If you are using social media, then undoubtedly heard about the way that Artificial Intelligence (AI) bring revolution to the content creation industry. It not only empowered content creators with extraordinary tools but also transformed the content consumption nature.
Content creation and its significance in the digital era
Content creation is the cornerstone of the modern digital marketing strategies. A content creator is responsible for generating ideas and crafting content that can connect a brand or an individual to their targeted audience. Content creators create different types of content, such as video vlogs, blogs, social posts, podcasts, Ebooks and many more.
In the digital era creating content has become so important because most of the time people spend their time online. Out of the 8 billion world population, 67.1% (5.45 billion) of them have access to the Internet and 63.7% (5.17 billion) of them are social media users. Henceforth, it became so important to do marketing using the digital content.
To engage the audience and deliver them the message of a brand, the digital content creation plays a significant role. By creating meaningful and relevant content for the customers brands became able to draw their attention. Most brands nowadays create content which are high-quality and valuable. It builds long-term relationships with the customers.
Nowadays it has become easier to shape a brand’s identity and image through digital content. A brand doesn’t need to visit their customer house to share about their products rather they share their product details on social media through the form of images, videos or blogs. By creating content consistently and sharing them over the online platforms brands are developing a strong and recognisable place in their industry.
A two-way communication is built through digital content. Social media platforms, video channels, websites and blogs allow customers to directly communicate with the brands. By allowing customers to share comments, and feedback, participate in surveys and give online reviews, two-way communication has taken place.
Content creation is beneficial because it directly impacts search engine optimisation (SEO). The ranking of a brand or entity can be increased through high-quality and well-optimised content. In that case, a brand or entity uses SEO-friendly keywords to enhance its visibility and attract organic traffic to its sites.
Digital content creation increases the trust and loyalty of customers. It motivates the customers to share their opinions on products. When customers understand that the brands are valuing their needs and deliver offers according to their demands, a transparent relationship is built between a brand and its customers.
Brands used to share their content through numerous social media platforms including Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, X (primarily Twitter) and the like. On Instagram, 95 million videos and photos have been shared per day. 720,000 hours of videos have been uploaded on YouTube every single day. 500 million tweets are sent in X every day and on Facebook 350 million photos, 1 billion stories and 4.75 billion of other content have been shared per day.
AI’s role in the content creation
AI has transformed the nature of content of how we create, manage and personalise digital content. The use of AI in the content creation is not limited to writing textual content. It plays a significant role in transforming the multimedia content.
Nowadays AI can be used to streamline and augment the content creation world. There are a lot of AI tools available across the internet which can be helpful in research, generating ideas and creating creative and engaging content.
Several brands have been efficiently using AI tools in creating ads. The viral video ad of Coca-Cola is called a masterpiece because of its innovative utilization of AI. Coca-Cola created a campaign where digital artists are invited across the world to engage with a new AI platform to challenge them to create real magic.
Coca-Cola encourages artists to use AI tools to generate different forms of content including images, texts, videos and audio. This idea of Coca-Cola delivers a sense of community among creators. They came together and explored AI’s capabilities in creating and sharing content.
OpenAI brings a revolution in the text generation. GPT-4 of OpenAI showcase the ability to generate human-like text within a second. This platform allowed the content creators to streamline their writing process and minimise the time spent on initial drafts. AI can assist in content creation by identifying trends, preferences and effective messaging strategies.
AI’s advancement in image generation also made a significant impact on the content creation industry. By using generative adversarial networks (GANs) or other deep learning architectures, AI creates realistic images. OpenAI’s DALL-E 2, Midjourney, DeepArt, Runway ML and more are some sites from where realistic images can be developed by using the capability of AI.
AI-powered tools also revolutionise the video content creation field. InVideo, Pictory and more allowed users to make videos effortlessly by inserting text prompts. These platforms allow a user-friendly interface and from the input text it identifies the key message, themes and visuals to generate a video.
AI tools, for instance, are used in editing videos. AI tools analyse raw footage and can detect the engaging moments that lead to less effort and a high concentration of editors to efficiently edit a video. The AI-generated voiceover also became beneficial for creators to provide natural-sounding narration throughout their videos.
The text-to-speech (TTS) technology has also streamlined the audio content creation. AI-powered tools like PlayHT, NaturalReader and more are very helpful for creating audiobooks, voiceovers, podcasts and more. Voice.ai is a free tool that allows users to edit audio to deliver excellent content to the audience.
The content quality can also be enhanced by AI. The AI tools check grammar and spelling errors in content to ensure the tone and style of the content. Moreover, it can also optimise the content quality by recommending relevant keywords and phrasing.
In digital marketing, the has been used to automate some repetitive tasks including email marketing, content creation, social media marketing and more. It has been used for creating personalised content that helped the brands to directly engage with customers.
The ‘Opti-mail’ is used by brands to create hyper-personalised content by monitoring individual subscribers’ behaviours. Rasa-io is an AI-powered newsletter tool, drift email, seventh sense, zeta email and more have been used by brands to automate their email marketing through AI.
Canva is the best AI tool for creating social media assets. Brandwatch is the best AI tool for social listening, and Feedhive and Feedly are the best AI tools for customizing posts and analyzing market trends.
Evaluation of the content creation
Even before the digital age dominated by Netflix and iPhone, the content creation has existed. Before the video creation era of YouTube, creators expressed themselves through books, photography, speeches and more. The cultural trends of content creation were shaped by renowned figures like Shakespear, Jane Austen, George Eilot and more.
Like now, the content was also created for marketing several years ago. The origin of content marketing is often traced back to the magazine “The Furrow” written by John Deere and launched in 1895. However, it is also argued that Benjamin Franklin initiated content marketing in 1732 with the publication of “Poor Richard’s Almanack” to promote his printing business. However, before “content marketing” existed, both Franklin and Deere used content to promote their businesses.
With time, businesses started to explore creative ways for promotion. The beginning of content marketing was initiated with the free recipe book of the Jell-O Company in 1904. This company set a trend of using valuable content to attract customers.
In the era of 1940s and 1950s, the content marketing face a huge decline. During that period, the growth of media outlets including newspapers, radio, print advertising and more started to dominate content marketing. It allows the brand to utilise content marketing directly to become more transactional and product-centric in promoting their business.
Proceeding to the era of the 1960s and 1970s, a revolution came in content marketing with the rise of television. The advent of home television allowed the brands to reach a mass audience creatively. Then the commercial became an integral part of content marketing.
Several brands like Coca-Cola and more used creative commercials to tell their stories to the customers. They tried to build an emotional connection with their audience by entertaining them with relevant stories. During that era, brands started to sponsor TV shows, movies, sports events and more to express their message within popular media.
The digital age has revolutionized content marketing like never before. Technological advancement, especially due to the advent of computers and the internet, allowed individuals to easily create and publish content. Millions of blogs, websites and social media accounts have produced content to connect with the world.
A dynamic digital ecosystem is created by a vibrant community of creators. A great shift has been found with the advancement of technology about how one consumes content and how it is made attractive to gain the attention of people.
Google changed the content creation and content marketing game in 2011. The Zero Moment of Truth (ZMOT) study of Google highlighted that 88% of customers engage in the preliminary research phase before making any purchase. The study highlights how content marketing is important in the buying cycle of shoppers. It emphasises that word of mouth plays a significant role in influencing the buying decisions of shoppers.
The global digital content creation market size was around $25.6 billion in 2022 and the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) is 13.5%. It is expected to reach $536.233 billion by 2033.
Different types of contents
Blog
To brainstorm creative ideas AI became assistant of bloggers. It helps bloggers search topics based on the audience’s interest and trending topics. It also helps in outlining the content in an optimised way. OpenAI’s GPT model, Google’s Gemini and more are assisting bloggers in generating initial drafts that reduce the time spent by the bloggers.
Some of the effective AI tools for blog writing include copy.ai, phrase, Jasper AI, write sonic and more. These tools are cost-effective and time-saving for the bloggers to find ideas and deliver great content.
Infographic
The infographics represent the visual representation of information or data. It is a collection of data imagery and data visualisation including charts, graphs and more. AI has efficiently transformed the way brands use infographics, especially their customer service team.
AI algorithm has the capability of analyzing vast numbers of customer data, trends, and buying patterns and is faster to create a visual representation of infographics. It also helps to get real-time updates on the market. Appy Pie, Piktochart, Visme, Canva and more are some AI tools that can create amazing infographics.
Podcasts
The word “podcast” was introduced in 2004 as a part of content creation industry, therefore it doesn’t have a long history. Podcasts are digital audio programs that cover a wide range of topics including storytelling, education, interviews, entertainment and more. It can be available in solo presentations, interviews with guests, narrative storytelling and more.
AI tools have been utilize in podcasts to remove background noise, improve sound quality, equalize sound levels and more. Machine learning algorithms help podcast platforms including Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast and others to recommend personalized podcast recommendations to consumers based on their listening history.
eBooks
eBooks are the electronic access of a book. The eBooks are available in several formats like PDF, EPUB, AZW and more that can be accessed through any digital device like computer, mobile and more.
With the advancement of technology, several AI-powered tools including ProWritingAid, Grammarly and more help the author with punctuation, grammar and more to enhance content quality by saving time. Moreover, text-to-speech technology allows readers to listen to a book in an audio format.
Email newsletter
Businesses use the email newsletter to send out a list of newsletters to their subscribers through email. These are sent out weekly, bi-weekly and monthly basis. The customers became able to get informed about the latest news or updates with the company from whom they are purchasing a product.
However, AI has a great role in it. the AI-driven email personalization enabled brands to get higher open and click-through rates. By collecting data regarding the purchase behavior of customers, AI helps to create a personalized newsletter for the customers that helps them to get the attention of the customers.
Videos
AI will change the video creation game. Several AI-powered tools like script-writing, scene composition, storyboarding and more have been inspiring the creativity level of video creation. The AI-powered video creation is faster, cheaper and better. Tools like InVideo allowed editors to transform text into engaging and eye-catching videos quickly.
With the help of AI tools like Synthesia, creators are becoming able to use AI avatars that can deliver scripted content in multiple languages by saving additional effort and time. The advancement of AI also brings revolution in animation creation through tools like Toonly, Animaker and more.
Social media posts
Brands used to share their product and service updates by sharing several social media posts. These posts can be in the form of video, image, poll, survey, feedback and more. The AI has a great role in shaping the social media posts shared by brands. The social media platforms became engaging by using different AI tools like IoT, Big Data and more.
AI tools including Sprout Social, Hootsuite and more enabled brands to take deeper insights into the user interaction reports that can personalize their social media posts. Moreover, BuzzSumo platforms are helping brands explore trending topics and optimal social media post formats.
Limitation of AI in the content creation
Although AI-powered tools bring revolution to the content creation industry it is still in the starting phase. Several challenges and limitations are also present there to fully use AI in content creation.
AI-generated content oftentimes is lacking in originality because it relies on the same patterns and data. Without manual interventions, AI can’t generate realistic content which is truly unique and innovative. Even the search engine might flag content because of the similar nature of content.
AI-generated content does not have creativity and personalisation. AI does not have the emotional intelligence that humans have, therefore creating a story through which an emotional bond can be made with the audience is not possible with AI.
Although AI is saving the time and effort of humans, it is still not able to create completely new ideas like humans. To deliver good and eye-catching content, AI usually mixes up data from several other websites and minimises the quality of the content.
Nowadays AI has been used to deepfakes. The deepfake technology is creating a huge concern currently in the content creation industry that needs to be addressed carefully. Around 96% of deep fakes are pornographic. These manipulated videos on deep-faking women and exacerbating gender inequality are creating ethical issues. The Misuse of AI through deepfakes is allowing deceptive content that can harm individuals, especially women.
Moreover, another ethical issue of using AI in content creation is increasing regarding plagiarism and intellectual property rights. AI currently reproduce the same content that is available on the internet which can increase the chance of plagiarism. AI-generated content, for instance, spreads misinformation also.
The AI technology needs further development to overcome this limitation. OpenAI is heavily investing in Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) in their GPT-4o and GPT-5 so that they can generate content the way humans do. However, still, it is still necessary to use AI responsibly in the content creation industry to deliver better content in an efficient and faster way.
Say hello to GPT-4o, our new flagship model which can reason across audio, vision, and text in real time: https://t.co/MYHZB79UqN
Text and image input rolling out today in API and ChatGPT with voice and video in the coming weeks. pic.twitter.com/uuthKZyzYx
— OpenAI (@OpenAI) May 13, 2024
Real-world application
AI has significantly transformed the content creation, which can be explored with some real-world applications. Netflix uses the AI algorithm to personalise the viewing experience of every user by analysing data of viewing history and ratings. They make several original content including House of Cards, Hemlock Grove, Bloodline, Marco Polo and more and they have gained over 200 million subscribers.
The New York Times also use the AI algorithm “Blossom”. This algorithm system them allows to the prediction of the virality of a story and recommends optimal posting times on social media. This process of content creation helps them to capture customer engagement efficiently.
The real-world application of AI in shaping content distribution can be highlighted with the example of Facebook. Facebook utilise AI in its full potential to deliver personalised content. Facebook became the social media giant with its 3.07 billion monthly active users globally by using AI to enhance user engagement.
The streaming platform, Spotify, similarly use AI in their “Discover Weekly” segments. In this segment, the listeners are offered custom music based on their listening habits and preferences. Because of utilising AI efficiently, Spotify became the leading audio streaming service with active monthly users of 626 million.
The Washington Post can also be a similar example of revolutionizing content distribution. They have their in-house AI tool “Heliograf”. During the 2016, US election, this tool helped to produce 500 articles based on real-time updates and reports. The Washington Post learns to gain datasets based on the identified key insights and then generate content without human intervention.
Amazon’s personalised and data-driven marketing strategies are also influenced by AI. For different customer segments, Amazon has personalised content strategies based on the analysis of AI tools. Amazon became the leading e-commerce company because of its customised product recommendations and tailored marketing message to maintain customer retention.
Airbnb also employs AI to enhance the customer experience in lodging and tourism. With predictive AI, Airbnb became able to forecast the demand for hotels based on the locations and timing. They also became able to set dynamic pricing suggestions which enabled them to stay ahead of the marketing trends.
FAQ
What is the significance of digital content creation?
Content creation is the cornerstone of the modern digital marketing strategies. A content creator is responsible for generating ideas and crafting content that can connect a brand or an individual to their targeted audience.
How AI is shaping digital content creation?
The use of AI in the content creation is not limited to writing textual content. It plays a significant role in transforming the multimedia content.
How does Spotify use AI in its audio streaming service?
The streaming platform, Spotify, similarly use AI in their “Discover Weekly” segments. In this segment, the listeners are offered custom music based on their listening habits and preferences.
Who shaped the cultural content creation trend?
The cultural trends of content creation were shaped by renowned figures like Shakespear, Jane Austen, George Eilot and more.
What are some sites used for realistic AI image creation?
OpenAI’s DALL-E 2, Midjourney, DeepArt, Runway ML and more are some sites from where realistic images can be developed by using the capability of AI.
How AI is used in digital marketing?
However, AI has a great role in it. the AI-driven email personalisation enabled brands to get higher open and click-through rates. By collecting data regarding the purchase behaviour of customers, AI helps to create a personalised newsletter for the customers that helps them to get the attention of the customers.
What are the limitations of AI in content creation?
AI-generated content oftentimes is lacking in originality because it relies on the same patterns and data. Without manual interventions, AI can’t generate realistic content which is truly unique and innovative. Even the search engine might flag content because of the similar nature of content.