Author: Julia McCoy
Last updated: 21/02/2024
Remember when creating quality content was a labor of love?
Hours spent brainstorming ideas, researching facts, and painstakingly crafting every sentence.
What if I told you there's a way to 10X your content production with AI?
Imagine the possibilities: never having writer's block again. Being able to create blog posts, social media updates, and email sequences at lightning speed. Not only would it be more efficient - but imagine how much fresher and relevant your content could be!
This isn't just wishful thinking anymore. It’s a reality today, thanks to artificial intelligence tools designed specifically for content creation.
And with the right AI writing software, your content will be written in your voice! Plus, you’ll have all the tools you need for optimizing your copy for ranking well in search.
Does this sound good?
Well, let me show you how to use AI to supercharge your content production.
Embracing AI in content marketing should be a no-brainer. That means a lot coming from someone who was the world's biggest anti-AI content marketer.
Quick story behind my 180° turn: When I sold my writing agency in 2021, I knew that GPT was coming but I was skeptical even when ChatGPT turned our world upside down.
With a decade of experience as a high-level writer, I know what “bad” content looks like – which was pretty much what ChatGPT and its clones spit out. I didn’t find AI capable of augmenting or improving my own writing process.
Until 2023 when I saw Adam Enfroy talk about Content at Scale. As soon as I saw the content it produced, I knew I was looking at the Holy Grail of solutions for long-form content.
When I finally found an AI writing tool that delivered on its promises, my feelings about AI changed completely. Today, I am not only an AI evangelist but also the president of Content at Scale — the same AI tool that converted me!
So why should you embrace AI too?
Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools have dramatically transformed how we approach content marketing. The benefits of using these tools in content production are multifold. Here are a few I believe are the most critical:
One of the main reasons you should embrace AI in your content creation and marketing workflow is that AI can increase content production. Because it saves time on research and other tasks like finding sources and links, you can create more content, more quickly, without sacrificing quality.
In an era where fresh ideas rule, creating quality long-form posts often takes more time than most businesses can afford to spare. That's where AI steps in to streamline the workflow.
From creating accurate briefs to helping content creators write faster, AI has improved efficiency in the content creation workflow.
AI tools can help scale content production. They also save time by automating repetitive tasks, allowing content marketers to focus on strategic planning and creative aspects. This makes it easier for you to scale your marketing campaigns.
Writer's block is the bane of every content creator. Fortunately, AI tools can help you overcome that hurdle by giving you fresh content ideas. Simply ask them about the topic you're stuck on, and they'll generate ideas for you to work with.
Contrary to popular belief, the goal isn't to replace human writers with AI. Rather, it's to enhance their capabilities by eliminating roadblocks like writer's block or research-heavy groundwork from their creative journey.
Ready to use AI tools to 10X your content production?
There are two main aspects you need to master for this to happen. First, you need to train your AI tool to capture your brand voice, tone, and the language you use. Next, you need to know how to effectively edit the AI-generated output. Let's break this down:
Brand voice is more than just the words you use in your brand communication. It also encompasses tone and the way you use words. All this is integral to capturing your brand voice.
And guess what?
With a bit of training, AI can mimic this, too. And no, it's not that difficult. Here's how you can achieve it:
Your first task is to define your brand's tone and style clearly. This includes understanding everything from sentence structure preferences to specific terminologies used in your niche.
Once you've got your brand's style and tone down, you know the kind of output to expect from your AI content generator.
You might be wondering if it’s possible for an algorithmic entity like AI to truly capture human writing nuances. Well, it absolutely is. Many advanced AI content creation tools have capabilities that let us train them on our unique styles by feeding them with existing content pieces.
All you have to do is get your best content and feed it to your writing tool. It will understand several things, including voice and tone, sentence structure, and the way you convey your message. And the next time you ask it to write something for you, it will generate content in line with what it learned from your samples.
To get high-quality content output, you must also input high-quality prompts. This means you must master prompt engineering.
Prompt engineering refers to the practice of crafting well-designed and strategically worded prompts to effectively guide the responses generated by language models like ChatGPT.
Some prompt engineering tips to consider include:
Giving your AI content tools the right prompts is essential to saving time and getting the best output. However, no matter how good the output may be, it still needs a human touch. This brings us to the next (and most important) point—ensuring your AI-generated content is factual, accurate, and reads like a human wrote it.
Once you train your AI writer to follow your brand voice, tone, and content structure, 9 times out of 10, it will give you near-ready output.
Crafting a piece of content using an AI tool doesn’t end at hitting 'generate.' The output requires fine-tuning – think of this as guiding your new virtual writer through its apprenticeship phase.
This is why you need a system for editing your AI-generated output.
I've designed one for my web assets and client copy. I also train many AIO writers (AI optimization writers) to use this system, and the results we all get are phenomenal. I call this system C.R.A.F.T.
C.R.A.F.T stands for:
And you don't have to follow these in order. Just follow the order that feels natural to you. For example, you may want to F.R.A.C.T. or even T.C.R.F.A!
But what does this acronym mean? Here's a summary of each step:
AI-generated content often contains unnecessary words or phrases. These can be distracting and detract from your overall message. That’s why cutting the fluff should be one of the first steps for editing AI-generated content.
To do that, read through the post line-by-line and look for superfluous words or sentences that don’t add value. Delete them and any other information that doesn't fit your narrative.
This part of editing involves reviewing your content from a bird’s eye view. Important aspects of the process include:
Visuals are an essential part of creating engaging content. These include anything from infographics, custom photography, GIFs, charts, graphs, and embedded media like videos or podcast episodes.
Besides adding eye candy to your content, visuals help break up long sections of text, thereby improving the readability of your pages. Plus, they also help readers understand complex data points quickly and easily, further helping them get value from your content.
Because of this, look for opportunities to include relevant visuals in your content.
Accuracy is a must-have when creating any content. After all, if your content isn't credible, gaining your readers' trust will be next to impossible. Sadly, AI writers aren’t always accurate. And that’s why fact-checking all AI-generated content is an important stage of the editing process.
The first place to start is double-checking sources and references in the post. Make sure they are trustworthy and authoritative. Next, go through the post and look for time-sensitive references — are they still accurate?
Read the entire post and ensure all facts, stats, data, etc., are on point.
The best way to gain the trust of your readers or prospects is by giving them fantastic content. That means going beyond stats, facts, and authoritative writing.
But... AI has no experience, nor expertise!
True. But you do!
When editing AI-generated content pieces, one of the most critical elements is infusing them with your brand’s voice and tone. Don't be afraid to share personal anecdotes too. This increases the trust factor in your content. It's also good SEO practice, especially after Google's Helpful Content Update (HCU).
It's also how you set yourself apart in a competitive niche or industry. Adding your brand’s personal touch is a great way to build trust and affinity with your readers.
C.R.A.F.T.ing your AI output is a vital part of producing content using AI. It helps you iron out any kinks and bolsters the authority of your content.
"Won't Google penalize content generated by AI?"
That's one of the questions people often ask me in comments, forums, and even live speaking events.
The truth is, even if Google can detect AI-generated content, it doesn’t care if William Shakespeare or AI wrote it. All search engines care about is that your content:
As long as your content, AI-generated or not, meets these requirements, there's nothing to stop it from ranking.
AI labeling means letting people know your content was generated using artificial intelligence. Some advocate that any content produced with the help of AI should be labeled using something like a byline, tag, watermark, etc.
What does Google say about this?
From Google’s standpoint, AI labeling isn’t a necessity. AI labeling does not contribute to the ranking factors used to determine content quality. So no, I don't believe that AI labelling is necessary.
One of the best places to use AI in your content marketing workflow is in the content ideation stage. That's because AI tools that are purposely designed for SEO can quickly parse the SERPs and see the headlines and content performing well. This helps them quickly ideate content that will perform well for your target keywords.
Besides ideation, AI tools are fantastic at drafting content outlines.
As you've already seen, AI-writing tools are excellent for marketing teams looking to scale their content production. This is because most can create a piece of content in minutes. And even though human editing will be needed, you can easily create several pieces daily!
With many businesses feeling the brunt of the tanking world economy, cost reduction is on everyone's list of survival tactics. And one of the best ways to achieve that is to use AI and other automation tools as much as possible. This can help you significantly reduce your content production costs, thereby allowing you to maneuver your way through the financial crisis.
Have a piece of content that's driving a lot of traffic?
Chances are that your target audience resonates with it. And you should extend its impact and reach by sharing the same message across different platforms. For example, you can turn that blog post into a YouTube video, multiple LinkedIn and/or Facebook posts, an infographic, and more.
Or vice versa: you can turn a YouTube video, podcast episode, or a Google Doc into a long-form blog post. This is called content repurposing.
And with AI, you don't have to manually create each piece of content. You can automate the process and have all your assets ready with a few button clicks.
This is a critical component of the content marketing equation and can make or break your entire strategy. That's because distribution determines who will see your content. And AI tools can help you distribute your content on the right platforms, at the right time, and in the right format.
For example: Buffer or Hootsuite can determine the best times to post on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter based on past engagement.
Mailchimp can segment email lists based on subscriber behavior and preference and determine the best time to send emails.
Content at Scale can suggest the best keywords for content based on search trends, optimizing it for search engines.
I've harped on about how good AI tools are and how they can help you 10X your content production. But, in all honesty, this is only possible if you're using the right tools. Here are some I, and many other users, have found to be worthwhile:
This one goes without saying, as it's the most popular AI-powered tool on the planet. You can use it for almost any text-based content marketing task. It's invaluable in the content creation process as you can use it to research, generate outlines, create articles, edit articles, and much more.
The only caveat with ChatGPT is that you really have to be good at prompt engineering for it to produce content that's close to being publish-ready.
While it may not be as popular as ChatGPT, I believe that my company, Content at Scale, is one of the most accurate content generation tools on the market. The tool can create a 2,500+ word article in less than 5 minutes. The best part is that it even cites the sources from which it pulls stats and facts. It also has powerful tools like an AI detector, plagiarism checker, and on-page SEO analysis.
If you need an AI tool that has mastered the science of content research, outlining, and optimization, then Clearscope could be it. Clearscope goes through the top-ranking posts for your keyword and gives you a detailed report complete with an outline and other essential data to help you create content primed to rank high on the SERPs.
Touted as one of the best AI-powered SEO writers, Surfer SEO has earned that title. It's a great tool for optimizing content to rank, thanks to its SEO recommendations. I tend to use it as a writing assistant more than a content generator, albeit a darn good assistant. This sentiment comes from the fact that you have to "co-pilot" the entire content generation process.
These aren't the only AI-powered tools you should consider. They're just a handful among so many that are being created every day. And with ChatGPT running an open-source repository for ChatGPT extensions (GPTs), we're bound to see many more AI-powered marketing tools hitting the market.
AI tools offer unparalleled efficiency and scalability which means you don't have to struggle for days to produce one piece of long-form content.
With AI, you can 10X your content production while retaining your brand voice and content quality. The best part is despite increasing your content output, you can make huge financial savings with AI.
However, the reliance on AI for content generation is not without significant drawbacks. The most pressing concerns revolve around the accuracy, authenticity, and emotional depth of AI-generated content. This is specifically why I built the C.R.A.F.T. system – to add that personal touch that's inherent in human-created work.
The future of content creation lies in finding that perfect balance between the speed and capabilities of AI and the irreplaceable value of human insight and creativity.
Now go forth, conquer writer’s block and supercharge growth with intelligent automation!
Julia McCoy - President & Partner, Content at Scale
Julia McCoy is the President at Content at Scale, leading big initiatives for one of the fastest-growing AI content writing tools for SEO marketers on the planet. She’s an 8x author, former human writing agency owner, and the creator behind the Content Hacker.