How We’re Using AI in Our Content Marketing Agency

Do we use AI for content creation for our clients?

If you’re our existing or prospective client, you’ve probably asked this question as the world seems to have gone wild talking about ChatGPT and all the other popular AI tools. 

In fact, you’re far from alone in asking this question. Orbit Media and QuestionPro asked over 1000 consumers if they would like their service providers to get help from AI.

Interestingly, 40% said they would choose a marketing agency that gets AI to check their work, and 25.5% prefer to work with a company with AI-generated graphics and copy (which is then checked by humans).

Every agency should tackle the question – how much do they use AI

We think every marketing, SEO or content agency that uses AI should be completely transparent about how they incorporate these tools into their work, which is why we’re addressing this topic right now.

If you’re considering working with us, here’s how we use AI in our content marketing process.

Why and how we’re NOT using AI

First, let’s talk about how we’re not using AI.

Yes, you read that right. We don’t use AI software to create your written content.

Instead, we have a team of experts (including myself) who do this. And what you can expect consistently from our team is creative and original writing that isn’t taken from anywhere else on the Internet.

The only place we’ll use AI in the writing process to help us out when we need it. We like to think of it as our personal assistant. So sometimes, when you just can’t think of the right word or want a stellar metaphor, AI can be helpful!

So why did we go down this route and decide not to use AI tools such as Chat GPT to create your content?

Well, glad you asked…

1. Humans feed AI the data. AI can’t create content that’s never been produced before!

When working with clients, we aim to produce content that’s never been written before. Phew, right? The last thing you want is a collection of paragraphs copied and pasted from the Internet and a copyright infringement lawsuit on your hands!

Now in fairness, AI tools don’t copy and paste content, as such. But the ideas, concepts, and information AI puts together come from data that already exists. 

And it’s been fed data by humans. Now, don’t get me wrong, it’s A LOT of data. 570 GB to be exact. And in non-geeky terms, that’s 300 billion words from various places such as books, websites, original research etc. So it has a lot to go off. But any content or ideas it creates will originate, in some form, from somewhere else.

What we do is completely different. We create content that only you can produce. 

The topic isn’t necessarily unique, but how you present the topic is. For example, let’s say you want to create “How To” content that shows your audience how to do something (step-by-step). You could do this why using an example of your client, and how you achieved this very thing for them. That type of content teaches your readers something new and showcases your unique knowledge and expertise.

And guess what? No AI tool can do that! Because AI can’t:

• Use personal experiences or lessons learnt.
• Use specific examples of your previous work or client success stories.
• Sprinkle storytelling into your content.
• Talk about how your specific products and services work.
• Use original research.
• Interview others on your behalf for expert input into your content.

A human writer can only do this.

2. AI can’t replicate your exact tone of voice

Another thing that AI tools don’t do very well is replicating your exact tone of voice. They do okay at switching from formal to informal, for example. And the way AI does that is by adding a few exclamation marks here and there and taking out phrases like “yours sincerely”. But that’s not really what we’re after when we talk about content in your tone of voice! There’s a lot more to it than just being formal or informal.

A piece of content that’s written in your tone of voice is simply something that your Mum, Nan, or best friend (or any client who knows you well) could pick up, read, and think: “Wow! This sounds exactly like you! I read it and I can hear your voice in my head“.

So what we aim for when we create content for our clients is to produce something that sounds like them.

To do that, your writing needs to include your typical go-to phrases, expressions, colloquialisms, emotion and sense of humour (if applicable to their brand).

You know those words that you find yourself saying to your customers over and over again? Those things need to appear in your content. And AI tools simply can’t do that. Because they’re not in your brain, and they don’t know you like your Mum, Nan, or your best friend do!

Related article: How to Nail Your Brand Tone of Voice for Your Business [With Examples]

3. Lack of creativity 

The first reason we chose not to use AI tools to create content for our clients (or our own business, for that matter!) is that ChatGPT and other AI tools are trained to create content based on the text it’s provided. There’s no originality there. And that’s simply because software cannot and does not think!

Sure, AI can search for and pull out existing information, text, and data and put it together in a nice and coherent way in a fraction of the time it would take a human. 

And sure, the text won’t be copied – it’ll be unique. But it can’t be creative, and that’s a big difference! It means it can’t make original connections between thoughts like you and I would.

What makes engaging writing is the human ‘thinking’ behind it. This is why we only rely on human writers for content creation for all our clients.

4. Better quality content with human writers!

All in all (and for the reasons above), while AI-generated content can be really good, it just can’t beat the quality of writing and depth of thinking you get from a human writer.

And ultimately, that’s why we made the decision not to use AI software when it comes to content creation in our agency – for ourselves and our clients.

And maybe things will change in the future; who knows? But right now, we’re on team Human when it comes to your content writing, but with a little AI to help us when we need it.

Does it mean we’re ignoring AI and not using these tools?

Not quite.

So let’s get into that.

How we are using AI in our content marketing agency

With that all said (and in the interest of full transparency), we are using AI tools to support the content marketing activities we offer our clients. But we’re using AI tools for very specific tasks, which are mainly around repurposing content. 

So, for example, we use ChatGPT to repurpose your written content (i.e. the blog posts we’ve created for you) into:

• Promotional emails. 
• Social media posts to share on platforms such as LinkedIn or Facebook. 
• Scripts for podcast episodes.
• Short-form videos for TikTok or reels. 
• Full video scripts.

Curious as to how this all works?

In a nutshell, we feed the content we’ve created into ChatGPT and ask the tool to repurpose it into different types of content that can be shared on other platforms.

The key difference here is that you’re using your own original content. The tool is just reworking it, so you can do many different things with it. But the piece of software didn’t create the content for you in the first place.

What do we mean by repurposing? 

When we talk about repurposing, we mean that you’ll need to tweak your original piece of content to turn it into other formats.

So when we say that you can repurpose a blog post into one or more social media posts, it’s not just about posting something on Facebook or LinkedIn to say: “Hey! I wrote this blog post. Here’s the link. Go check it out!”.

That’s not what you want to do.

Instead, you want to take that original piece of content (and we always recommend that’s a blog post), break the points down, and reformat the content so it works for the specific platform you want to share it. And yes, you can add a link to your original piece if you like (at least some of the time), but you don’t always have to.

Related content: How to Repurpose a Blog Post (and Save Yourself So Much Time!)

Is repurposing with AI as simple as copying and pasting? 

So when we talk about using AI tools to repurpose your original piece of content into something else (social media posts, a script for a podcast or a video, etc), we’re not simply talking about having the tool copying and pasting your words from the blog post so you (or your VA or Social Media Manager) can then copy and paste them onto your social media channels.

It’s not quite as straightforward as that.

This is why we’ve just hired an awesome Content Marketing Expert who is experienced in ChatGPT to repurpose the content we create for our clients into various different formats.

The tool is good, but it does need some help from a human to do a couple of things…

1. ChatGPT needs to be given a lot of direction!

For the tool to do precisely what you want it to do (and do an excellent job of it), you need to give it a lot of direction.

Writing prompts that give you the output you want isn’t as easy as it may sound, so you have to constantly tweak what you ask the tool to do for it to deliver exactly what you’re asking for.

For example, if you want the tool to repurpose a blog post into a promotional email, you have to tell it to first summarise the blog post into key bullet points and then add a good hook at the start and a compelling call-to-action at the end.

Unfortunately, if you want a good-quality email to send to your list, it’s not as simple as saying, “Turn this blog post into an email”.

There’s more work required than that, which is precisely why we’ve hired someone who knows how to write. Because they know the hooks, persuasive language, and writing formulas to follow to get the best out of the tool and your content.

As we’ve said, the tool can only do so much. But combining the tool with a professional, experienced writer is a winner! 

2. Output content needs editing

Once ChatGPT gives you a piece of content, you can’t just copy and paste it. You’ll need to review it and edit it to make sure it all makes sense, and the quality is good enough to share.

It’s not just a matter of asking the tool to do something for you and being able to use it without double-checking it and potentially having to make some changes to position the ideas in a way that makes sense to your audience on social media, for example.

So what does this mean to our clients?

Using ChatGPT to repurpose content rather than creating original pieces means that when hiring us, our clients receive original content written and edited by humans and humans!

But…

We also get the help of AI tools to do the things they do best (when given the right input), and right now, that’s repurposing the original content we’ve created for you into different pieces of content that you can share elsewhere (social media, email, etc.).

Sounds like you’re getting the best of both worlds, right?

Probably!

And that’s because you are!

Want some help creating epic SEO content? 

If all this sounds interesting and you want some help to create content that helps you stand out in a crowd filled with AI-generated content, we’ve got your back! We’ll write content for you that turns you into the go-to company in your industry, drives more traffic to your website, and generates more sales for your business.

Sounds good? Check out our Blog Management Service here.