From drafting letters to loved ones to providing research for an upcoming blog post, AI content creation is no longer a newcomer to professional or personal applications. Given the prevalence and diverse uses of AI to date, best practices in using AI to create content have started to emerge. Many of these recommendations relate to and reinforce the importance of the human being in the creative process. Keep reading for an overview of how AI content creation may be useful for your business, as well as best practices for its use.
What is AI Content Creation?
In recent years, the use of artificial intelligence has been leveraged in the creation of all types of content, including written, video, audio and visual content. Additionally, and as expected, many AI tools help with the content creation process. For example, using AI for copywriting purposes provides a fast way to brainstorm ideas, gather research, receive feedback and establish multiple versions of a single piece of content. From content and email marketing to digital advertising and sales or lead management, there are multiple ways that businesses can benefit from leveraging AI. However, as with any new technology, there are pros and cons to its use, as well as a learning curve to discover how to safely and effectively employ AI content creation.
What are the Advantages and Disadvantages of AI Content Creation?
As discussed in extensive detail in this guide to AI-Generated Content from Semrush, AI content creation offers numerous benefits, most of which derive from how fast content can be developed. For those of us who remember doing research decades ago, even finding the appropriate drawer in the card catalog likely took longer than it now takes to accumulate massive amounts of information and resources with a single well-designed prompt. Then, to actually write the paper for which you were spending all of your time in the library, hours upon hours were often necessary. Even with the greater source availability offered in the transition to online access, learning and research continued to take a substantial amount of time. Now, creating written content, even comprehensive drafts of content, are available in just seconds. For businesses, saving team members time on tasks often means saving money overall. Unsurprisingly, the speed of access and reliance on a single (though vast) repository of available information can contribute to the downside of AI content creation, if used in isolation.
Given the seemingly infinite pool of sources and the ability to continually use AI tools to draft variations of content, edit, and revise according to voice specifications and more, AI-generated content is becoming the norm in many industries. However, the use of these tools may seem to be an easy way to save money and time up front, but they are far from perfect and their impact over time may not achieve the desired results.
Criticism of AI content creation, especially content produced directly from an AI chatbot, is that it often seems generic. It can even include errors or notes, as a recent search revealed, that it’s making inferences based on the available content (thus not necessarily accurate). Sometimes, the AI-generated responses to a search query mirror the exact content and format of a linked source, even down to the order of the bullets on that original source. With the intent of content creation remaining to rank in search results, then replicating existing content will not help your own content rank. Understandably, both veteran and novice content creators alike continue to wonder how to use AI for content creation in a meaningful and impactful manner.
Are There Any Best Practices for AI Content Creation?
While some strategies for AI content creation are product or use-case specific, others are applicable across many different types of content being created. Here are 5 best practices in general for using AI for content creation:
- Make your presence known. To make your content valuable, the human element is invaluable. Given the inundation of AI-generated content, it is also essential to differentiate your content from others (or appearing like spam), as further discussed at Search Engine Land.
- Be thoughtful about the tools that you use. There are many, many tools out there – some are free, while others are available for a fee. As evident with vibe coding, users also continue to find new ways to leverage these tools. This guide to AI tools by category from Synthesia shares just some of the available tools that may be helpful for your business. However, like too many cooks in the kitchen can waylay dinner preparations, too many tools may hinder rather than help in using AI for content creation. After all, it takes time to learn how to use each one effectively and to its greatest potential.
- Regulate your AI use for content creation. Just because ChatGPT seems to do all the things you need it to do (and more!) doesn’t mean that it should or that it should do them alone. Optimizely recommends choosing certain tasks for its use and ensuring that everyone on the team adheres to these practices.
- Check your facts, sources and more. One of the great things about AI tools is that many provide you with the associated sources utilized for finding information. However, the reliability of this content needs evaluation and assessment.
- Keep the guidance from Google in mind. As always, keep the reader in mind (as outlined by Google Search Central) to produce helpful, people-first content. For more, then Search Engine Land offers a streamlined list of 10 questions to assist with content evaluation. Plus, keeping readers first reinforces the fact that strictly AI-based content creation isn’t the way to make an impact when it comes to SEO.
Proper use of AI for content creation and many other purposes can be a powerful choice for your business. In addition to customized digital marketing strategies, All Points Digital offers AI marketing solutions such as Lead Lens AI to help evaluate your lead sources. Contact our team today to learn more about using AI tools and technologies to benefit your company!
