Should Businesses Use ChatGPT for Content Marketing?

By Edward Coram James, CEO, Go Up

It’s no exaggeration to say that ChatGPT has taken the world by storm. The AI chatbot was released in late 2022 to a whirlwind of hype, with many labelling it as a seminal moment in the evolution of artificial intelligence. In fact, some have even remarked upon ChatGPT’s potential for shifting the trajectory of humanity altogether because of how advanced an AI tool it is.

The chatbot harnesses a type of AI called “Natural Language Processing” (NLP) to respond to users as if it were a human and create content depending on the nature of their questions and requests. For example, it can write poems, screenplays or essays, answer test questions, compose music, or generate lines of code. ChatGPT is a skilled researcher too, and can phrase and present pages of information from the internet in a matter of seconds, no matter how general or granular the question is.

However, the tool isn’t perfect, and has faced criticism for its uneven factual accuracy, political bias, and inability to answer questions that are worded in a specific way, among other drawbacks.

Content is king for marketers, so it’s inevitable that many businesses will consider using ChatGPT for content marketing purposes. Type in “write a 1000 word blog on SEO” for instance, and it will do just that. But is using the chatbot for content marketing a good idea in reality?

The pros of using ChatGPT for content marketing

It makes research easier

With ChatGPT’s ability to quickly and comprehensively provide information on a topic, it can be a great tool for research purposes. For example, some students have already started to use it to research their dissertations, and it can be just as useful for researching marketing content. Unlike scouring multiple websites to find the information you need, ChatGPT can provide all of the relevant facts in one place.

That said, there are concerns around the accuracy of the information provided by ChatGPT, plus potential bias. However, this is just as true for high ranking web pages on Google (even with the search engine attempting to fight misinformation), making cross-checking vital in any case.

It comes up with ideas

Similarly, ChatGPT can help users brainstorm content ideas in the first instance. Just by asking something along the lines of ‘give me 10 ideas for articles about content marketing’, it will come back to the user with concepts they can potentially use.

It offers content frameworks

Users can even ask ChatGPT to write fully fleshed out articles on their behalf, seeing as it understands how to write complete sentences and paragraphs.

Content marketers should always thoroughly check and edit content created by ChatGPT — more on these drawbacks in a moment — but it can at least provide businesses with comprehensive content frameworks to work with, speeding up the content creation process.

The cons of using ChatGPT for content marketing

It’s not always accurate

One of the biggest issues with ChatGPT is inaccurate information. This is demonstrated by Fast Company writer Harry McCracken, who asked the chatbot what the first TV cartoon was. Unfortunately, ChatGPT came back with different answers every time. For content marketing, propagating misinformation like this can both harm a brand’s authority and search engine optimisation (SEO) efforts.

It has SEO limitations

Speaking of SEO, ChatGPT has many other limitations when it comes to writing optimised content for Google. Users have found that the chatbot doesn’t include a title or subheadings, nor any images. These features are crucial for both keyword optimisation and user experience.

ChatGPT’s content is also unoriginal and relies on pre-existing information. Publishing such content can see a brand inadvertently falling foul of duplicate content, potentially leading to being penalised by Google and suffering drops in online visibility as a result.

It doesn’t have the human touch

Quite simply, ChatGPT just can’t quite write content in the same ways humans can. Although you can ask it to include jokes in a piece of copy, for example, it’s unlikely to be able to write content to align with a specific brand tone or with empathy and context.

Likewise, the tool can’t replicate original thought leadership. It can succinctly summarise existing insights, but ChatGPT won’t be able to share original thoughts. This can be an issue for innovative brands looking to make people think differently and get ahead of their competitors.

Using ChatGPT for content marketing: The verdict

It’s clear that ChatGPT can be a useful tool for content marketing, particularly when it comes to ideation. However, using the chatbot alone for creating content is a big no-no — at least at the moment.

Content created by humans is almost always going to be more accurate, original and better optimised for SEO and user experience. For now, the chatbot should remain another tool in a brand’s content creation toolbox — not the primary producer.