Depending on who you ask, opinions surrounding artificial intelligence (AI) can vary significantly.
For some, it’s seen as an impressive and innovative solution for increasing efficiency, identifying trends and adjusting to algorithms. Others view it as a step towards becoming overly reliant on technology and as the catalyst for the downfall of creativity.
Most likely, as it often does, the truth lies somewhere in the middle.
Still, for anyone occupying the digital marketing and content creation space – whether as a means of promoting your business or as a career – the progression and usage of AI, at this point, is less of a passing fad and more an innate inevitability.
In this guide, we’ll explore how to benefit from the strengths of AI without sacrificing the quality of your content.
Picking the right prompt
When utilizing AI, often, the input can be just as crucial as the output. In other words, the results will only be as strong or weak as the details provided.
By optimizing AI prompts, content marketers and writers can enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of their content while examining ideas and approaches they may not have otherwise considered.
While AI has ‘intelligence’ in the name, it doesn’t mean that the tools don’t require relevant information and context. Much like assigning a person to craft content, the devil is in the details. The same sentiment applies to inputting a prompt into AI.
Ensure your instructions are clear, direct, and specific. The broader or more vague a prompt, the more room the technology has for filling in the blanks with guesswork and the less likely it is to produce something relevant or in line with the desired messaging, tone and intent.
For example, instead of inputting ‘give me topics about infertility,’ try something like ‘generate relevant, helpful, and relatable topics about infertility, focusing on its impact on relationships and mental health.’
The former prompt is too broad, with the potential for a wide range of topic outputs ranging from causes and testing to therapies and legalities. The second prompt is much more precise and detail-oriented, positioning the output in a more advantageous way to generate content more closely related to your desired result.
Reset, reiterate, retry
As anyone working in the content creation space will likely tell you, half of the writing process is editing. The same goes for prompts and alterations with AI.
The concept of AI as an entity spans from the fact that the technology is constantly learning. Much like people, the best way for it to do so is through trial and error. Whether you’re generating short-form content, such as social media captions, or long-form content like articles or white pages, the best way to improve your output is to refine your input.
This practice can comprise updating your prompt to be more specific, asking questions to adjust for tone and syntax, or supplying examples that the technology can draw from that are closer to your desired result.
Like in any creative endeavour, feedback is crucial to tweak content to adhere to key messaging, address anything that may not have hit the mark and adjust accordingly. Practice makes perfect, and the more experience you gain with honing your approach, the more likely you are to receive your desired outcome.
A tool, not a crutch
The realm of artificial intelligence is brimming with possibilities, and there’s no denying that AI possesses several advantages in the content creation field. Most notably, it promotes efficiency and can process copious amounts of data in short periods.
However, while exciting and full of potential, the technology itself is still relatively new and it’s not without its drawbacks.
For instance, it lacks the capacity to think creatively. While it can process facts and figures quickly, it does so by relying on trends and patterns to analyze data efficiently. Therefore, it lacks the ability to think outside the box or come up with less generic or conventional approaches to content concepts and ideas.
This characteristic makes it a fantastic tool for more data-driven fields, such as medicine or finance but leaves room for improvement for more creatively-driven industries such as media or marketing.
Another pitfall is the potential for factual accuracy. As stated, the output is only as good as the input. For AI, this means that the algorithms are only as reliable as the information they’re fed. So, if the details are biased, unfounded or inaccurate, it increases the likelihood that the content generated will reflect those same faults.
This is to say that it can be easy to be lulled into a false sense of security that AI is a hero across the board. Still, it’s crucial not to fall into the tempting trap of relying on it too heavily.
Without the ability to comprehend context or think critically, the technology is still heavily reliant on a human element to ensure its continued development is ethical and its uses are responsible.
The debate surrounding artificial intelligence and its overarching impact on society shows no signs of slowing down. If anything, as developments and utilizations continue to progress, the conversations are likely to become even more convoluted and complex.
As it stands, the future of AI technology shows great promise, but the responsibility lies with those who yield and utilize its power to ensure it remains on the right track.
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