AI (artificial intelligence) has been around in the marketing space for a while now. It’s become more common than ever for brands to streamline their content creation processes by outsourcing some of their marketing manpower to programs like ChatGPT. But this practice raises important questions about the authenticity of content created partly by AI. Does it set you apart from the competition enough? Is it even your content anymore? And is there a way to boost content creation efficiency with AI without sacrificing your brand’s identity and integrity?
How common is it to use AI for marketing?
While including AI in content creation efforts may still be a bit taboo depending on who you ask, recent research by SurveyMonkey has found that 50% of marketers use AI to create content. For something that only entered the mainstream in the last few years, it’s rapidly become a core part of how many industries operate, and we can clearly see from the data that marketing is no exception. AI has shifted from a promising – if uncertain – new form of technology, to a valuable tool that’s earned its place as one of the most valuable tools a marketer can have.
Falling into the copy-paste trap
When the topic of AI being used in marketing comes up, it’s easy to interpret this as fully generating all content using AI, and copy-pasting it onto the relevant platforms without making a single edit. But this is where some brands go wrong.
By creating your content by simply giving ChatGPT a prompt, and just using whatever it gives you, you’re allowing your brand to sound completely devoid of individuality. AI output rarely differs much from user to user, and certainly not enough for it to allow your content to have the unique voice that only you can give it. Not only that, but anybody who can spot the “tells” and recognise when text is AI-generated will automatically take your content less seriously. If they get the impression that what they’re reading was all generated by AI, they’re much less likely to trust what you’re saying. Because it’s not coming from a person; it’s coming from a machine.
Where ethics come into play
This is where the question of ethics comes in. Is it right to outsource all marketing efforts to AI and expect people to engage? Why should anybody bother spending the time to read something, when it only took the author two seconds to copy and paste AI output onto their website? Marketing is all about give and take, after all. If you put effort into providing real value coming from real experiences and opinions, from a human voice, readers will happily take the time to listen.
Furthermore, AI, by its very nature, can only generate output based on the data it’s trained on. This means that any text it generates for you, any image it creates, any content it produces, is all derived from existing material online. And in an industry where being unique and creative is key, this isn’t ideal. More questions can then be raised about to what extent it’s essentially “stealing” to completely generate content inevitably based on that belonging to others.
Ethical ways to use AI in marketing
That brings us to the ways that marketers can use AI in a more positive way that supports content creation instead of completely taking it over. While relying on AI to create all content for you is discouraged, what’s recommended is using it for:
- Brainstorming
- Formatting articles
- Visualising concepts
- Creating very rough early drafts
- Rewording sentences
These are all examples of AI use cases that have the software acting as your assistant, like a colleague to bounce ideas off, or to test concepts to see how they would look. Rather than outsourcing your imagination and talent to artificial intelligence, you’re using it as the marketing equivalent of a sparring partner.
Overcoming writer’s block
The biggest problem that AI can become a great cure for is writer’s block. Sometimes, your brain just doesn’t want to co-operate, and trying to put words onto a blank screen feels like the hardest thing in the world. That’s why an incredibly helpful task that AI can perform for you is plotting out the format and layout of your content or even scribbling up a rough early draft. Even if you’re not planning on keeping a single word of the content generated for you, it’s often a lot easier to completely change an existing article than write one from scratch.
On days when your brainpower is running a little low, doing this can give you the jolt you need to get started, and help you over that first hurdle.
The same applies to the wording of your content. If anything sounds a little wrong or doesn’t quite meet the tone or the punch you’re looking for, AI can be good at giving you alternatives to use. Sometimes the right sentence is on the tip of your tongue, and you need a tiny nudge to find it.
To sum up…
Where you can, avoid using AI to do all the thinking, writing, and creating for you. Use it to give you a boost, to test your ideas, and help you reach your full potential. The part of your brand that people will connect to is your individuality – your identity. Brands can’t have personality if they don’t have a real voice. And brands without a personality can be easily forgotten. Be authentic. Stand out. Be remembered.
If you want marketing support that will give your brand a strong personality, provide valuable and entertaining content, and boost awareness and perception of your business, we’d be happy to help.