strength of generative AI technology: It can sharpen your focus on audience priorities by showing you what relevant information they’re searching for. “Ask ChatGPT, ‘What are the top features that [our core audience] should prioritize when shopping for [our product/service] and you’ll see exactly what points your content needs to address,” Zontee says.
Fill in all your productivity gaps
Your team can accomplish plenty of content marketing tasks by pairing their human expertise with AI’s ability to enhance productivity. As Brian Piper of the University of Rochester says, “The key to effectiveness is determining where AI tools can improve your processes or save you time. It’s all about working smarter, not harder.”
