As we navigate the world of content creation in an AI-driven era, we sought insights from CEOs, Content Strategists, and twelve other professionals. From focusing on quality in AI content to pairing AI with content optimization tools, here are the top fourteen strategies these leaders shared on leveraging content creation in this AI world.
- Focus on Quality in AI Content
- Harness AI for Strategic Planning
- Ensure Quality Control in AI Content
- Embrace AI and Human Collaboration
- Repurpose Old Content with AI
- Guide AI Like a Student
- Use AI Content with Caution
- Prioritize Quality Checks in AI Content
- Amplify Creativity with AI
- Integrate AI and Human Writing
- Maintain Authenticity in AI Content
- Teach Your AI to Stand Out
- Make AI Content Personal and Specific
- Pair AI with Content Optimization Tools
Focus on Quality in AI Content
The thing that differentiates good AI content from bad AI content is the same thing that differentiates good traditional content from bad traditional content: quality. Users and leaders new to AI content tools often get tunnel vision on scaling and systems building, but at the end of the day, everyone will have access to the same scaling and systems capabilities. These won’t separate you from the pack.
Instead, focus on developing high-quality AI content with an iterative approach. Familiarize yourself with prompting best practices and literature; incorporate proprietary data; and test, test, test. Attempts 1-3 aren’t likely to produce great results, but the more you know about and employ best practices, the better the outputs will be after each testing iteration. It’ll be slow-going at first, but after a few months, you’ll develop a robust intuition for generating high-quality AI content.
Kevin Hughes, Managing Editor, AI and Automated Content
Harness AI for Strategic Planning
AI is great for editing work and suggesting improvements, but it’s more than that. It can also help plan your content.
As an SEO Consultant, I provide content planning strategies for websites and social media. Tools like ChatGPT empower me to put together content plans quickly, whether it’s a calendar for social media shares, blog content, or a whole PR strategy. Sure, I use my experience to add my own unique insights, but the convenience of a well-structured template as a starting point is an immense time-saver.
One advantage of AI over templates sourced on the net is their customized nature. Instead of generic advice, I enter specifics about the products, target audience, etc. AI can be predictable and lacks the profound insights inherent in human-generated content, but its capacity for personalization truly shines.
If you’re only using AI for mundane tasks, harness its full potential and start using it for strategic planning and innovative idea generation.
Martin Woods, CEO and SEO Consultant, Indigoextra
Ensure Quality Control in AI Content
As a beta tester for AI content creation software since January 2021, I have used mediocre to good AI software. The text-to-voice programs have become amazing, but these audio files still require minor editing or input of the text differently a second time, so they produce realistic human output.
My advice is to proofread everything carefully, run the output text through a spelling and grammar checker, listen to audio files, and watch the AI-generated videos.
AI-generated content can help with the time required to create online advertising, but your goal should still be to create mistake-free, quality content. An advertisement for any business, full of bad grammar, misspelled words, and photos that don’t match the subject, will not increase your popularity or your income.
Michael Mccune, Content Creator, Mike’s Mountain Adventures
Embrace AI and Human Collaboration
One strategy to leverage AI technology is “AI/Human collaboration.” It’s not about substituting us, the human writers, but harnessing AI’s efficiency and scale, which is informed by our creativity and strategy, with thoughtful prompt creation up front, and as a keen, substantive editor to help bring a piece to completion.
AI tools can help generate strategic content ideas by analyzing vast amounts of data to identify burgeoning trends we might miss, providing valuable insights for content strategy. However, AI lacks the human touch and the ability to connect emotionally, understand cultural nuances, and make complex judgments to create more impactful, rich content.
The winning formula is a synergy between AI and humans. Use AI to do the heavy lifting—researching, drafting, and optimizing content. Then, refine it and add unique observations, experiences, and emotional intelligence—ensuring high-quality content that resonates with your audience and stands out in a crowded digital space.
Christopher Hislop, Director of Content, Raka
Repurpose Old Content with AI
Consistency is key in social media marketing. As a creator, the goal is to produce engaging content quickly and with minimal resources. AI has provided new opportunities for repurposing old content in a way that doesn’t feel cheap. For example, old stories can be recapped using ChatGPT to summarize the text or find a new angle on the topic. If nothing else, it will brainstorm and research for you.
I particularly like Wavve – it’s a lifesaver for audio creators like podcast hosts. The AI listens to hours of tape to find the best clips from your shows. It even adjusts its results based on the social media platform you’re posting on. It also generates captions, visuals, titles, and ideas faster than you ever could.
Brandon Rubinshtein, Founder, Howdy
Guide AI Like a Student
Artificial Intelligence is only as good as the person who is feeding it prompts and information. It is up to you to guide it to structure the kind of response you’re looking for. I have recently begun to use ChatGPT to help me create press releases, format articles, and even write legal documents. You do not want to rely on AI to do the “heavy lifting,” as I say. You will not build your brand by copying and pasting generic outputs; rather, give it information and guidance as you would a student.
If you want to write an article on marketing, you can take your bullet points of information and ask it to expand on your ideas. After you have a good structure and some text, ask it if anything could be improved. Specify how many words you need it to be and the tone of the article. If it’s too casual, literally say, “Make it slightly more formal,” and it will! I have several chats going for different tasks, and I’m able to suggest the AI pull information such as my tone from past chats.
Isaac Mashman, Founder, Mashman Ventures
Use AI Content with Caution
Use with caution!
AI-generated content most definitely has its place in today’s content marketing world. However, just putting one prompt into ChatGPT and pressing publish is seriously missing the mark.
The jury is still out on the longevity of AI content, with case studies showing significant traffic growth all with AI content. There are also several case studies showing a rapid fall after an initial peak.
The key is helpful content, human-edited with AI augmenting and adding to content.
AI also has its place in content briefs and outlines for articles.
Be aware of hallucinations and incorrect data. Generative AI (the keyword there is “generative”) is literally designed to make things up, so don’t be too surprised when it does.
ALWAYS fact-check and also check for stop words that might alleviate the awkward “as a large language model” responses in some texts – it’s pretty hard to walk that one back.
Use with caution, build a process, and add value.
Trevor Stolber, Agency Owner, STOLBER Digital
Prioritize Quality Checks in AI Content
AI has given us many new tools and techniques for our content creation arsenal. However, not all tools are equal, and none are perfect. When using AI for content creation, it’s most important to use some of the time saved with AI to do thorough quality checks. AI content should always be fact-checked and edited by content creators for quality assurance. It’s possible to create 1,000 new articles for a blog very quickly using AI, and they can be pushed to publishing automatically – but that doesn’t mean that they should. Quality should be the top priority in any content creation endeavor.
Gerri Turner, Content Strategist, Hennessey Digital
Amplify Creativity with AI
At first, I wondered if AI would replace human creativity. But now, I see its real power: it’s a tool that amplifies our imagination. Generative AI blows open doors to new possibilities. We walk through and explore where to take things next. Any creator will tell you, ideas improve through patience and care. AI brings speed; we bring meaning. It supplies the paints and brushes, and we decide what to paint. Together, we can create captivating works beyond what either could alone.
Oscar Cediel, Sr. Product Marketing Manager
Integrate AI and Human Writing
Don’t ignore it! Use it. AI is here to stay, and we have to adapt to it if we’re to remain successful. Although AI might be able to create a piece of informational content, it cannot know the client’s business or marketing goals, the nuances of each industry, or the messaging that we want to get across.
We develop SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures) documents to explain how to utilize AI when generating content for all our content writers. As part of the SOP, content writers run the blog title through an AI tool to get a basic structure and idea. Then we heavily edit the content, including relevant backlinks, keywords, brand personality, and messaging. We find that it cuts down content creation by about an hour. But it does not replace the need for our human writers.
Hannah Millist, CEO, Twogether Digital
Maintain Authenticity in AI Content
AI can be such a powerful tool for content creation, as long as it is used appropriately. An over-reliance on AI can actually be detrimental, and lead to distrust and disengagement from your audience. Often, there’s an automatic assumption that AI has been used to create all content, and this is being exacerbated by press coverage. People are no longer sure who or what to believe. So, focus on transparency. If your content is authentic, communicate this. If you are going to use AI, maybe do so for processes other than content creation, such as distribution or optimization.
AI can be a great starting point for content creation too, helping facilitate inspiration and ideation. However, make sure to put your own unique spin on things, so you’re giving audiences something real, which they can actually relate to. Verify sources, check your facts, and ensure you convey that you have done this. Earning and maintaining consumer trust is vital, so don’t let AI inhibit this.
Bobby Lawson, Technology Editor/Publisher, Earth Web
Teach Your AI to Stand Out
Be a signal that stands out above the noise. AI has dramatically leveled the playing field for content creation and production. A scrappy upstart can more easily compete with larger organizations in almost any industry via savvy AI process and efficiency gains. But the volume of output is not how the currency of trust is earned. You still need to stand out even when leveraging AI.
So, teach your AI how to stand out like you already do. Teach it how you do things differently – share your perspectives, your purpose, why it matters to you, analogies or comparisons that resonate, customer stories or feedback, etc. Imbue your AI with your imperfect, human expertise to help it rise above the thundering AI stampede.
Dan Gehant, SEO and Digital Strategist, Copper Insights
Make AI Content Personal and Specific
Most AI content feels like it’s made for a broad, general audience. So, make your content feel like the exact opposite — create each piece as if you are speaking to one ideal person. You can do this by being specific, being natural, and sharing unique insights that spark thought. For example, don’t just say, “Finding the right mattress can help you sleep better.” Instead, say, “A good mattress is designed to distribute your weight evenly. This helps align your spine and relax your muscles, which can lead to a better sleep at night.
Megan Sobieski, Fractional Director of Content
Pair AI with Content Optimization Tools
Don’t just use AI writing assistants — match them up with an AI-powered content optimization tool like Surfer or Frase to make sure you’re nailing down search intent and creating a more comprehensive piece of content.
These tools provide a list of contextual keywords corresponding to the top-ranked articles on the topic, assigning your articles an optimization score in real time as you edit. Some of them also give you topic cluster ideas, letting you plan your content calendar strategically.
Another great thing about these tools is that they force you to spend a decent amount of time editing each AI article and making it more human. This can give your content a major competitive edge in a digital ecosystem where many people are just churning out mass AI content without adding original value.
Chloe Brittain, Creator, Monday Roadmap
