Why content marketers need to embrace AI

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Think about everything your content team is doing on a daily basis. They’re not just creating content, they're doing keyword research, coming up with topics, optimising, personalising, reviewing and refining. So, what if AI could do some of those tasks, leaving more time for the content marketers to create quality content? They could take the content created by AI and spend time polishing it rather than starting from scratch. Here are a few reasons why we should embrace AI.

Intelligently automated future

“Machines are not going to replace content marketers in the near term, but artificial intelligence is accelerating us toward a more intelligently automated future,” says Paul Roetzer, founder and chief executive of PR 20/20, writing for Chief Content Officer Magazine.

Rather than replace content marketers, AI can augment their roles. AI is simply making content marketing more powerful. It gives content marketers the opportunity to tell more and better stories. It’s those types of activities which will deliver results.

Writers should not dismiss its potential

Writing about the need for content marketers to embrace AI, consultant Mike Kaput says writers should not dismiss its potential.

"AI technologies aren’t coming for their jobs. They’re making the role of content marketing more powerful, delivering unprecedented opportunities to drive results by telling stories better and at scale."

So, the first step that every content marketer should be thinking about is identifying the tasks which can be automated. These are the parts of your day which take the most time and take you away from what should be your core job, writing content.

Some of the ways which AI can assist you includes learning which questions your audience wants content to answer and to ensure all content is correctly search engine optimised. Once the AI has done these two things, you’re already ahead of the content marketing pack.

Creating authentic content

The next step is to actually create the content. Of course, content spinners can get involved with this. But they’re not quite at the point where the content seems authentic. It certainly doesn't have the soul and heart, humour and personality which rich content needs to have. It is possible, though, to edit the automated content and inject some of that authenticity.

Next on your to-do-list is to distribute the content which you (and your AI helpers) have created. AI can assist here too. Let’s face it, there are just too many ways to distribute content to do it single-handedly. That’s where the plethora of social media dashboards, collaboration tools and content aggregators step in.

Finally, you can use AI to see what content resonates with your audience. You might write one piece, really pour your soul into carefully crafting the perfect narrative, only to have it ignored. And there is no engagement at all, not even a single like or retweet. AI tools can help you figure out why this is. It can also help you figure out ways to distribute it to get that engagement. And then it can tell you what steps to do before you create your next bit of content.

It is still very possible for content marketers to work in harmony with AI. There’s no job stealing and machines aren’t taking over the world. Not yet, at least.