Is Artificial Intelligence The Future of Content Marketing?

If you’re handling the day to day of running a small business, artificial intelligence and content marketing might not be two strategies you’re putting together, but you should.

If you ask someone what comes to their mind after hearing the words ‘artificial intelligence’, they would probably answer something like ‘robots, self-driving cars’ etc. However, AI goes way beyond that. Furthermore, you have probably already encountered it in your life but didn’t even know it. The perfect example is Siri. 

AI is more than just robots. It’s essentially a computer program, which mimics human behavior and thinking. One of its branches is called ‘machine learning.’ According to the Oxford dictionary, ML is ‘The capacity of a computer to learn from experience, i.e. to modify its processing on the basis of newly acquired information.’ Facebook, one of the most powerful social media platforms these days, is using both artificial intelligence and machine learning to, for example, recognize the faces on photos or adapt ads shown to the user. 

There’s no denying that artificial intelligence is making an impact on several industries, one of them being marketing, and in particular, content marketing. What is it, and how exactly is AI affecting it? Well, that’s what we’re about to find out. 

Content Marketing – What is it? 

“When we get down to brass tacks, content marketing at its core is the creation and sharing of online material. It’s putting out little ‘feelers’ into the world via the content you’ve created (often through social media pages such as Youtube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and the like) to connect with your audience.” say the experts from SmartFlows. Companies use content marketing not to promote the brand intrusively but rather to spark customer’s interest in their services and products they are offering. 

Do you sometimes scroll through social media, and wonder where people or brands get, for example, their Instagram bio ideas from? Well, that’s also part of content marketing. Now that you have an idea of what it is, we can dig deeper into how exactly is artificial intelligence affecting it. 

Improved customer analysis

The advancement of technology and the invention of artificial intelligence were breakthrough moments when it comes to customer analysis. Think of it as a dark room. Before, you had to look for a while before you finally found a light switch (the content your customers would be interested in reading). The invention of AI was like switching to a smart light bulb that turns on before you even enter the room. 

Today, businesses don’t have to waste their time on finding the right content as artificial intelligence does it for them, by analyzing the customer patterns and giving an insight into their needs. This way, they know exactly what their customers would like and appreciate. Creating relevant content builds trust in the customers. In the end, the company using AI content marketing will benefit in more than just a financial way. 

Automatic Content Creation

Customer analysis is not the only area of content marketing that has been affected by artificial intelligence, as AI, apart from finding the right content, can also create it. It might sound shocking, but it’s really not as you probably already encountered content written by AI without even knowing it. 

The difficulty here, however, is creating an algorithm that would allow a machine to write content as if a human was doing it. It seems though that nowadays it is becoming less of a problem, as many news outlets have been using AI to create news stories for the last couple of years. Take ‘Washington Post’ as an example – in 2017, they generated more than 850 articles this way. Naturally, this made journalists worry about being replaced. 

However, while AI is helpful in creating content, there’s little chance that it will be completely taking it over. At the moment, less than 25% of content out there is created by the algorithms and the AI – it’s not a lot, is it? 

Personalized Content 

According to experts from SmartFlows, “Making your customer the hero of your brand story has many benefits, including the fact that when you’re writing it, you will be telling their story. It will stop being just a description of something you are selling, but it will resonate with them and elicit an emotional connection. When the connection is made, action will follow.” 

In order to provide personalized content to the customer, companies are collecting information such as personal interests, age, location, or even the device you are on. You probably noticed, while scrolling through Instagram or Facebook, that your feed is closely related to your preferences. AI is helping with that. 

The truth is that people who see content related to what they are going through or something that interests them are more likely to read it. After all, a person who doesn’t like cats won’t really read an article about the best cat breeds, will they?

AI Marketing Assistants

While for now, artificial intelligence marketing assistants seem out of budget for many companies, once they become affordable, it would only be a matter of time before in every company there will be at least one. 

The main reason why marketers are trending towards them is that in a few minutes, they can get done what takes months for a human team. Instead of spending several hours or days on finding which regions would be the most beneficial to target, marketers can get an answer in an instant, not mentioning the fact that the AI assistants can check up on the company’s competitors. 

Have you ever heard about IBM? It’s an American technology company, which already uses an AI marketing assistant called Lucy. She not only analyses data and creates content, but also can plan it and segment it, which is an undeniable advantage in the world where there is so much competition. 

The Bottom Line

So is artificial intelligence the future of content marketing? Well, there are reasons to believe that it will be the case. It might not become fully automated, but it will definitely make content marketing flourish. 

However, keep in mind that everything can change, and for now, the only thing we can do is wait and see what the future holds for both artificial intelligence and content marketing.