Artificial intelligence (AI) is far reaching and is dominating a lot of the conversation, even within digital marketing. Our Digital Pathfinders team hosted a workshop for organisations to come and learn more about how to embrace AI, to understand more about how AI can be used within a digital marketing role and what the future of digital marketing might look like.

Has Digital Marketing Changed?

‍The simple answer is, yes!

Digital marketing is an ever-changing world with social media algorithms regularly being updated and the constant multitude of trends bombarding the web on an almost daily basis. With the emergence of AI and tools like DALLE, ChatGPT and Bard, everyone has the ability to create copy, generate graphics and write blog content (albeit this content might not be very good!). But that doesn’t mean that AI will be replacing roles in digital marketing. So, what does it mean?

AI is Helping Marketers To...

‍AI is fast becoming a regular part of many roles and but in terms of marketing there are plenty of ways that we are already seeing DALLE, ChatGPT and Bard in and amongst the tools that content creators, SEO wizards and comms leads are using. Here are just some of the ways you might want to start using AI to support your own marketing strategies.

Brainstorm

AI is often the perfect starting point for bouncing ideas, themes and topics to come up with content ideas that might be most suitable for your audience. You might want to share some gardening tips with your audience, and using AI you can discover the most searched for gardening questions in a matter of seconds, rather than searching the internet yourself.

Create a First draft

‍Moving from a blank page to a first draft has never been easier, with many people opting to start with AI tools to help them get started. Whilst this is a great way to get an outline drafted up, make sure to check over and personalise any work created by AI to ensure you are reflecting your brand authentically.

Check Work

Because AI doesn’t think like a human does, we can use this to our advantage. For example, if you are trying to use key words and phrases in your latest blog to boost your SEO, asking ChatGPT what it thinks the keywords are, is a great way to get a response which could be similar to that of the Google bots that will trawl through your web copy.

Break Apart Tedious Tasks

Many people are viewing AI now as an artificial assistant that can help to summarise large passages of text, gather key points from a data set and gather information from across the web so that you don’t have to. Where in the past, time might have been spent riffling through webpages to find the exact information that you need, time can now be better spent building upon the work that an AI tool has done to finish the task to a high standard.

‍What Did the Attendees Think?

‍“Great event, the info was delivered in a really concise and easy to understand way by Nathan, with very little jargon, which is refreshing in the digital space!”

- Clare Hampton, Gardiner Richardson

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Key Takeaways

‍It is easy to get swept up in the hype of AI, but here are some things to take away and think about within your role to make sure you are making the most of AI whilst staying ahead of the curve.

• Avoid the shiny objects – Make sure to do your research and use the free trials of different programmes before you fork out for something you don’t need.
• Continue to harness your expertise – Personalisation is important, so make sure that you are continuing to grow your skills in the areas that you can stand out from the crowd.
• Stay safe – Make sure you aren’t sharing any important information with AI as it is constantly learning from the conversations that you have with it.
• Keep learning – Just like social media algorithms, AI is always changing. Chatbots are getting better and better at providing us with the answers we are looking for, so keep trying new tools often.
• Be aware of bias – AI has been created by humans and is being taught by humans, and humans have internal biases, therefore AI is also biased – be aware of this!

To Conclude

‍We are still learning about AI and as the technology in ever-changing, being aware of how AI works and can aid our digital marketing strategy is essential. Rather than thinking about it as a replacement for our roles, think of it as a digital assistant that can support creativity, get ideas off the ground and complete menial tasks relatively quickly.

About Digital Pathfinders

‍Our Digital Pathfinders programme helps SMEs, charities and social enterprises across Newcastle, North Tyneside and Northumberland become more successful and resilient by adopting digital technology. If you would like to chat about how AI might impact your individual marketing strategy, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us at: hello@digitalpathfinders.uk

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Keep your eyes peeled on our socials and our website for future fully funded events, there will be more coming soon in 2024!