The 5 best AI tools for content marketing

1. Save hours video editing

Video continues to be one of the most popular content forms online, but it can be time consuming to edit and format.

Vidyo.ai uses AI to cut long videos into shorter clips, offers instant resizing for different social media platforms and adds auto-generated captions. You can quickly edit content to fit your brand by choosing from a range of social media templates, changing the caption style and adding your own brand kit. For videos with two or more speakers, for example a Q&A or recorded podcast, the AI technology can automatically cut scenes to sync with speaker changes and add chapters to longer content.

The social integration feature of Vidyo.ai sets it apart from other video editing AI tools, making content repurposing less labour intensive, especially if you manage multiple digital platforms. The platform is free to trial, with monthly subscriptions starting at about £25.

2. Keep your copy in check

Grammarly is a free AI-powered writing assistant that helps improve the quality of your writing.

It can be added to most apps, including Gmail, social media platforms, Microsoft Word and Pages. The technology recognises grammar and spelling mistakes in real time and allows the writer to fix them with one click, which is especially helpful if you’re not the most confident writer or usually rely on someone else to proofread your work. Grammarly can also check for tone, and can tell you how your writing may be received by the reader – for example confident, friendly, or formal.

The generative AI feature helps rewrite overlong or unclear sentences and can help with ideas and quick replies. Using Grammarly across teams ensures that written content is consistent, mistake-free and, most importantly, easy to read.

3. Create budget-friendly designs

Most content marketers are familiar with Canva for quick and simple design. The platform recently launched Magic Studio, which leverages AI to offer Canva users the most advanced design tools yet.

You can now use features like Canva Magic Design to create presentations, videos and social content by simply writing a prompt, or use text-to-image or text-to-voice to create images or realistic human narration based on your ideas.

Canva Magic Switch allows for instant reformatting and can translate copy into different languages, while a host of other new features make editing images faster and more user-friendly. Projects that may once have relied on an outsourced graphic designer can now be done in-house, giving content marketers more freedom and saving on labour costs.

Magic Studio requires a Canva Pro account, which costs £12.99 per month or £99.99 per year for a single user. (as at October 2023)

4. Get ideas flowing

Many people, especially in the arts, understandably have mixed feelings about ChatGPT. That being said, knowing how to leverage it for your needs can be hugely helpful for content planning, especially for smaller teams.

Entering prompts to help with idea generation can save time and allow marketers to execute on campaigns more efficiently – for example, sharing the headlines of your top three best performing blog posts and asking ChatGPT to generate five more ideas for similar articles. ChatGPT can also help with content planning by asking it to list all upcoming UK holidays and awareness days, or to generate 30 days worth of content around a certain topic.

Another way to leverage ChatGPT is to use it to turn problems into solutions. For example, a marketer at an art gallery could feed ChatGPT negative Google reviews of their competitors, then ask it to summarise the top complaints and suggest solutions. If guests mostly complained about lack of accessibility or a poor range of refreshments, the marketer’s art gallery could produce content highlighting their gallery’s parking and barista-made coffee.

The platform is currently free to use and continues to improve. Just remember that as it is an open-source platform, avoid sharing sensitive or private information with it. ChatGPT Plus is available with a subscription of $20 a month and gives access to the latest developments and beta functions.

5. Simplify content scheduling

Hootsuite has been around for almost as long as social media has, and is the go-to scheduling platform for many marketers. Earlier this year it launched OwlyWriter AI with the aim of solving the most common pain points for content marketers, seeking to become a content generator rather than just a scheduling tool.

OwlyWriter AI can be trained to use your brand tone of voice and automatically generate captions customised for different social media channels. It can also generate content ideas for you, then create copy for the ideas you choose. You can use it to populate your content calendar with awareness days and holidays that typically trend well on social media, and leverage it to repurpose your top performing content without duplication.

OwlyWriter AI is currently free for Hootsuite users, so take advantage of this time to try it for yourself. (as at October 2023)

Hannah Cunningham, The DeWolf Group

Note: This is not a sponsored article and the author is not affiliated with any of these platforms. They are recommended based on actual experience using them for content marketing.