What is content automation?

Content automation is a set of technologies that automate manual processes in content marketing. Content automation is more than automated content generation. Its purpose is to automate every stage of the content lifecycle from content generation to keeping the content up-to-date.

 

What is Artificial Intelligence?

While it might sound like something out of Ex-Machina, Artificial Intelligence is here and is used every day by millions everywhere. Early work around AI technology began in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s developing neural networks. 

By the 1980s and growing into the 2010s, researchers and those in the computing industry focused on machine learning and natural language. And now, with the help of natural language processing, researchers have moved into deep learning. 

While the function of AI and machine learning are usually interchangeable, it’s important to note that this is not the case. Machine learning is a proponent of AI, but they are not the same thing and there are big differences between the two. 

A simple way to think about it, which was articulated by SAS, is this: 

• AI is the science of training machines to perform human tasks. 
• Machine learning is a subset of AI that trains a machine on how to learn. 

In general, the usefulness of training machines to eventually perform AI-type tasks is all part of the process of AI evolution and development. AI is a way of adding “intelligence” to a machine through deep and repetitive task learning. It is also an accurate method of doing this since mechanical neural networks are integrated into the AI network. 

And of course, in order for the AI to be AI, they cannot be programmed by humans; instead, they must progress on their own, typically through a progressive algorithm. 

 

What are AI uses cases in content marketing?

AI can assist organizations in content ideation by facilitating content creation, curation and distribution, and analysis of the content’s performance.

Identifying topics to write about

Success of a piece of content relies on the interest in the topic and how existing content satisfies that interest. For example, both of these values can be estimated using free tools like Google Search Console for the web. It is a relatively easy and automatable task to come up with adjacent topics to write about, analyze their potential and pick the topics with the most potential.

Coming up with adjacent topic may seem difficult, however, even relatively simple word embedding models trained on Google search console data can identify similar words based on how frequently they appear together. Word embedding is one of Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques

Generating content

With the help of NLP and natural language generation (NLG) technologies, organizations can fasten the process of content creation. Though content creation bots are not equipped to create complete emotionally moving blog articles yet, it can create content such as text, image, and sound.

Proofreading

Proofreading content that is written by a human is another application area of AI in content marketing. For example, Grammarly is a sophisticated artificial intelligence product built to analyze sentences written in English and corrects user when it identifies grammar mistakes.

Personalizing content

AI algorithms can be used to track individuals’ behavioral patterns and their preferences regarding content consumption. These insights can be used to personalize content. For example, Überflip aggregates the contents and uses artificial intelligence and intent data to predict, recommend, and automate personalized content experiences.

Real-Time SEO Recommendations

There are tools that claim to increase an article’s chances of getting ranked higher on search engines by using AI. We are quite sceptical about the current products on the market that tend to use simplistic approaches such as keyword counting but this is an area where a sophisticated solution could make an impact. 

Updating content

Content that remains unchanged quickly loses value. Auto-updating can take a significant burden from content producers. Quark, for example, automatically updates every document, content, and component. It also automatically adjusts the format for different devices to ensure that each content is delivered to right customer in a right way to improve the customer experience.

 

How to use AI to improve content creation

1. Automate small content initiatives with natural language generation

Artificial intelligence isn’t quite in a place where robots can write entire articles for your company’s blog. At least not yet. In the meantime, one way to use AI is by creating small data-specific content pieces, like tweets, news updates, and reports with the help of the natural language generation technology. 

 

2. Improve personalization efforts

Did you know that 74% of marketers report an increase in customer engagement due to targeted personalization? The good news is that artificial intelligence can help your personalization and customer engagement, too. For example, you can employ AI-powered software to create personalized email marketing campaigns. They’ll manage subject line and email body personalization addressing recipients by their name or organization. AI can help your widely-distributed general email feel more personal, boosting customer engagement. 

Also, you can use AI to create highly-personalized apps. Under Armor’s health tracking app, called “Record,” is a wonderful example. The app uses the AI-powered algorithm to create workout and nutrition recommendations based on your personal data. 

 

3. Evaluate social media content

Also, you can use AI to track the performance of your social media content. Many marketers develop their content distribution strategies based solely on customer demographics. You can take this approach to the next level using the AI-powered software. Instead of tracking demographics only, collect and analyze customer locations, behaviors, and values. That’ll help you create super-personalized and targeted content to improve your social media campaign. 

 

4. Get fresh topics and keywords

Thanks to artificial intelligence, there are now tools that can help your keyword research and topic generation. AI can give you precious insight into what your customers are really interested in. 

Many keyword research tools allow you to find keywords showing their search volume, number of results, organic competition, difficulty score, search demand, and other metrics. Using keyword research tools will speed up your writing process and help you create more customer-specific content. 

 

 

5. Gather user-generated content

A new study shows that 90% of consumers report that user-generated content holds more influence over their buying decisions than other forms of marketing. AI can help you gather brand-related content posted by your customers on social media. This became possible due to the visual recognition technology that can analyze images and identify your products. You can use this data not only for marketing but also to get a better perspective on what works for your audience and community. Additionally, it increases your brand visibility and online presence. 

 

6. Use chatbots to help your customers

AI-powered chatbots can help you communicate with your customers better and enable them to self-create branded content. The first part is pretty obvious. We all know how to use chatbots for navigating customers and acting as customer service reps. 

When it comes to user-generated content, chatbots can facilitate your customers to create more of it. For example, Whole Foods launched an innovative chatbot for Facebook’s Messenger. Besides helping to navigate Whole Foods locations, the chatbot offers healthy and wholesome recipes. All you need to do is answer a series of questions (you can even use emojis to describe products) and let the chatbot do the rest. 

Alternatively, you can use chatbots to promote content sharing within your clients. Spotify’s chatbot is a great example of this strategy in real life. Subscribers can not only ask about their accounts and discover newly released music, but they can also choose songs their friends might be interested in. Then, they can easily share these recommendations with their friends within the platform.