In short: no.

Although it may be able to transform how we go about digital marketing strategies like content creation and search engine optimization. Here’s a look at what the future of content creation may hold, ChatGPT and all.

1. SEO and Content Marketing Will Remain Vital

Despite fears that ChatGPT will make Google Search (thus SEO) irrelevant, that couldn’t be farther from the truth. For starters, ChatGPT and similar tools like Google Bard were not built as search engines.

Even Google Bard works as a companion tool to Google search, giving you the option to run your question through Google search to find citable sources.

Similarly, content marketing is not going anywhere anytime soon — 93% of B2B marketers either have a content marketing strategy or plan to implement one in the next 12 months.

SEO and content marketing work in tandem to help companies build, maintain, and nurture healthy sales pipelines. Perhaps the way content looks may change — we may see more investment in areas such as video, but the content itself won’t go away.

2. The Use of Generative AI for Content Creation Will Continue To Be Experimental

In a survey by AuthorityHacker, 75% of the surveyed marketers stated they already use AI-powered tools in their day-to-day work.

So far, marketers have leveraged AI to create workflow efficiencies by streamlining more manual processes and supporting tasks like brainstorming ideas for video content, creating outlines for blog posts, and writing short-form content like social media posts.

Given the high proportion of early adopters, it’s likely that we’ll see a percentage of companies experimenting with generative AI to create new content.

The main benefit is that AI enables brands to generate a lot of content quickly. However, a few problems with AI-generated content prevent it from being a sustainable way to create engaging content.

First and foremost, there’s the price of paying for quantity by sacrificing content quality. When looking at content quality, inaccuracies in AI content remain a top concern, listed by 56% of companies as a relevant risk.

Having a large library of content on your website will do little to attract an audience and keep them engaged if your readers can’t trust the reliability of the information you provide.

Not to mention, with SEO remaining a relevant marketing strategy, using AI for content production also brings up uniqueness and plagiarism issues.

Using AI tools to generate content results in generic writing similar to any other brand using the same tool trained on the same data. Any benefits teams may gain from speed will be greatly outweighed by the content’s inability to rank on search engines and resonate with readers.

3. Full-Funnel Content Will Become More Important

Many brands are realizing that while SEO is a cost-efficient and effective way to bring leads into the sales funnel, it shouldn’t be their content marketing team’s sole focus. Once potential customers have discovered your brand, content plays a significant role in their eventual purchasing decision.

A study backs that up, showing that 84% of B2B consumers said the winning vendor’s content positively impacted buying decisions.

The importance of mid and low-funnel content only seems to be growing, as 55% of B2B buyers say they rely more on content to inform their research and decision-making when choosing vendors.

Brands wanting to keep leads engaged need to meet changing buyers’ needs by providing relevant content at all sales funnel stages.

For instance, adding clear and specific details about your product can improve your chances of converting leads. In particular, 72% of B2B buyers say they’re more likely to buy when the vendor has transparent pricing information on the website.

Beyond product specifications, brands need to focus on creating the types of content that showcase how their product is relevant for different customer segments. That can be done by sharing assets like case studies, webinars, and ebooks that illustrate your product’s functionality, use cases, and impact.

4. Brand Building Will Still Require Human Connection

Despite the many applicable uses and opportunities AI writing tools present, they also have limitations. When it comes to brand building, AI doesn’t have the empathy required to build strong connections with your target audience.

Brands need content creators who can establish a unique voice and tone to set themselves apart and build relationships with customers. AI, by nature, delivers generic responses that make it difficult to use them to create high-quality content that can set your brand apart from the competition.

You still need humans at the wheel, steering your brand in the right direction and taking the temperature of your target audience to know if you’re succeeding.

Final Thoughts: The Future of Content Creation for Businesses

The recent advancements in AI will no doubt shape the future of marketing and content creation. AI has the power to make teams more efficient, but it can’t replace the essence of content marketing, which is about connecting with an audience.

That need will always stay the same, and it will always require humans. New technology might just change the how: how we work, how our content looks, and how audiences connect with brands.

At The Blogsmith, we’re committed to staying at the forefront of content marketing and SEO growth so we can help our clients navigate the opportunities and pitfalls of transformative tools like AI. If you’re interested in working with a partner who can help you create a successful and sustainable content strategy, get in touch with The Blogsmith today.

About the Author

Maddy Osman is the bestselling author of Writing for Humans and Robots: The New Rules of Content Style. She’s a digital native with a decade-long devotion to creating engaging, accessible, and relevant content and the founder of The Blogsmith content marketing & SEO agency. Her experience earned her a spot in Semrush’s and BuzzSumo’s Top 100 Content Marketers and The Write Life’s 100 Best Websites for Writers.

The post The Future of Content Marketing: 4 Key Trends To Know appeared first on WebDevStudios.

We’ve all seen them–the company blogs that bore, that shove their product down your throat, that spread misinformation or otherwise misrepresent the company in the worst ways (unprofessionally, awkwardly, insufficiently!). Content marketing is an amazing tool to utilize when promoting the work that you (and your team) do, but there is a way to do it right–and doing it right is absolutely vital.

Chris Lema recently gave us a very kind shout out for having a fantastic company blog, and we thought that it might be useful to share a little bit on how and why we create what we do. This is hardly comprehensive; there are a million ways to come up with valuable, worthwhile content, and, of course, it will vary wildly depending on your industry, but here are a few starting points and general strategies that we use here at WebDevStudios.

Know Your Audience

A fundamental element of any quality marketing strategy is knowing who your clients are (and who you want your clients to be). If your demographic is primarily dads who love tech news and work from home, blog posts on Sephora’s newest products or the horrors of cubicle life are clearly not going to appeal to them. What is your audience reading? What kind of articles does your audience share?

Knowing what these folks are looking at and interested in will give you a good starting point as to where you will want your content to go. Flex that empathy muscle and put yourself in their heads: If you were them, what would appeal to you? The answer to that question, when combined with who you want your company to be and what you want to represent, should be at the core of your strategy, and act as a constant reference point when deciding what to put out there.

Collaborate Your Heart Out

While you may have one person running your strategy and curating your content (highly recommended), creating content should be a collaborative activity. If you’ve read any of our recent posts, you’ll notice that collaboration tends to live at the center of much of what we do at WDS–and as a result, it ends up being mentioned in our posts (and elsewhere!).

Whether it’s Chris mentioning that he turned to his fellow devs for their advice before coming up with a creative solution to a problem on his own, Jay mentioning what Michael said in response to his post on using AJAX, or Brad repeatedly stating the significance of working with people who are smarter than you (and learning from them, like we often do from commenters as well as fellow event attendees and colleagues), we find collaboration to be incredibly crucial, and sing its praises on the regs.

When it comes to content marketing, collaboration can benefit you in a bunch of different ways, including:

• Team Contributions to Your Blog

The only way we’re able to have a wide variety of subject matter is by having our brilliant devs, designers, and PMs come up with subjects that interest them and relate to what they are currently immersed in. It’s a cliché for a reason, but many heads are better than one. Each person on our team has something different to offer–different perspectives, different expertise, different projects they are working on, different passions.

Tapping into this variety is crucial to creating engaging subject matter. By getting your team involved, they’ll be invested in the success of your content; after all, it’s their work that is being promoted, too, and they get the opportunity to share something they’re excited about. What’s more: It gives your clients the opportunity to see who they are working with–not only to understand what capable, skilled people they are going to have the opportunity to hire, but also, gives them a sense of who is working behind the scenes.

People want to know who you (and your team) are. Allow your team the opportunity to represent their skillz and speak for themselves, and your audience will get to know exactly who they’ll be working with if they hire you (and if you’ve hired right, they’ll be clamoring for the opportunity to work with your team of superstars).

• Inspiration Strikes!

We actually have a running document with topic ideas; it’s a braindump of any possible topic that could be interesting to our readership (and also, that interests us!). We also regularly have group and one-on-one conversations regarding what would be interesting to cover. Did we have a recent success with a client project? Was there a lesson recently learned that we think might lead to some hard-earned wisdom worth imparting to the masses? Hey, did you folks read this recent article? What do you think of what happened there? Et cetera.

Bouncing ideas off of each other is a fantastic way to get the most out of your content.

• Take Advantage of Multiple Perspectives

Most of our posts end up not only being run by management (and the editor, meaning yours truly), but often, the author of the post will share it with the entire team and request feedback. As a result, there is usually a combination of additional insight, corrections, and encouraging feedback given to the author–all of which is wildly beneficial for both the blog (and for team bonding!).

Know What Else Is Out There

Creating fantastic content isn’t that different from figuring out the basics of business: You need to know what’s out there already and what needs aren’t being served. Knowing what conversation is being had amongst your competitors and fellow industry professionals is imperative; if you see a subject that isn’t being discussed and deserves a mention, you’ve got an excellent opportunity for a post right there.

Greg recently did something along these lines; he noticed that there were a lot of posts talking about why accessibility is important, but not very many covering the how, and so he took it upon himself to start the trend.

If there’s a hot topic that is being widely debated, or a question that you are hearing your clients asking over and over again (without any real concrete answer), perhaps you (or someone on your team) can offer some of your expert insight.

Lastly, you always want to make sure that you aren’t plagiarizing or just regurgitating the same old stuff that everyone else is doing. Sure, there will inevitably be overlap in terms of subject matter, but having overlap in terms of topics isn’t the same as stealing or being redundant.

Loosen Up

There’s a difference between being professional and being downright sterile, but from some company blogs, you wouldn’t ever know it! It is possible to be personal–even downright irreverent–while still maintaining professional boundaries and upholding professional standards. Part of letting your audience get to know you and your team is letting your sense of humor and heart shine through! Whether it’s Rami’s hilarious WordCamp Lancaster post over at the Maintainn blog, or Corey’s creative gif usage, their approaches made their posts both useful and entertaining.

Of course, this does require common sense; perhaps don’t riff on that political meme or share that racy joke your quirky uncle told you at your last family reunion. Be smart, and if you struggle with knowing what’s appropriate and what isn’t in the context of humor, surely err on the side of caution (or go back to the collaborative element by reaching out to your team and asking for additional perspective!). If you can, though, have some fun with it! Keeping it light and adding a dose of humor is as good for business as it is for the soul.

Get an Editor

Even the best writers need an editor, and some of the folks on your team may not be (self-admittedly) the best writers around. Hey, we all have different skills.

Having someone to act as a designated editor not only ensures that you’ll have consistent styling and quality in your published posts, but also, gives the members of your team who struggle with the writing element someone to go to when they need an assist.

A good editor has a keen eye for detail (as much as any infallible human being can, anyway), and is capable of identifying how to improve upon first drafts–whether that means editing for coherency, working with the writer to help flesh out the point(s) they are trying to make, or using their objective eye to recognize what the writer may have overlooked while being deep in the subject they were writing about.

Plus, nothing is less impressive than a company blog (or site) riddled with typos and errors. If you’re really in a bind, you can also use a service like Grammarly to catch the little errors that we all make.

Cut the Marketing Crap (and Extend the Spotlight)

The best salespeople know that most folks are resistant to being told what to do, and even more resistant to feeling manipulated (after all, who wants to feel like they are being had?). Treat your audience like you would like to be treated; treat them like they are capable, intelligent adults capable of making sound decisions.

They know that you’re a company, and they know that you’re selling a product; it’s not necessary to constantly remind them THAT YOU’RE AVAILABLE AT ALL TIMES TO TAKE THEIR BUSINESS BY THE WAY DID THEY KNOW THAT YOU HAVE THIS DEAL FOR FIVE DOLLARS DO YOU WANT TO HIRE US YOU SHOULD DEFINITELY HIRE US.

You don’t have to try so hard. They know that you want their business. Make it simple by giving them a reason to want to hire you.

It’s not as complicated as you may think: All you need to do is establish yourself as professional, well-informed, skilled, and easy to work with. Haranguing your audience will just drive them into the arms of another company…who is a heckuva lot less obnoxious than you.

What’s more: Self-promotion is a necessity, but promoting yourself exclusively and not recognizing the achievements, insights, and successes of the other folks in your industry comes across as self-serving and, frankly, a little boring.

Lisa’s philosophy of viewing competitors as connections that inspire growth and opportunity is spot on; even those of us that are competing have our own unique assets to offer, and most of us know that not every client is going to be a good fit for every company. Highlight others in your community, and you’ll build connections with colleagues, as well as maintain diversity in what you’re sharing and avoid that pesky “PICK ME! PICK ME!” vibe.

Now Go Forth, Young Grasshopper

Personally, I believe that content marketing is one of those things where if you’re going to do it, you’d better do it well, or you might as well pass on it entirely. A bad blog is worse than no blog at all.

Hopefully you’ve found some helpful tidbits in here, but I’d love to hear what you’ve found to be successful (or if you think anything I’ve said here is just plain wrong and dumb!). Is there anything you disagree with or that I missed? Let me know in the comments!

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