Shameless Shelf-promotion: our perspective on AI content automation
“Why,” you may be asking yourself, “would a B2B marketing agency publish a blog about AI content automation? Isn’t that a tragic instance of autocannibalism?” First of all, nice use of the word “autocannibalism”. Second of all, no, it’s not. If we’ve learned anything since the advent of ChatGPT and its cohort of content-churning friends, it’s this: AI is only coming for your job if you’re a shit writer.
If you were a shit writer to begin with, then congratulations — AI can help you become a competent writer with very little effort. That’s a win for the everyman. But in the world of B2B content marketing, “competent” just doesn’t cut it any more. Sure, we can concede that the landscape has been transformed by the introduction of AI tools; but so have our standards.
You see, when everyone is competent at producing helpful, informative, and (God forbid) human content, the world becomes saturated with it. Don’t get us wrong — that’s a far sight better than a world saturated with badly written content. But, unless you’re content with your brand voice resembling the mildly polite Mr Handy robot from the Fallout franchise, then outsourcing your marketing to a firm of human professionals still comes highly recommended.
Because if you’re truly trying to differentiate yourself and your company, you can’t settle for being content with your content. That’s a firm sign that your brand identity has sunk into the quagmire of tepid competency, that your voice has faded into a flaccid chorus of Mr Handys. Good content does not comfort; it confronts.
Before we get too fond of our soapbox, let’s return to the crux of the issue: AI content automation tools and their role in B2B marketing. While we wouldn’t prescribe an all-AI approach to content generation for the reasons we passionately described above, AI-powered automation is an increasingly essential complement to quality content writing. AI content scheduling and distribution are where it really shines, but we’re not opposed to deploying AI for content generation either. Let’s get into it.
Why AI content scheduling could make your content writing job more exciting
Okay, so the title is a bit of spin. Sue us, we’re marketers. AI content scheduling tools may not make your content writing job more exciting, but they can certainly make it less boring by automating the drudgery — including repurposing content across social media channels and simplifying community management.
Repurposing content is one of the necessary evils of marketing. Satisfying the algorithm’s appetite for bite-sized insights from existing assets is exhausting and, frankly, an insult to the average B2B marketer’s intelligence. So, it’s cool to see tools like FeedHive being applied to:
- Recycling published posts to the same or different channels
- Using performance predictions to fine-tune posts for maximum engagement
- Using AI to measure post engagement and automatically respond with a comment (containing a link to an offer, for example) if it’s high enough
Social media is where AI-enabled content scheduling truly shines. The AI content scheduling tool, Simplified, eases the Sysiphian burden of generating social media copy by spitting captions out in an instant. Exclusively using AI content generation tools to craft social media copy is not a viable long-term strategy, but it can be used to cut down on hours spent trying to come up with engaging captions by giving savvy editors material that they can mould into snippets of brilliance.
Why B2B marketers should make friends with automated content generation tools
If you’re a B2B writer, the idea of befriending the technology poised to swallow your job whole may feel counterintuitive. But, as we asserted before in more colourful language, AI content generation is not coming for your job. It’s coming to make your job a lot easier.
Although AI has demonstrated an ability to produce long-form content, its strength undeniably lies in its ability to churn out variations of short-form copy tirelessly. From headline variations to quoted excerpts for graphics and spotlight text, AI content generation tools can repurpose an existing content asset into a dozen or more social posts, an email sequence, or even ad copy. Is it going to be good? Probably not. But that’s where you come in — freed from the paralysis induced by having to batch-produce content on a deadline, writers can flex their creative muscles and refine AI-generated content to reflect a sense of brand personality.
According to HubSpot, combining the generative powers of AI writing tools with effective content curation and robust content strategy will result in a wealth of prime social media content and simplified A/B testing that requires very little input from a human. HubSpot has launched its own content generation tool, OwlyWriter, which promises the following capabilities:
- Writing new social media captions in a specific tone of voice
- Generating a post based on a link (especially useful for a product page)
- Generating post ideas based on a keyword or topic — especially useful for content ideation and planning
- Identifying and repurposing top-performing social media posts
- Creating relevant, seasonally-appropriate captions — weirdly specific, but still useful
Ultimately, automated content generation tools demonstrate the promising ability to eliminate a lot of the grunt work associated with content creation, especially in the realm of social media. That doesn’t mean that human writers are off the hook entirely — someone needs to stay behind the wheel to safeguard brand personality and tone, as well as to implement a sustainable content strategy.
While AI tools assume the brunt of menial tasks like repurposing content, optimising social media posts for peak engagement, and spitballing topics for content planning purposes, human writers are freer than ever to pursue higher-thinking tasks associated with creativity and strategy. If that doesn’t persuade you to befriend AI content generation tools, we don’t know what will.
