Artificial intelligence is everywhere when it comes to content strategy
Artificial Intelligence - or AI - is already big part of our lives. Anyone who has used search engines or social media has definitely been touched by machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence, which is the technology behind how our feeds are presented to us. These technologies are already impacting the way we consume and share content - and will likely become more prevalent.
News publishers are also embracing AI and ML. Plenty of them have a journalist whipping up a generic story about, say, elections and then they personalise it by electorate or suburb name. For now, AI-written articles are limited to relatively simple and formulaic topics: stock market results, M&A announcements, sports game scores.
Most journalists are also using low-cost AI transcription services to make the pain of interviews and transcriptions so much easier. Whether it’s Temi, Rev or Otter, these transcription services are super powerful and save a ton of time for those who don’t have shorthand. (Personally, I still find that shorthand transcription is better for detailed interviews where you need to grasp concepts!).
Natural Language Processing is an amazing field that has enabled a lot of this transformation, but if you’ve read Weapons of Math Destruction you will know that algorithms can be black boxes that entrench discriminatory targeting or keep people in one big “information bubble” that doesn’t allow them to discover news and stories outside their sphere of interest.
Yet the ‘danger’ of AI is that it’s already here, it’s already making an impact and it’s likely to grow.
This song was created by artificial intelligence: definitely not as good as ABBA, but not as terrible as people may think
Technology can enable amazing things. Yet it’s the human insights - and the human experience - that will inform which technologies will be widely adopted. Take a look at the video below - I’m not sure this song will win the next Eurovision, but it definitely helps us put our thinking caps on about content and how it will come together in the future.
It’s only been a matter of time before AI ‘helpers’ have arrived to write content on behalf of journalists. There are now a range of these products on the market. I’ve tried some of them and while they are still lacking, they will likely find a place in content creation (particularly those shleppy, horrible SEO companies that want to pay 5c a word).
I think the interesting thing about AI content creation is that it’s only as good as the ‘seed’ or learning you train it on. And to be honest, you will never get a completely transparent glimpse into that!
That’s the annoying thing about ML, AI and it’s even more obscure cousin Deep Learning … it’s hard for our human brain to comprehend the computations and algorithmic power that goes on behind the scenes. We just have to trust it.
I’ve tried using Kafkai Writer, a product that offers three modes for writers:
Mode 1: Niche article writer
Seelect a niche, toggle how many articles you want, and click Generate. It usually takes just 2-3 minutes to generate an article in this mode so it's quite handy when you're in a hurry and don't have a specific topic that you want Kafkai to write about.
Mode 2: Advanced writer (with seeding)
Select a niche, click Advanced to open up a field for the seed (a starting paragraph or title), toggle article quantity, and then click Generate. Seeded articles can take longer to generate (15 minutes to 1 hour) though once article generation is finished, you will see a notification on your My Articles tab.
Now this is crucial: the seed you give the writer greatly impacts the quality of the article so I highly recommend going over our Best Practices for Seeding.
For example:
If you want articles specific to Keto for weight loss, do a quick search online and find the best "intro paragraph" that you can use as seed.
Mode 3: General writer (with seeding)
You can use the General writer if you want to experiment with niches we haven't trained a model for (yet). The outputs can be inferior in quality and might require a lot more work on the editing. That said, it is handy until we have a model trained for your niche since it can write about multiple topics, so you don't have to write an article from scratch.
Kafkai definitely generated some publishable content, as you can see in the example below:
Artificial Intelligence-generated content example from Kafkai
The full Kafkai SEO article (for those interested)
We all want to be on Page 1 of Google, but many people don't understand what that really entails.
When it comes to SEO, it's not just about getting rankings for all the keywords you can think of.
SEO is about branding and communicating with your audience. Your content strategy (whether you're using paid or organic SEO) is about getting people to see your brand (your website and your content) when they have a related query.
Let's face it; being on Page 1 of Google when your customer has a "quality need" is not the be-all, end-all of great marketing.
Why bother ranking highly for obvious keyword phrases when you're not even getting as many clicks as you hoped?
Learning about SEO content strategy can help you to use the right keywords and come up with the perfect copy that will help you to achieve higher rankings and, in the case of ecommerce sites, convert more visitors into customers.
What is great about the whole experience? Search engines are continually refining the way they work, enabling them to crawl ever deeper into your site to improve the quality of the results they return.
They do this because of the fact that online traders have an terrible track record of producing consistently useful websites when compared to retailers or manufacturers.
Being able to rely on search engines to help them to provide quality search results enables them to compete with relatively cheap services that would previously have been prohibitively expensive.
A good SEO content strategy will start by getting you to realise (a) you have a great product or service that other people want to buy and (b) they are willing and able to pay for it.
The rest of the article generated into a bit of crap-ness
Matured online traders have learned this the hard way in recent times and it is now possible to spot the fast rise of instant success
This means that the ethically written and optimized content you publish online should be written in such manner that it looks professional, stands out from the crowd and grabs the attention of both the reader and the search engine spiders.
´To throw away my natural image would be like littering my front door with 80 open letters giving me the perfect view of the passersby. Proper placement and density of keywords can play a significant role in this image enhancement. In the ideal situation the search engines would give you #1 ranking for some hyper-competitive key terms relating to your content, but you need to be certain keywords and key phrases are being used consistently and the people who are looking for your product or service will find you. Catching the attention of your customer online is critical. People are ready to buy now and impatient to get to the presentation page. They want to find out everything they needed to in the few seconds that they Thus, each page of your website should have a focused theme related to your product or service. Besides a great looking and well prepared website with the right content (what some people refer to as, Website Development), you must make sure that search engines can find your site and, therefore, have no problem regarding who you are and what you do. How could they be sure that they did not come across one of your competitors? Therefore, you have to make sure that you have a strategy that will help you gain the trust of the search engines. You have probably been told that you can increase your rankings with some "enticing" technique such as, giving free trials of your product or service. If you have a shortcoming then it may be a good idea to do some of these giveaways. But be advised that the weight of individualClaims is"? The bottom line is that the search engines can be your best friend or worst enemy and you need to have as many friends as possible. This means that you have to give out information that is valuable to the user and this will in turn help to increase your rankings. Various webmasters have shared this tip: 1. Website Analytics 2. Keyword Research 3. Relevant Content 4. Advertising Networks However; making friends is not easy! As there are many who would want to divide you and your information Another friend is to give you a few tips when you ask for them but you would have to reciprocate. Meaning, "Do not ask for my links, I will look for them". You should engage in a friendly relationship with other webmasters who share your interests. Such people would get you more traffic and would acknowledge your site as one of theirs. You would have many conversations with them and throughout this process you would agree to promote their material or their links if such material is helpful to you or your customers. You should give it a few weeks before you reject their material.
Artificial intelligence writing tool conversion.ai examples
Hmmm, conversion.ai is OK. This tool has a real sales copy bent to it, allowing users to generate Facebook Ad copy, Google Ad copy and content for websites, emails and ecommerce.
It’s definitely not perfect, yet. But the more data AI tools get fed, the better these tools will get.
A warning that these auto AI writing tools may mean that writers find their unique writing style ‘copied’ by AI and then widely replicated across the internet as more and more writers churn out automated content. But naturally that’s not something anyone really wants to talk about.
I am keen to explore these tools, as finding the right balance between quality content and technology is imperative given that journalists and writers have been squeezed out of the eco-system.
The last thing humanity needs is artificial intelligence and machines writing all the content we read. The first thing humanity needs is more powerful content that cuts through the noise of content shock. We need more content that sends a signal, less content that makes noise.
The different templates available in conversion.ai mean copywriters can churn more copy more quickly - not sure that increasing content volume is a good thing at a time when information is already commoditised.
I reckon AI will earn a place given that we live in an era of information overload. People can access information easily, and create it almost as easily. As of Q2 2020, 370.1m domain names were registered, and the tools used to create websites have blown up, too.
The barrier to participate in the online information economy — by creating a video, a tweet, or a blog post — has decreased exponentially. That’s exactly why the amount of content online has skyrocketed and payment rates for writers and content have fallen.
How these tools auto-generate content
Check the example below - artificial intelligence from conversion.ai wrote this
So how will artificial intelligence influence content strategy?
Big data, ML, AI and NLP already influence content strategy. They already drive search engines and social media, as well as many of the email programs that deliver emails to us. Oh, and let’s not forget chatbots, these (annoying) tools are also powered by AI.
Where does that leave humans?
I am an optimist who believes AI will definitely augment content creation and publishing - hopefully for good, not evil!
I also hope that crappy content makers who churn out bot-written content eventually go away and stop polluting the world with more content that neither adds value to an audience or the clients they write for. (Does that make me mean?)
2019 presentation about AI in journalism (he is a little bit dull, sshhh)
This guy thinks 90% of news content will be generated by AI by 2024 … hmm, I’m not so sure if that’s going to be true. I also don’t like calling AI-generated ‘smart content’ as it makes other content seem somehow dumb. I also think some of the AI-generated content is pretty dumb.
I’m definitely keen to watch this space. I find it endlessly fascinating. I am hopeful it gives publishers and brands the tools to make better, original and relevant content than they could before.
As I said, I am an optimist …