Will Content Marketing Still Matter in a Year From Now?

So much is changing on the internet, and at such an alarming rate, that it begs the question:

Will content marketing still matter in a year from now? With so much happening in AI advancements, and so many new things happening in quick succession, some people wonder whether it is still worth investing in creating content.

Why does content marketing matter?

Unlike paid advertising, your content remains findable on the web. Yes, on some platforms it doesn’t stay visible for long, but on your website, places like Linkedin Articles and Medium, as well as Youtube, your content can be visible for many years to come.

If you keep creating content, it means that – for now, at least – you are creating more and more ways out their to be found, and more ways for you to showcase your expertise, products and services.

It also means that – by consistently showing up, you can prove yourself to be dependable, which in turn leads to more people being willing to trust you, and do business with you.

The reason why business owners are concerned:

AI generated content is flooding the internet. Yes, algorithms everywhere is trying to filter out as much of it as possible, but as the algorithms get better at it, so does AI.

It is also possible to generate ridiculous amounts of content using AI, so it is easy to flood a blog or any social media platform with AI-generated content, and even automate it.

What is likely to happen with content marketing?

1. Algorithms are getting smarter, and getting better at identifying AI generated content. Yes, AI is getting better too, but algorithms will keep finding ways to discern between human content and AI generated content.

No matter how well AI content is written, it will always lack “soul”. The aspects of your content that makes it stand out as real. And yes, for us humans it might be difficult to note the difference, but companies like Google own the smartest computers in the world, so they will figure it out.

2. People are likely to become more picky about what they watch. While people might not be as good as algorithms at discerning between AI and human content, they will still try to avoid AI content as best as they can, especially when searching for information.

Hint: It is likely to be a while before AI can convincingly fake a human being walking, making a selfie video, with the background scenery changing logically. For short form content, that might be the way to go for now.

3. Long form, on-camera content is likely to be seen as more trustworthy. Yes, AI will eventually be able to fake faces, basic facial expressions and voices convincingly…

But only for so long. It is extremely unlikely that AI will – at any time soon – be able to create a headshot video of say, 20 minutes, and not become obvious as AI during that time.

Things to keep in mind about content marketing:

1. Regardless of what happens with AI, you still need to use content to showcase your expertise and build credibility. The compounding effect of creating content on a regular basis is invaluable.

Not only do you build your brand and credibility, but you also build a following – if you publish your content on social media.

2. Answering specific questions is still the easiest way to show up in AI search on search engines. Also, the AI doing the search is likely to be pretty good at detecting AI generated content, and be more critical of it than content created by humans – for a while at least.

3. Social media algorithms mostly share the same approach to distributing content: If you have followers, they will first show the content to a portion of your followers, and see how they interact with the content.

Do some of them like it, comment on it, or share it? If it is a video, how long does the average user look at it for? Also, what percentage of users watch the whole video?

The measurements obtained from the initial views not only determines who your video will be shown to next, but it also to how many people it will be shown.

So, if you have a reasonable following, and they followed you for the right reasons (not because they liked some odd video about a random unrelated topic you uploaded), your followers are likely to provide quick and positive feedback.

As such, it makes sense to continue working on content marketing to – at the very least – maintain your active followers.

In conclusion:

If you give up on content marketing, what is the alternative?

You end up paying for ads. And while there is nothing wrong with paying for exposure, it has one basic flaw: If you ever take a financial knock, and you are unable to spend as much as you usually do on ads, your revenue drops accordingly.

If, however, you have some solid content out there, on platforms like your website, Youtube, Medium, Linkedin Articles and even Pinterest, you can have SOME traffic coming in for quite some time to come, even if you stop creating new content.

Yes, the traffic will be less, but at least you will have some traffic, which sends you some buyers, for nothing.

And if you can create SOME new content, even if it is a lot less frequent, the reduction in what is sent your way won’t be as bad either, because the networks and Google still see you as being “active”.

Think of your content marketing as your safety net.

Not to mention that, if you only use paid ads, it is harder to build trust and establish your expertise and authority.

And THAT is unlikely to change any time soon.