Many of us didn’t think we’d see the day content would be created by something other than humans. But here we are with generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools that can create content for us and execute other content-related tasks.
Guest post by Katie Brenneman.
“12 percent of businesses use AI for content creation”, according to Don’t Do It Yourself’s 2023 AI writing statistics. And for good reason. You can improve efficiency, mass-produce content, and publish it faster and consistently with the help of AI. This can lead to increased engagement and conversions.
However, companies that successfully leverage AI-powered content generation tools aren’t axing their human writers. Mainly because real writers bring irreplaceable qualities to content that AI simply can’t duplicate.
Content Will Always Need a Human Touch
In reality, generative AI isn’t nearly as advanced as it needs to be for real writers to feel threatened. Yes, AI content generators can produce completed pieces of content, whether blog posts, emails, social media posts, or website content. But they aren’t that good.
These pieces are generic, lack creativity and authenticity, and don’t account fully for the target audience they’re meant for. Ultimately, they’re missing a human touch.
Real writers have creative intuition
One of the best things about us is our creative intuition, our ability to come up with original and imaginative ideas instantaneously. Our curiosity and open-mindedness allow us to go places mentally and emotionally that AI can’t go.
Real writers are still essential because AI lacks contextual understanding. It can’t look at a piece of content or information and adapt its programming to create a piece that resonates emotionally or stylistically with its readers. AI also tends to write in flat, simple sentences that do not make the pieces interesting to read.
Conversely, writers can connect thoughts and change subjects instinctively while AI can only use what it already knows. A real writer’s creative intuition helps them plan narrative flows and tell compelling stories that engage readers.
Finally, AI cannot comprehend what a specific brand or marketing strategy requires, meaning it is not ideal for work that is designed to tell a brand’s story. But most importantly, AI cannot provide first-person testimonials or speak to the human experience.
Only humans can speak to the human experience
Ensuring your content resonates with people emotionally is critical.
According to the UX Design Institute, “When users feel an emotional connection to the content, they’re more likely to remember and engage with it—especially when the content evokes strong emotions like happiness, anger, or surprise.”
They also go on to say that people are more likely to feel a sense of belonging and take action when they make an emotional connection with content.
To facilitate that emotional connection, the writer must first understand who they’re writing to. Beyond demographic data, they need to understand personality, behaviour, and ways of thinking.
AI doesn’t possess the emotional intelligence or human experience to understand consumers this way. So, the content these tools create lacks feeling and authenticity. And people can smell it a mile away.
Only humans can speak genuinely to other humans in a way that touches their hearts.
AI learns from humans
If you’re panicking about AI taking over your writing job, remember this: AI learns from human input. In other words, these tools are programmed based on the data points and input parameters developers and users set.
We’re nowhere near AI being able to learn intuitively. So, professional writers will always be needed to come up with the scripts AI-powered content creation tools read off of.
What AI is Good for When It Comes to Content
Real writers should always be at the helm of creating content if you want it to be engaging and authentic. However, that doesn’t mean there is no place for AI tools in content creation. They can be helpful in a few key areas.
Idea generation
Writer’s block affects most writers at some point. Even if it isn’t full-blown writer’s block, constantly coming up with fresh content ideas can be a challenge. Still, it’s necessary if you want to stay relevant and inspire brand loyalty.
Rather than creating complete pieces, you can use an AI content creation tool to help you continuously generate content ideas. Any time you’re feeling stuck, you can ask AI to give you a list of content ideas on whatever topic you’re covering.
You can also get specific with your idea requests, asking for headline options or content ideas for different media types, like videos or podcast episodes.
Stylistic and grammar improvements
Editing is one of the most important content tasks, but it can be incredibly time-consuming, sometimes taking hours for a single piece.
AI can complete editing tasks for you faster and more efficiently. These tools can highlight areas in your content that would benefit from stylistic improvements, optimize sentence structure, and proofread your work.
Real writers can create the content while AI does the editing and proofing.
Research
Research is another tedious but necessary task when creating content. Linking to reputable sources in your content can enhance the readers understanding. It also helps your search engine optimization (SEO) strategy because linking to credible sources improves your credibility and authority.
Like brainstorming ideas and editing, research can be time-consuming when done manually. You can use an AI-generative tool to identify resources quickly. Ask for research on specific topics or from specific sites or brands.
Keep in mind that users have reported instances where these tools have made up resources. So, it’s essential to cross-check every resource AI generative tools suggest.
Tips for Collaborating With AI
Businesses shouldn’t be looking to replace real writers with AI content-generation tools. The best arrangement is a collaboration between the two.
While human writers focus on creative tasks, like storytelling and narrative architecture, AI can assume assignments that require simple, factual information, like editing and idea generation.
The key to this relationship working is your understanding of how to best work alongside AI tools. These two tips will help you collaborate with AI-powered content tools seamlessly.
Get to know the generative AI platform
The list of AI platforms that can generate content is growing. ChapGPT, Scribe, and GPT-4 are some of the most popular. Whichever generative AI platform you’re using, make sure you get to know it well.
You want to know how all the features and functions of your chosen platform can work for you and help you achieve your content goals. Start with the following features and functions:
- How to log into the platform;
- Where to record your inputs;
- Where your generated content is saved;
- How the AI algorithm learns;
- How you can edit the content you create.
Learn as much as you can upfront, and then set aside time each week to continue growing your mastery of the platform.
Learn how to create prompts
As mentioned above, an AI content-generation tool is only as good as the data points and input parameters used to program it. These tools learn from what people ask them to create. So, learning how to create quality prompts to input into the platform is crucial.
Be as specific and detailed as possible when telling AI what you need. For example, if you want to generate an outline of a sales email, you must tell the AI tool about your target audience, what you’re selling in your email, the problem it helps solve, why readers need it now, and the call to action you want to use.
The better your prompts are, the more accurate, high-quality, useful information the tools have to learn from.
Don’t waste your precious time worrying about AI taking over your content role. Content will always need human writers to liven it up with emotion, creativity, and authenticity. With its current strengths, AI’s position is alongside real writers, not in place of them.
markmunroe
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