How Brands Are Using AI to Boost Content Generation

Tool-Agnostic Strategies for Substack Creators

Photo by Aidin Geranrekab on Unsplash

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Today I want to take a closer look at how brands are leveraging AI tools to make the content creation process a bit easier. At the same time, I’ll walk you through how you can apply these same concepts to help you more easily write your Substack. Here's what you can learn from these brands to enhance your own content creation efforts:

Understanding AI's Role in Content Creation

AI's application in content creation isn't limited to corporations with large budgets. The core technologies like Natural Language Generation (NLG), Machine Learning for personalization, and AI in visual content can be scaled down for individual creators:

• NLG for generating draft content from simple inputs. Chatbots are an example of this. Another is product review summaries like you see on Amazon.

• Machine Learning to analyze trends and personalize content. This is one of the core benefits of using AI, as it can take large amounts of data and distill it down into actionable bites and insights.

• AI in Visuals for basic design assistance. Using AI to aid in graphic design and creating visuals is one area of AI where the technology is lacking currently. As the technology matures in the coming months and years, look for visual creation from simple AI prompts to greatly improve.

Speed and Efficiency

Brand Example: Articoolo - This startup uses AI to quickly generate articles from keywords, providing a service that small businesses and individual bloggers can use to draft content swiftly. You can learn more about Articoolo here. What’s interesting about Articoolo is that the Israeli startup was an early player in the AI space, founded in 2014. Warning: If you want to use a tool like Articoolo for content creation, be sure to edit liberally the provided content, rather than simply passing it off as your own.

Strategy for Substack Creators:

• Approach: Utilize free or affordable AI writing tools that generate text based on prompts or keywords.

• Application: Start your writing process with an AI-generated draft, focusing your time on editing and personalizing the content to reflect your voice.

Substack Tip: Draft with AI assistance, then polish for tone, ensuring your unique perspective shines through. That’s exactly how I wrote this post, I started with multiple drafts generated by Grok, then tweaked for content multiple times. When I finally had a workable draft, I then went through the draft line by line to edit it, adding my own thoughts and tone where appropriate. The idea is to use AI as your assistant, not to do your job for you.

Personalization at Scale

Brand Example: Wunderkind is a company that offers AI-driven personalization without the need for a large tech stack, allowing smaller retailers to tailor content based on customer behavior.

Strategy for Substack Creators:

• Approach: Even with limited data, tools like Google Analytics can help identify which topics engage your readers most. While it’s still a bit primitive, you can Explore here on Substack to see what topics are resonating, and you can also check out the Leaderboards to see which Substacks are most popular base on topic.

• Application: Use this data to segment your audience and customize content or even newsletter timing based on reader habits.

Substack Tip: Analyze which articles get the most interaction and tailor your future content to match these interests.

Quality and Consistency

Brand Example: Grammarly - While known for its individual user base, Grammarly's AI helps small teams maintain consistent editorial quality across content, acting much like a small-scale editorial team. I have many writing friends who swear by Grammarly, especially the browser extension for Chrome or Firefox.

Strategy for Substack Creators:

• Approach: Use free online tools for grammar and style checks to maintain consistency across your posts. If you blog, plugins like Yoast SEO will help grade the readability of your draft posts.

• Application: Even basic AI can help catch errors, ensuring your content remains professional and readable.

Substack Tip: Regularly check your drafts with AI tools before publishing to keep your writing sharp and consistent. Or do like I do and wait till the second you hit Publish to suddenly think about editing your post.

Ideation and Brainstorming

Brand Example: BuzzSumo - Though more commonly used by marketers, BuzzSumo's content analysis features can be leveraged by indie creators for trend spotting, offering insights without needing to be a data scientist.

Strategy for Substack Creators:

• Approach: Look at free trend analysis tools like Google Trends to spot content opportunities.

• Application: Combine AI insights with your creativity to generate novel ideas that resonate with your audience.

Substack Tip: Dedicate time each month to conduct trend analysis, using these insights as a basis for content ideation.

Challenges and Ethical Considerations of Using AI to Aid Content Generation

• Data Privacy: Always anonymize data when analyzing reader behavior.

• Content Authenticity: AI should support, not supplant, your unique narrative.

• Bias: Be cautious of biases in AI outputs and balance them with your judgment.

The Future for Substack Creators

As AI tools become more democratized, expect more intuitive, user-friendly options for content creators, allowing even those without technical expertise to benefit from AI's capabilities.

Conclusion

Brands are revolutionizing content generation with AI, focusing on speed, personalization, quality, creativity, and visual appeal. Substack creators can adopt these strategies without needing high-end tools:

• Draft content quickly with AI assistance, then personalize.

• Use AI to understand audience preferences for more engaging content.

• Maintain high-quality, consistent writing with AI aids.

• Generate fresh ideas by leveraging AI for trend analysis.

• Enhance visual elements with basic AI tools to match your style.

By applying these strategies, Substack writers can elevate their content creation process, ensuring their work remains compelling, relevant, and distinctly personal. The key is to use AI as an ally in your creative process, not as a replacement for your voice.

Additional Resources

• Free Tools: Explore Google Trends, Canva's basic features, or free AI writing assistants for starters.

• Further Reading: Look for guides or case studies where small creators discuss their AI usage in content creation to gather more practical insights.

In addition to all the tips and tools listed here, feel free to experiment with free AI tools such as ChatGPT, Claude, PerplexityAI and Grok. All of these AI tools now offer a free standard version, so you have no excuse to not get your feet wet using these tools. X recently rolled out a free version of Grok to all users, and it’s actually not bad. I used it to help draft and write this post.

With all these tools, they never will, and never should, replace YOU as the writer. Use them as an assistant to help YOU do the writing. I use AI tools such as the ones above for ideation, and to help me structure and draft posts.

But I always make sure to infuse the drafts with my own voice, tone and insights. I suggest you do the same. See you on Thursday!

Mack