You may be wondering where to start, but don’t worry. Although AI technology is a powerful tool, the implementation process doesn’t have to be complicated.  

In this guide, we’ll present you with a clear path to introducing AI to your daily tasks. We’ll also discuss the many uses that your AI could have within a content creation team.

What do you want to achieve?

The first step towards successfully integrating AI into your existing workflow is to identify your goals. 

For instance, do you want to increase efficiency, improve accuracy, or something else entirely? It’s important to keep this goal as your focus. That way, you can start planning with a clear vision on how best to change and adapt your workflow. 

Once you know what you want to achieve, you can take the next steps. It will become clear what solution would work best for you.

Analyse your current workflow

Before making any drastic changes to how your team works, it’s important to take a close look at your current workflow. 

Through analysing how you work, you can identify areas where AI could streamline processes or reduce errors. Ask yourself and your team about pain points in the content creation process. 

Analyse your existing content creation process, including types of content, production time and team roles. Try to identify bottlenecks, repetitive or time consuming tasks and areas where AI content generation could be beneficial. 

Choose an AI solution that works for you

With so many AI content management tools available, it can be difficult to know which one is right for your needs. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses. As a result, it can seem like a daunting process. 

However, with some careful consideration and planning you can implement this complex technology with lasting positive results. Keep an eye out for features like content creation, topic ideation or content analytics. If you’re still unsure, take advantage of free trials and demos. This will allow you to test the overall functionality of each tool and whether they fit your requirements. 

As a starting point, these are a few factors to consider:

• How much does it cost?

It may seem like an obvious question, but understanding your budget is crucial. Be mindful of any fees associated with certain options. Otherwise, you may end up overspending on something you don’t need, or not having enough funds for something essential. 

• How easy is it to use?

Will your team quickly learn how to use AI for content creation, or will they need in depth training? If your team needs extensive training, it could be a costly exercise that takes up too much time for it to be worthwhile. Make sure the end decision takes into account the overall user experience. 

It is probably wise to allocate some resources to training your team on how to effectively use these new tools. After all, they will have a huge influence on the overall success of the project.

• Is it scalable? 

The demands placed on your new system may seem constant at the moment, but can potentially change from one moment to the next. It’s best to make sure from the outset that it can handle large amounts of data without crashing or slowing down. 

• Is it compatible with your existing technology?

Before you fully commit, make sure you find out whether any existing infrastructure could help reduce your overall costs. Of course, you should still expect this to support modern AI solutions. If not, you may be creating performance issues for your team down the line.

Implementing your chosen AI solution

Once you’re confident that you have made the right decision it’s time to implement your chosen AI into your workflow. 

Before going ahead with a full overhaul of your processes, why not consider a phased approach to AI integration? By starting with using AI tools for one or two tasks in your workflow, your team will soon get used to the new technology. 

Creative teams can now go ahead and use AI to improve or save time on a host of daily tasks. We have outlined a selection to provide inspiration:

• Generating content strategies and outlines

AI tools for content writing can analyse your input and suggest organised outlines, headings and even brief overviews. Tools such as ChatGPT can save both time and resources when brainstorming ideas and provide a structured starting point for your writing. 

• Creating first drafts

An AI writing tool is an ideal assistant for putting together general information when creating a first draft. It could also provide a boost to content creators suffering from writer’s block. 

You can use the time saved from coming up with basic ideas to refine the content and add further insights from trusted sources. 

• Speeding up content research

Content marketers acknowledge that writing one blog post can take up to 3 hours and 51 minutes. But with AI tools, you could save the time spent on initial research and let AI scan online data for you. 

AI can collect relevant facts and background information in a matter of seconds. This means you will have the time to focus on improving your finished content and flexing your creative muscle. 

• Getting instant feedback on content

If you need instant feedback on a piece of content, where do you turn if your team is busy or unavailable? You can use AI tools.

In just a few moments, AI can automatically generate detailed and objective feedback and suggest recommendations. If you require quick feedback on a draft, it can be a useful signifier of how to move forward with it. 

• Repurposing existing content

AI tools can take your original piece of content and reformat it with ease. For example, turning a blog post into engaging content for social media. By tailoring the language, structure and style to suit different platforms, your content can have a wider reach.

However, it is worth bearing in mind that each platform will have its own consumption patterns and audience expectations. You will still need to change your approach depending on what you want to achieve. 

• Clustering keywords

Clustering keywords is an effective way to create more focused content strategies. AI tools such as ChatGPT can quickly organise and brainstorm content centred around clustered themes. This can save a great deal of time when compared to sorting relevant keywords into groups and themes manually.

• Streamlining the editing process

A typo or grammatical error can undermine all of your hard work. But, sometimes finding the time to proofread effectively can be difficult. Things may slip through the cracks, especially during busy times. 

With the help of an AI editing assistant, you can quickly identify and correct typos and unclear phrasing. All while keeping the content in line with the brand style guide and tone of voice. 

• Personalising content for your target audience

Personalising your content to align with the preferences and interests of your target audience can greatly improve engagement. AI tools can analyse data to fine tune and adjust your messaging. This will make sure it resonates with the specific groups you are trying to appeal to. 

Monitoring the performance of your AI

Once you’ve implemented your AI, it’s important to measure whether it is actually helping you to meet your goals. Make sure you track metrics such as content quality, content production time and audience engagement. This way, you will be able to use data to continue to refine your workflow.

AI tools can be a helpful addition to your workflow, but they are not a direct substitute for human-written content. AI content may lack the emotional resonance and empathy to compete with human writers. Some elements may potentially need fact checking before the approval stage. 

Despite the limitations, you shouldn’t be afraid to experiment with different AI tools in order to find the right one for your needs. 

What to avoid when changing your workflow

A common pitfall made by those wanting to optimise their workflow is not taking the time to plan thoroughly. Making changes without considering the outcome might lead to unforeseen issues and delays further down the line. 

It’s also best to try to avoid implementing too many new systems or processes at the same time. It can become difficult to track the success of multiple changes and team members may become overwhelmed. 

Key Takeaways

By implementing AI content technology at certain points in your workflow, you could save a wealth of time and resources. As AI technology continues to change and evolve, so do the number of ways in which content teams could use this tech. The potential for innovating content strategies and output grows with every development.

By introducing AI tools, you are complementing the existing skills and strengths of your team. And as these tools become more advanced, enhancing capabilities and streamlining tasks. 

At the moment AI generated content is most effective when it has human knowledge and creativity to guide it. But the time saved means other creative projects and strategies can flourish. By finding the right AI solution and monitoring the results, you could find your organisation becoming more agile. 

This blog was written for Adzooma with the support of CTI Digital, award-winning Content and SEO services agency. For more insightful tips, please head over to our blog, or get in touch to speak to our team if you have any questions!

But how does one go about achieving this? It’s a good question, and one that we’re going to answer in this helpful guide to attracting and nurturing as many leads as possible in the new year.

1. Integrate SEO into your site marketing

A study in 2019 by the Small Business Administration (SBA) revealed that as much as 36% of small businesses did not have a website. That statistic alone is crazy when you consider the importance of your web presence in the digital age.

Just think, whenever you consider paying for a service or buying a product, the first thing you do is check out the company’s website to establish if it’s a worthy investment.

But you don’t have that problem; you’re a business owner who recognises the value of a website, right?

So, the next step is to ensure that the site is working hard to secure the sale, generating as high a conversion rate as possible — which of course is where SEO comes into play.

SEO stands for ‘Search Engine Optimisation’. It’s an essential aspect of modern marketing and consists of a variety of methods used to increase your visibility and ranking on search engine results pages (SERP).

For these reasons, it’s become one of the most sought after online marketing services for modern businesses. By optimising your website for SEO, when your potential customers search for queries relating to your industry online, your website will appear quicker (hopefully on the first page) and offer them the solution they need.

By making it easier to stumble upon your website, you not only increase your visibility online, but also secure more opportunities to generate leads. To find out more about optimising your website, check out this helpful guide by Moz.

Another way to integrate SEO into your business is by using Adzooma’s SEO Performance Report. The report will analyse your website and identify immediate actions you can take to improve.

The SEO Performance report will give you the tools to: 

• Get ahead of your competitors by finding keywords they’re missing 
• Increase conversions by improving on-site user experience 
• Compliment your campaigns with more organic traffic

The report is available to all Adzooma users, try the basic version for free to get a taste of what this report can offer. Not an Adzooma user? Sign up for free, here.

2. Use marketing automation

We live in an era where, thanks to the advances in technology, automation is becoming more prominent in a vast range of industries —  and marketing is no different.

Today, businesses benefit massively from automated lead generation software. With this software, when a potential customer interacts with your company (such as signing up to a newsletter or requesting a quote), it triggers an automated process, which provides you with the means to nurture leads with targeted marketing resources — but we’ll get to that later.

Automated lead generation is among the most effective online marketing services, as it offers a more streamlined yet highly-effective lead generation tool. Below, we’ll highlight a few of the most useful marketing automation tools.

Email automation

Email marketing automation allows you to maintain contact with potential customers, which helps to keep them engaged and more likely to purchase from you. It also lessens the risk of a competitor making the sale before you do.

Writing and sending multiple emails takes a lot of time as it is; even more so when they need to customised for each prospect. Thankfully, with automated email marketing software, you’ll have more free time to focus on other crucial areas of your business while generating leads at the same time — it’s a win-win. Here are some email marketing tools that you can use:

• SendFox
• Moosend
• Snovio
• Aweber
• Reply

With an automated email marketing campaign in place, you can distribute pieces of content that inform, engage and drive your potential customers down the sales funnel (otherwise known as ‘lead magnets’). But, we’re getting ahead of ourselves here; we’ll discuss email nurturing a little later!

Facebook automated marketing

Facebook is nothing short of a social media phenomenon, and also happens to be one of the most efficient methods of marketing your business. The platform provides marketers with an abundance of information about prospects, such as their location, gender and interests, as well as specific Facebook groups they’re part of, making it the perfect platform for automated marketing.

If you are looking for a way to increase the output and reach of your marketing campaign, automation with Facebook is a brilliant way to increase engagement as well as brand awareness.

When marketing with Facebook, it’s crucial to create ads that inform and engage customers while avoiding content that may disrupt their feed.

It’s easy for a customer to be put off by ads that feel intrusive or out of place on their timelines, which is why the initial steps of automated marketing, such as creating personas, will give you a more precise understanding of your audience and their needs.

Social media is arguably the most powerful marketing tool available, which makes automated online marketing services so essential to ensure success for modern companies.

LinkedIn automated marketing

LinkedIn is a social media platform for professionals in every industry, and it’s also another resource that can be turned into a lead generation tool with the help of automated marketing software. Creating targeted lead generation ads based on LinkedIn activity, profile information, and interactions is a brilliant way to capitalise on such a broad audience.

From a sales prospecting point of view, you could also use LinkedIn automation to extract your contacts data and export the leads to a CRM.

If you want to set up your own LinkedIn lead generation campaign, Hubspot has put together a brilliant guide to help!

3. Nurture your email list

Email nurturing is a marketing strategy that utilises personalised content as a way to connect and develop stronger relationships with potential customers, and eventually convert leads into sales.

The key to a successful email nurturing campaign is getting to know your audience, which is why it’s vital to craft personas that represent your ideal or most common customers. With these personas in mind, you’ll have a blueprint for the style and tone of content best suited to your potential leads.

From here, you can begin to create emails that are tailored to the needs of each persona and distribute them. As an example, let’s use a four-week quote-to-sale email nurturing process:

• Email 1: Your first email will be the response to initial customer interaction. In this case, let’s say it’s a customer who has requested a quote. This first message will be a brief, yet conversational email that highlights the benefits of the service, provides the quote and explains the next step towards purchase.
• Email 2: One week later, your potential customer will receive an informative piece of content which offers a more in-depth insight into why they need your product/service and how it will improve their business/life. The goal here is to inform, and avoid being too pushy with your sales tactic. By educating the reader about the benefits of making the purchase, you’re not telling them to buy — they decide for themselves. 
• Email 3: The next email you send has to offer something of value and genuinely entice the reader to engage. This is where your personas will prove to be vital. For example, if your audience is small business owners, how can you help them? Will your service allow them to grow their business? Will it provide them with free time to focus on other aspects of their company? Identifying the goals and aspirations of your audience will ensure that your targeted content hits the mark.
• Email 4: This is where you revisit the quote in a brief message that reminds them that they were interested enough to request a quote, but are yet to follow up. This, combined with the previous informative and engaging emails, will offer food for thought and serve as a reminder of why they need your product/service in their life. If you want to increase your chances of making the sale, you could even include a small percentage discount code. Everyone loves a bargain! 

Every email nurturing campaign is different, and will vary in regards to the timeframe, style of content and also the general approach you need to adopt. The example above is a shorter email nurturing process, as it’s vital to strike while the iron is hot.

The customer has requested a quote, and there’s a small window of opportunity to ensure that it’s you, and not a competitor, that they commit to. Therefore, it’s critical for you to identify the best approach for your particular needs and the needs of your customers.

If you have an in-house marketing team who can craft a targeted email nurturing campaign for you, fantastic! If not, you may want to seek guidance from a professional digital marketing agency that specialises in this area, and has experience working closely with businesses across many different industries.

Let The Brains take care of your lead gen!

The Brains helps its clients generate high quality leads using online advertising, marketing automation and creative content. Having worked with ambitious businesses such as DHL, McDonald’s, and Corgi and been featured on the BBC, The Brains has what it takes to turn leads into conversions for your business.

Find out more about The Brains on Adzooma Marketplace.

Its influence on advertising is often overlooked but businesses need to focus on AI as technology advances and the benefits become more apparent.

AI has transformed the way in which we choose to advertise, as well as keeping businesses on the ball in an ever-changing world. So, here are some of the things you need to know about AI in the world of advertising.

How is AI used in advertising?

There are a number of ways in which AI is being used in advertising, and these are making all the difference. Here are some of the key ways in which AI is being used in modern advertising:

Search engine analysis

Google, for example, uses an AI system called RankBrain in order to analyse and organise search queries, and this helps provide better and more accurate results. RankBrain is one part of Google’s core algorithm which uses machine learning (ML) to work out what the most relevant results are for any search queries.

Recommendations

Online recommendations use AI to influence the choices we make and it can have an impact on advertising. Consider streaming sites like Netflix, that use Predictive Analytics to be able to offer more accurate recommendations to customers.

User data

Businesses are constantly looking for ways of producing user-friendly ads and relevant content, and this is one of the things AI is massively useful for, as it conducts research and analyses user data to help with this.

Social media

Facebook uses Deeptext to analyse and interpret content and find its meaning. It does this with machine learning and then provides relevant ads to users based on that content.

Read our article on AI’s influence on social media for more.

AI terms you should know

When looking to understand the importance and benefit of AI in the world of advertising, you need to make sure you understand key terms. Here is a list of some of the most important AI terms you are going to need to know.

Algorithms

An algorithm is a set of pre-programmed instructions that a computer will follow in order to achieve a particular outcome. This can be a simple process, but it is something that is actually genuinely used for more complicated problems.

Automation

Automation is the process of using automatic, usually digital, equipment to carry out tasks in the manufacturing and production industry.

Bias

Bias, typically known as AI bias or ‘machine learning bias’ is a phenomenon where data analysis and algorithms produce results that are prejudicial against particular groups of people.

Big data

Simply put, big data is an information asset that requires a new mode of processing in order to gain better insight, make clearer decisions, and adapt and diversify. It is a key component of AI in modern business.

Corpus

Corpus is basically a collection of data that is typically a body of text which is generally labelled with text annotations.

Data mining

Data mining refers to the process of extracting important and pertinent information from data that wasn’t evident or obvious before.

Machine learning (ML)

Machine learning refers to the AI application that provides algorithms that provide systems with the ability to improve and learn automatically without the need to be pre-programmed.

What are the advantages and disadvantages?

It is important to understand the advantages and disadvantages of AI when it comes to marketing and advertising, and these are some of the key things you need to consider.

Advantages

1. It’s more efficient

From a business perspective, one of the key benefits of using AI as part of your marketing strategy is the fact that it is far more efficient than having to deal with things yourself.

2. It’s cost-effective

Another advantage is that you can cut costs and save money by using AI, because it saves you having to hire people to do the same tasks.

3. Personalization

One of the key parts of marketing is trying to make it more personal and meaningful for customers. And AI can do this easily by collecting user information, and contacting them with personal recommendations.

Disadvantages

1. Lack of human interaction

Even in this world dominated by technology it does seem clear that a lot of people still value human interaction, and would still rather talk to a person. This is where AI is flawed as it doesn’t allow for people to do this.

2. Removes the emotional aspect

Another issue here is to do with the lack of emotional involvement that comes with AI. Machines are only capable of making logical, binary decisions, and the human aspect is lost a little with this.

3. Puts jobs at risk

One of the other drawbacks with the use of AI is the fact that it is taking away from a job that a human could be doing, and this can impact unemployment in a negative way.

Is AI going to take over advertising?

It will be interesting to consider how the marketing and advertising industry might look moving forward, as well as how much AI is going to have an impact on it. There are a lot of ideas you need to think about here, and there are so many ways in which AI can (and will) be integrated into the marketing and advertising arenas. In the wake of the global pandemic, we’ve all been facing, it is more important than ever for businesses to take positive steps and do as much as they can to reassess the way they are doing business. This could well lead to AI being integrated more into the business world in the future.

It would seem that there are a lot of advantages to AI in business advertising, and it certainly provides companies with a fast and efficient way of honing their company’s marketing and producing better results. However, this approach is not without its pitfalls, and companies need to make sure they are making the right decisions here. So it is important to think about the pros and cons of this, but there is no doubt that AI is transforming how modern businesses advertise.

With technology advancing at breakneck speed, there are now a number of ways that AI can be used to improve your working day. Streamlining processes such as recruitment, administration and data analysis, intelligent software can prove itself to be an invaluable asset when it comes to assisting a workforce.

But, will AI replace human workers? In short, no – it does have its limits. While it might be a worry, what we’re actually seeing today is a solution for boosting productivity, an opportunity to positively manage a workforce and ultimately, it allows you to better handle the day-to-day operations of the business. If anything, it’s making business MORE human by giving you some breathing space and improving mental health in the workplace.

So, how can Artificial Intelligence help you?

Only 23% of businesses were estimated to have incorporated AI into their processes according to Forbes. But, come the next 5 years, the artificial intelligence market is expected to grow by 50% and regardless of business size, it can be utilised. Below, we’ve highlighted a number of ways that you can integrate AI into your workflow – giving you the chance to bin the menial tasks and focus on the important stuff.

Using AI for recruitment

One of the key areas of your business where artificial intelligence can be implemented is the recruitment process. When your company is ready to hire, you need to be able to create the best pool of candidates as quickly as possible.

Using recruitment agencies for pre-screening is common but can be a costly exercise and is unlikely to offer the same in-depth, personalised analysis that an AI process would. Recruitment agents are essentially profit-driven too, so are likely to tip the scale in their favour when it comes to presenting a candidate to you. This isn’t something AI cares for.

Tools such as Pymetrics use a series of “ethical AI games” to assess a candidate’s cognitive and emotional characteristics, whilst avoiding demographic bias. It can also match the results against existing employees who perform well, giving you a tailored picture of where a candidate might fit within your company. By putting these steps in place, it’s said that it can take 75% less time to hire someone and increase retention by up to 50%.

Give AI the long, boring jobs

There are certain jobs that no one likes but need doing nonetheless. This is where AI can be of real benefit in terms of productivity.

While some might worry this is where they’ll lose their job to a machine, it’s actually expected that there will be net positive job growth into the 2030s as the workforce transitions into higher skilled roles.

Reasons to consider AI for certain roles:

• Speed of execution – AI systems can make millions of decisions simultaneously, unlike a human.
• Less biased – It’s hard not to cast some sort of judgement or biased view as a human. This isn’t a trait AI is capable of, therefore any decision it makes is completely fact-based.
• No saturation point – AI will never burn out or require breaks, meaning the overall time taken to perform a task is significantly reduced.
• Accuracy – No human, means there’s no human error.
• Boredom – Often, errors arise through boredom, it can be difficult to stay focused when it comes to a long, complex task. This isn’t the case for a machine.

So, what jobs might you hand over to AI?

We’re not in any way suggesting you make staff members surplus to requirements in favour of AI, but there are certain roles that can definitely benefit from harmonising their efforts.

Here are four job roles where artificial intelligence can help lighten the load:

Data Analysing

With a need to gather and analyse huge amounts of customer data to spot trends and opportunities, many companies will look to a data analyst to help them stay ahead of the game. With the advent of social media and eCommerce as a whole, there’s been a 344% increase in demand for data scientists since the early 2010s. But with an average salary of $130,000, that’s not always going to be within every company’s budget.

AI tools such as Deloitte’s LaborWise can provide managers with analytics to identify high-cost areas, roadblocks and even provide information about which departments are overworked or understaffed.

Demand Forecasting

Using machine learning systems, you can test mathematical models relevant to your business, predicting changes in demand, supply disruptions and product launches. According to consultancy firm McKinsey, this can reduce supply chain errors through miscalculations by up to 50%.

Administration

Again, we’re not suggesting AI can replace all human aspects of the role, but it can certainly lighten the load. Here are a few tools that can be especially useful for streamlining your administration processes:

X.ai – Connecting all of your calendars, the AI processes will automatically coordinate the best times to arrange meetings, whether internally or when meeting guests.

Otter.ai – Almost like an AI PA system that takes minutes, Otter can create rich notes from meetings, interviews and other important voice conversations – ensuring nothing is missed and all points are covered.

Spoke – Essentially an HR service desk, it can answer questions about pretty much anything HR-related, including leave requests, internal processes. If it can’t, it will direct the question to the appropriate person in your team.

Skype Translator – If you need a conversation translating, it can do so in near real-time. Opening up communications with any foreign market.

MobileMonkey – You can train a chatbot like MobileMonkey to answer frequently asked questions on your website. If it can’t answer, the chat will be directed to a human. Using chatbots can significantly reduce the number of customer queries and 80% of sales and marketing leaders say they already use chatbot software or plan to by the end of 2020.

Marketing

If there’s one area that’s really starting to embrace artificial intelligence, it’s marketing – especially digital. With Google’s implementation of machine learning algorithms such as Natural Language Processing (NLP) for SEO and Smart Bidding for paid advertising, how the industry works is very much geared to favour AI and automation.

Advances in AI and software intelligence is allowing companies to personalise their products and services more effectively, providing a more tailored approach to how they market themselves to consumers. A recent study by Accenture suggests that consumers are responding well to this, with 83% of consumers in the US and UK willing to trust retailers with their data in order to receive more tailored, relevant results.

This willingness from consumers is encouraging and 64% of B2B marketers consider AI to be a valuable asset in their sales and marketing strategy.

Learning with AI

Beyond the recruitment process, we can also use AI to train staff, this can be particularly useful when working with a number of new starters. If your business has a unique way of handling certain tasks, AI can ensure that training is consistent and thorough. There are a few AI tools that can be used for on-site training, here are two examples that are worth looking into:

• Coaching tools such as Chorus can analyse sales calls as they happen, offering real-time tips to sales reps as required. This means there should be little need for shadowing and the sales rep is able to learn at their own pace and experience the training “on the job”.
• A similar tool called Cogito can offer real-time advice while making a call but focuses more on mindfulness and your approach. For example, when learning a new role it’s quite common to speed up in conversation due to nerves, this tool can remind you to “slow down”.

The future of AI

The integration of AI seems inevitable, whether we like it or not. As more and more businesses seek to embrace technology and automation, to avoid it could mean you’re left out of the game.

Those that have integrated AI into their workflow strategy are reaping the rewards when it comes to speed, efficiency and accuracy despite concern that it could mean an end to human jobs. At the heart of the matter, those jobs that were traditionally time-consuming, resource-intensive or laborious, are now being transformed into stronger, more highly skilled positions.

We are not affiliated with nor do we earn any money from the brands or tools mentioned in this piece. You’re more than welcome to use the artwork for your own content, all we ask in return is that you credit Adzooma for production.

2020 has been a rollercoaster, there’s no doubt about that. But while it might feel like the world is burning, advancements in consumer technology continue to blister on. New gadgets are being developed all the time and young Youtubers are eagerly awaiting the latest must-have toys to fawn over, and this got us thinking…

Can we “predict” what the top selling gadgets and toys of 2020 will be using AI?

So, we decided to have a little fun with it… because, well… why not?! Using a simple open source GPT-2 text generator we input collated data which highlighted the top-selling tech and toys right back to the 1970’s; we were then able to come up with a list of “product” names.

Okay great, let’s design them!…

Taking the names generated, we set to designing what we thought they might look like and of course none of these are real, but we think some of these products NEED to happen!

Can AI predict buying trends? Absolutely. Can AI help steer a market? Of course. Is AI capable of being politically correct and mindful of what could be considered sensitive subjects? Hmmm… not so much.

Here are seven of our favourite “predictions”, let us know which ones would have you running to the shops (or away from them, we’ll let you decide that).

Tear It Out!

There’s a good chance you’ve played Kerplunk at some point in your life, but never has it felt so relevant. A stellar crossover between the classic game and early onset male pattern baldness, Tear It Out! is the one game that surely epitomises this year. The first half of 2020 has definitely left many of us ready to go full Britney – alright, we know she shaved it off, but let’s not split hairs (pun intended). So, if strategic hairplucking is what gets you going then this is the game for you, just try not to lose your marbles while you’re doing it!

Goggle

Does anyone apart from your gran still play Boggle? Probably not, but that doesn’t mean “the original word search game” can’t have a facelift! Dragging it kicking and screaming into the 21st century, Goggle is all about the great wide interweb – with a splash of #yolo there and a pinch of #tbt here, your hashtag game will be on fleek in no time.

Hey Snowflake!

Struggling to empathise with the right-wing boomers of social media? If you’re ready to call out the liberal lefties and fed up of all those young ‘un’s thinking they know better than you, then Hey Snowflake! is what you need to Make [insert country] Great Again! (think Cards Against Humanity but more condescending and offensive).

Hairy Babies

If Annabelle and Bigfoot reproduced, this is surely what you’d get, no? Available in 4 different shades of real yeti hair (all ethically sourced), Hairy Babies are the perfect gift for any kid you don’t like. With a cute button nose and eyes that want to kill you, each doll is anatomically correct and fully posable, just make sure you keep it locked away at bedtime using the chain and padlock supplied. You’ve been warned.

Pocketwatch Pro

Move over iPhone, things are about to get hipster! Take your waistcoat game to the next level with the latest tech release – fusing classic steampunk vibes with just the right amount of everything you’d expect from a phone/watch thing. You might fight for anti-materialism, but we live in a tech driven world so needs must, right? We’re certain you’ll be the envy of all your counter-culture cronies with the Pocketwatch Pro. Handlebar moustache required.

The Oasis Project

“The new normal” is something we’re hearing a lot of at the moment, but the new normal isn’t really all that appealing… So why not create your own? Go full Black Mirror and step into your own little virtual world with The Oasis Project, let go of the real world stresses and build the life you can only dream of. Want that big house by the sea with steps down to a private beach… it’s yours! Want to surround yourself with 300 fluffy kittens… go for it! Do whatever makes you happy, but be careful, it’s addictive and you might not want to come back…

Amazon Homebrew

It’s a yes from us! Download the app, choose your ingredients, watch it brew and voila! Your very own beer delivered to your doorstep (or chucked over your back fence if you’re not at home). We want this and we want it NOW!

We’ve loved working on this project and it definitely produced some products we’re sure could be a big hit if only they were real. The seven we designed were by no means all that the generator came up with so, here’s a few others that we loved and we’re certain you will too:

Don’t Touch It! – A board game you have to play with your elbows, with no more than 6 players and you have to stand two metres apart at all times or you lose.

G-Force Mask – The OG of protective faceware, made using highly developed synthetic fibers and components akin to those found on the nose cap of the latest SpaceX shuttle – nothing is getting through this bad boy.

Sega Polaris – Like a phoenix rising, Sega’s re-entry into the console market. Cloud-based gaming with classic characters such as Sonic, Alex Kidd and Joe Musashi ready to give you all the nostalgic feels. We’re here for it!

“There is a fear of not working and a fear of working. It puts people in very, very difficult situations”.

It’s a tough time for many professions.

Tens of thousands of people have lost their jobs and thousands of others have been furloughed. Just one month ago, 25% of people had already missed, or were expecting to miss, an upcoming payment, and now half of UK households believe they will struggle to make ends meet over the next three months.

Financial pressures are higher than ever. It’s crucial that we come together and offer support and advice to the people around us.

If you’re a business owner looking for expertise, one of the ways we can help is through our brand new Marketplace. The innovative platform puts you in touch with expert digital marketing agencies that are ready to help businesses like yours.

If you’re an employee in search of a job, we’ve put a list together below. In addition, if you’re interested in one of the industries but aren’t yet qualified, we’ve included some of the most useful resources online to help enhance your skills.

UK

In no particular order:

1. SEO/SEM Marketers

Search Engine Journal described SEM (search engine marketing) as “the unsung hero and the secret weapon for today’s growth marketing leaders” in 2018. Imagine what it’s like now with tens and thousands of businesses transitioning online. After all, with 81% of people searching online for a product or service, it can drive much more value than people realise.

The best thing? SEO doesn’t just improve a website. It improves the amount of traffic being driven to that site. It increases click-through rates and boosts conversions. It is a contributor of increased profits – giving you the chance to showcase your skills through data and optimised performance.

Key resources:

• The one-hour guide to SEO
• How to become an SEO expert
• HubSpots introductory training course and certifications
• Free SEO Specialisation enrollment

2. Artificial intelligence scientists/architects

AI isn’t just revolutionising the tech industry. But that’s because it’s already taken over the landscape and streamlined processes far beyond our imagination. For these automations to continue, the number of AI-related jobs has to rise.

On LinkedIn, there are currently 4,000+ results for artificial intelligence jobs in the United Kingdom. In the past 24 hours, 138 have been added. The past month? 2,776. A lot of the roles are much more specialised, i.e. “Quantum Machine Learning Scientist” and “Deep Learning Research Scientist”, providing opportunities to become an expert in a single area of AI.

Key resources:

• The basics of AI and how it can be used
• Artificial intelligence in 9 minutes
• 6 of the best AI courses recommended by Forbes
• Recommended AI courses in a comparison chart

3. Data protection/Cyber security officer

According to the ICO, there were 41,000 complaints to the Information Commissioner’s Office in the first year GDPR was implemented. That’s a huge workload that wouldn’t have been fulfilled without hiring more staff.

Now, as more businesses run online, increased privacy concerns calls for more talent to take on roles such as a Data Protection Officer and Cyber Security Specialist. Data also shows that the number of data breaches increased by over 50% from 2018-2019, which, when paired with the economic impact of Covid-19, explains the number of opportunities in this sector.

Key resources:

• A career guide to becoming a Data Protection Officer
• What working in cyber security is really like, from experts
• Ultimate guide to starting a cyber security career
• The best online cyber security courses 2020

4. IT support professionals

If you thought the figures above were high, there are more than 44,000 IT Support jobs currently being advertised on LinkedIn. 2,135 were added in the past 24 hours, and 11,155 in the past week. Clearly, making sure your business is running efficiently has never been more important.

One of the best things about being a qualified IT Support professional is that you aren’t tied down to one industry. Businesses worldwide require assistance to maintain their computer systems and solve issues before they evolve – increasing the likelihood of a more permanent position during this time.

Key resources:

• IT help desk training and resources
• How to teach yourself basic IT support
• Entry requirements, skills, training, and opportunities
• Free Google IT Support Professional Certificate

5. Business intelligence analysts

There’s always room for someone to manage the data. In fact, this role can be the difference between success and failure for a lot of companies. An advert from HSBC states these roles are “at the centre of how transformation shapes, delivers and embeds change working with the business and our delivery partners”.

Popular brands such as Tesco and Co-op are also seeking a Business Intelligence Analyst. Most of them require a proven track record in similar positions, experience using different servers, and more, but it’s a great role to work your way into if you’re interested in business.

Key resources:

• 5 steps to becoming a Business Analyst
• Business Analyst learnings and advice
• Top Business Analyst courses and tutorials online
• Free Business Analyst training and Ebooks

US

6. Data Scientists

Data scientists ranked #1 on GlassDoor for the best 50 jobs in America in 2019. In the same year, Forbes suggested that the overall demand for data science experts is projected to grow approximately 39% and will reach 2,720,000 jobs. It’s a career worth having a look at.

In general, the role of a Data Scientist often has a wide range of responsibilities, though all of them evaluate data to provide creative insight. If you’re interested in identifying valuable data sources, machine-learning algorithms, and discovering insightful trends and patterns, data science could be perfect for you.

Key resources:

• The best path to becoming a Data Scientist
• What is a Data Scientist and what do they do?
• The best free online data science courses in 2020, by Forbes
• Free data science and data analytics courses

7. Software Developers

Similar to Data Scientists, Software Developer roles can start at entry-level with the opportunity to be promoted to more of a senior role. This makes it a great choice if you’re looking for a new challenge, to progress in your career, and are willing to put in the work.

Data also shows that 44% of developers have no related academic qualifications to being a developer. 41% of people actually have a Bachelor of Science, and 12% a Masters in Computer Science, which suggests you could be considered if you don’t have an ultra specific background.

Key resources:

• How to become a Software Developer without a degree
• Going from a newbie to a Software Developer in 9 months
• The fastest way to become a Software Developer
• Free Software Development courses online

8. DevOps engineers

Before a role titled ‘DevOps’ scares you away, know that the base salary for this role is $99,604 in the United States. In other words, all of the technical work and analysis can be worth it.

GlassDoor is also advertising 27,008 open jobs for a DevOps role, 2,881 which have been added in the past 24 hours and 10,011 in the past week. Common responsibilities are all based online, such as deployment automation, ITSM onboarding, and providing full application development support, which could make it a secure option during the pandemic.

Key resources:

• How to become a DevOps Engineer in 6 months or less
• A cheat sheet to becoming a DevOps Engineer
• 5 ways to make yourself marketable as a DevOps Engineer
• 8 best DevOps training and certifications

9. Solutions architects

In 2018, CNBC described the Solutions Architect as “a role that offers true salary and consistently beats inflation is a rare gem”. There were 62,000 open positions for this job on Glassdoor at the time, compared to a huge 71,157 now. If we dig deeper into the positions, over a quarter of these have been added in the past week, at a sheer 26,689.

However, Solutions Architects do have a vitaljob. Managing complex processes to solve business problems using technology, and defining features, phases, and solution requirements are just some of the common responsibilities.

Key resources:

• The strategic role of a Solutions Architect
• What’s it like to be a Solutions Architect at Amazon Web Services (AWS)?
• Free Solutions Architect courses and tutorials
• Free AWS certification training

10. UX designer

A lot of the roles mentioned above focus on the ‘behind the scenes’ of a business. But as tens of thousands of businesses look to grow their business online, the role of a UX designer cannot be underestimated. For example, 48% of users see web design as an indication of a businesses credibility.

UX designers are responsible for providing meaningful user experiences through the look and feel of a website. As well as focusing on creating products that are usable, they also concentrate on other aspects of the user experience, such as pleasure, efficiency and fun, making it a pretty exciting and rewarding role.

Key resources:

• A 2020 guide to becoming a UX Designer
• How to become a UX Designer without experience or a Degree
• 1:1 with a Google UX Designer
• Top free UX Design courses and tutorials

Become an expert in your field

There are endless opportunities to kickstart your career during this difficult time. If you don’t have the essential skills or qualifications, click one of our key resources above or do a quick search to find exactly what you’re looking for.

If the problem is that you’re feeling discouraged or overwhelmed, most definitely look back at our key resources. You’ll see that the Software Engineer at Uber, the multinational car company valued at $75.5 billion last year, learned everything he knew in just 9 months – while working full time.

Find the subject you’re most interested in, see what the role requires, and start putting in the work. It’ll all be worth it in the long-run.

What is artificial intelligence?

Artificial intelligence (often shortened to AI) is a branch of computer science that aims to create machines that automate certain tasks and make them more efficient. AI is used in hundreds of industries around the world in different forms:

• Factories use robots to automate streamline processes and production
• Recruitment agencies use AI in intelligent software which helps to boost productivity
• AI is perfect for forecasting, useful in industries that need data on supply and demands and finding the best time to launch products

Social media users and the platforms themselves use AI extensively. For example, people have been using AI models as “influencers”. One such AI-generated influencer, Miquela, has over 2 million Instagram followers with the kind of feed that’d make a human influencer jealous.

The science of social media networks

When looking deeper into social media networks, you’ll start to see the science behind them. Used as a way to not only identify how users interact but as a method of identifying how companies can target consumers, there are so many elements that go into each application.

The technology

AI can facilitate the sharing of information, thoughts and ideas and give users quick access to content. That includes their own personal information, photos, and documents and content from news feeds.

Facebook, for example, uses a tool called Deeptext to interpret posted content and find its meaning. It does this with machine learning and then provides relevant ads to users based on that content.

Utilising a range of languages and operating systems including Python, PHP, JavaScript, and Linux, social networks can automate processes with increasing ease. It happens so fast, you’d think it was instant.

The psychology

Social media has had a profound effect on psychology. We spend hours scrolling through different pages, wanting to stay up to date with the latest information so we don’t feel left out (known as FOMO). When we post, we rely on three parts of our neural systems, according to a paper by Dar Meshi, Diana I. Tamir, and Hauke R. Heekeren:

• Social cognition (how people process, store, and apply information about other people and social situations)
• Self-referential cognition (how people process, store, and relating information to themselves, usually from external sources)
• Social reward processing (how people process the rewards we get from interacting with people and social situations)

On the topic of social media’s effect on how we think, author Nicholas Carr said:

“What psychologists and brain scientists tell us about interruptions is that they have a fairly profound effect on the way we think. It becomes much harder to sustain attention, to think about one thing for a long period of time, and to think deeply when new stimuli are pouring at you all day long. I argue that the price we pay for being constantly inundated with information is a loss of our ability to be contemplative and to engage in the kind of deep thinking that requires you to concentrate on one thing.”

Nicholas Carr, author of The Shallows: How The Internet Is Changing Our Brains

With these kinds of behaviours, along with other social and emotional influences that are picked up by social media networks, a never-ending AI-influenced cycle continues to spin with its users in the middle.

Customer behaviour

When looking more deeply into how businesses use them, you can clearly see the effect on customer behaviour. Businesses use social network graphs to adapt their social media strategy so that it suits their respective platforms. This, along with a better understanding of the psychology behind interactions and sharing on social media, marketers can develop content that generates higher conversion rates and build trust between them and their client base.

Benefits of AI in social media

Already, you’ll probably be aware of the ways in which social media marketing can benefit your business. But by effectively using AI in social media, there is a whole host of other benefits that you can take advantage of.

Automation

One of the biggest advantages of using AI in social media is its automation capabilities. Whether this is in automating content creation, content curation or another process, it will make your business far more productive. How? Well, not only will it speed up processes so that it can be ‘delivered’ to customers far quicker, but it will give your employees more time to spend on other aspects of their roles.

Other examples of tasks to automate in social media management:

• Social listening
• Social engagement
• Content scheduling
• Content republishing
• Analytics tracking

If you’d prefer not to use a tool, you can always use a social media marketing service to do it for you and many of the best agencies use AI at the core of their processes.

Measuring of performance

Another huge benefit of AI in social media is that it allows marketers to analyse and track every step that they take. From identifying the performance of an ad to tracking user-engagement and invaluable insights into content, it’s an advance in technology that businesses appreciate. Tools like Hootsuite, for example, give powerful insights to users about their customers and their choices.

But be warned: AI isn’t perfect. The data it uses comes from humans and if there’s any bias in the inputted data, there’ll be bias in the output.

Optimised content

As mentioned above, AI can do a great job of optimising social media content thanks to machine learning. By learning from the generated data, ML systems can create high-quality patterns that better content in the future.

How is AI used in social media?

AI is a key component in almost every social media network today. Let’s dive into how Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and Pinterest utilise it in further detail:

Facebook

Facebook uses a variety of AI tools to heighten each user’s experience. Not only can they use that data to generate suggestions, but through machine learning, they use facial recognition that allows tag suggestions. This is particularly useful for businesses that want to target customers to gain recognition and gain publicity.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is another social media network that has long been using AI in their everyday processes. Its technology provides connection suggestions, targets posts to users, offers specific job recommendations and showcases better candidates for employers.

LinkedIn Talent Solutions is LinkedIn’s employer “marketplace” where they can find potential candidates for their job listings. Using AI with its LinkedIn Recruiter product, it creates “talent pools”.

Instagram

The first way that Instagram uses artificial intelligence is seen on its Explore page. Picking up trending posts and stories due to the hashtag that’s used, it presents them to you in a neatly wrapped package.

In 2016, the company changed its algorithm so its news feed was more value-based, rather than chronologically ordered, although that change has proved controversial. In its current format, the algorithm is optimised for each user, based solely on their preferences.

Pinterest

The main reason why so many users love Pinterest is because of the personalised content that it shows. An aspect that requires AI to work, without it, it’s fair to say that the network wouldn’t be as successful.

However, another example of how they use AI is through the new feature – Pinterest Lens. Through this application, it allows users to take a photo. Once this action is carried out, aspects of it are decoded, from the shape to colours. Based on the information gathered, it shows related results to the user.

The algorithms of social networks

Each social network uses a different algorithm and although we’ve briefly touched on these above, let’s go into a bit more detail.

Starting with Facebook, throughout the years their algorithm has changed depending on certain factors including trends and the demands of their users.

After recent changes, Facebook announced they wanted to use ranking signals in order to increase customer engagement. The overarching algorithm takes into account a user’s past behaviour through who they interact with, the media they post and how popular it was. Making the platform more transparent, they are now offering user’s more control over what appears on their homepage.

For Instagram alongside utilising AI within their algorithm to showcase trending posts on the home page, they also introduced a way of identifying spam and comments that are thought to be harmful.

This is done through the aforementioned DeepText technology. Moderating the content, it’s a step that’s valuable to both everyday users and marketers as it means that only genuine users can find their page. This is particularly important at the moment, as so many fake followers and trolls are constantly on the networking site.

Another feature that Pinterest introduced within their algorithm is PinSage. Based on neural networking, it ensures that every search you enter is related to the particular theme that you wanted to find. Not only is this convenient to users as it only shows them useful content, but for businesses as they are able to post content with high ranking keywords.

Competitive analysis

Businesses post on social media a lot – it’s just a fact. And because of this, it makes it easy for their competitors to create content based upon what content is already out there.

For example, if you’re thinking of creating a social media post, you could go onto your competitor’s page to see what they have already done. Staying ahead and countering their efforts, you can remain on top.

But as well as traditional social media monitoring tools (e.g. as a tool that alerts you when a business uploads a particular post), you can now use tools that have AI built-in. These give you the benefit of being able to identify any complaints on posts as it captures every social media post surrounding your competitor.

Social listening

Another element of social media in which AI is making a big impact is social listening. To put it simply, social listening is a technique that’s used to monitor a business’ social media channels. Picking up any mentions of the brand, related discussions or customer feedback, it’s something that’s available to do on all social media networks.

Through social media listening tools, organisations are able to efficiently analyse millions of conversations and effectively identify any patterns within the data. They can then use these insights to inform their customer service efforts, product development and overall marketing strategy.

A more efficient way of discovering this information, it’s replacing more traditional methods such as interviews and surveys.

Linking with this, is how AI can measure social sentiment. Through the use of Natural Language Processing (NLP) and computational linguistics, social media is able to analyse all of the social data it collects.

Image recognition

Image recognition technology that has AI within it will efficiently detect a brand’s exposure and allow for better metrics. Enabling companies to increase their visual appeal and aesthetic to customers on a more personal level, it increases engagement in the long run.

A technology that’s looking to transform social media marketing, it’s one that you shouldn’t ignore.

AI in social media analytics

Businesses will be pleased to know that there is now a variety of tools available that use AI in order to analyse social data. From consumer intelligence platforms to consumer feedback analysis tools, these enable businesses to gather the data before learning from it.

A web tool that shows exactly which social sites are driving the most traffic to your website, it will also help you to make long-term goals and make intelligent decisions – things that will benefit your company, as it could lead to higher revenue and profits.

Natural language processing (NLP)

NLP is a branch of AI centred on the interaction between humans and computers using natural language. Google is a major proponent of NLP and has an API for people to test it out. It allows not only for translation and word processing but to enable social listening, for the extraction of information and for customer service chatbots amongst other useful tools. Assisted by sentiment analysis, it allows businesses to market products more effectively.

Improves influencer strategies

Lastly, AI can be used within social media as a way of improving influencer strategies. A popular and effective marketing technique within the industry, it aims at boosting ROI and organic reach. But is only effective when it’s used correctly.

So how is AI helping with this? Well, AI allows marketers to choose influencers that are suitable to promote their products. Scanning through the millions that are available on the social media network, it makes the process far quicker. Something that’s essential along with regular management, you’ll know that you’re on the way to a successful influencer strategy that generates leads.

Need help with your social media?

Managing your social media platforms can be quite a time-consuming task. Here are our top social media management companies/tools that you can use to help:

• Crowdfire
• PromoRepublic
• POSTOPLAN
• Taplink
• Iconosquare
• Brand24

Final thoughts

Those are just a few examples of how AI works behind the scenes to influence social media networks. Something that will continue to change as the technology develops and evolves, the future is exciting for any business that’s harnessing it.

A fundamental part of how you increase customer engagement, generate leads and grow your brand, without it, it’s clear that your influence within the network would not be as powerful.

Day 1 featured workshops throughout the day, focused on building a sustainable future, learning to build websites from scratch, and how to negotiate with confidence.

Day 2 was conference day with a variety of talks covering the future of design, design thinking, digital curation, privacy, accessibility, and plenty more.

(There was a third day of events including a run club, coffee & photo walk, and a football tournament but we didn’t attend those.)

What is New Adventures Conference (NAConf)?

New Adventures Conference is a future-focused digital design conference held once a year. It was established in 2011 and ran until 2013 before taking a break and returning in 2019. 2020’s edition is the fifth event so far and with a possibility of more per year.

The event is run by Simon Collison and Geri Coady, with help from members of the design industry and volunteers.

What was the best piece of advice you got from NAConf?

Simba: Cennydd Bowles advising to design beyond the user and design for the future, to not just design “things” but also design with the wellbeing of future generations in mind. (Protopia)

Luke: “Clarity is scarce” from Florence Okoye and “designing for advocacy, not inclusion” from Akil Benjamin of COMUZI.

Adam: “Not all things need saving, sometimes they just need to exist” from Liz Jackson and “clarity is scarce” from Florence Okoye.

What was your favourite moment of the conference?

Simba: Tatiana Mac‘s mind-blowing breakdown of the origin of the binary system and code-based language and linking it back to its initial use as a weapon of bigotry and prejudice.

Luke: Tatiana Mac’s talk. When I knew she’d be there, I scrambled to get a ticket and it was the best talk I’ve ever been to. I learnt so much and loved how it linked concepts I knew with history I wasn’t aware of.

What was your favourite talk?

Simba: Tatiana “The Gawd“ Mac.

Luke: Tatiana Mac’s, hands down. Probably the best talk I’ve ever seen.

Adam: Most of the talks resonated with me. Tatiana’s took me on an emotional rollercoaster, Cennydd opened my eyes further, but Akil’s talk spoke to me on a personal level; it made me look at how I could progress.

Were there any recommended tools or systems from NAConf that you plan to use or actions you plan to take?

Simba: To create, be pro-independent blogging, and avoid blogging on platforms like Medium for ownership of your own content.

Luke: Laura Kalbag’s talk made me more conscious of cookies and internet privacy. She also recommended switching.software which gives you a collection of privacy-conscious alternatives to popular software.

Adam: Trying to think and visualise in a physical space. We’ve already taken steps to get wall-mounted boards for writing and sketching on, so I’m looking forward to throwing my thoughts on it with a variety of bright coloured pens.

Favourite piece of merchandise?

Simba: My Sketch badge.

Luke: My NAConf 2020 badge.

TL;DR

• Discover how automation can cut hours of manual work from your PPC campaigns each week.
• Google’s Automated Rules and automated scripts are underdeveloped and require a lot of resources.
• The step-by-step instructions to easily set up ‘set and forget’ automation rules in minutes with Adzooma.

Why do you need automation?

Adzooma’s automation simply streamlines the painstaking tasks in the backend of your Google Ads account (bid adjustment, budget allocation, conversion tracking etc.) and allows you more time to focus on the human, high-level strategies that AI cannot achieve.

Can I use Google Ads for Automation?

Unfortunately, it’s notoriously underdeveloped. Google is investing a lot of resources into improving it, but it’s not there yet. It hasn’t got the functionality to give you the best bids for your campaigns.

Can I use automated scripts?

Yes, but they require one of your team to be fluent in Javascript as they need to be manually created. In addition, as soon as a Google update is pushed live, you’ll need to make sure your script is able to handle it. Which means constantly updating the script to ensure it’s working.

You don’t need to manually create scripts with Adzooma. All the technology you need is at your fingertips, ready for you to use with no coding experience required. What’s more, it’s automatically updated so you never have to worry about a Google update again.

How to create automated rules with Adzooma

Creating rules with Adzooma is quick and easy. Get started by selecting the ‘Automation’ tab at the top.

The automation tab

This is where all of your automation rules are kept. You’ll see all of the rules you’ve set up in a list like so:

If it’s highlighted in red, this means it’s been triggered recently.

Starting over from the left, the first column tells you the status of your rule. If it’s green, it’s active. If it’s orange, it’s been paused. You can change the status of any rule by simply clicking on this dot and selecting the option you need.

The second column shows the name of your campaigns.

The third column shows you at which level the rule is set, whether it’s:

• Campaign
• Ad Group
• Keyword
• Advert

Not sure? Just hover over the letter and Adzooma will tell you.

The fourth ‘action’ column shows you at a glance what actions are running for each rule. The circular arrow symbol means that the budget or status of your campaign will be changed. The bell symbol means you’ll be notified.

The fifth ‘Last Ran’ column tells you when this automation was last carried out. So you can see immediately what changes are happening to your campaigns.

Finally, there’s an edit button. This allows you to make changes to any of your rules in seconds.

Creating an automated rule

There’s no easier way to set up automation rules than with Adzooma. Let us show you how, with a step by step example of creating your first automation rule.

Step 1

Click the ‘New Automation Rule’ button in the top right corner.

Step 2

Give your rule a name. In this example, we’ve called it ‘Pause advert when clicks are below 10’. From this, we’re sure you’ll get a good idea what rule we’re going to set up.

Step 3

Select which level and specific parts of your campaign you want the rule to apply to. For this example, we wanted to apply it to one specific advert in our ‘Premium Space Boots’ campaign.

Want to select all? Just tick the checkbox at the top.

Step 4

Select the date range of data you want to use. For this example, we’re setting up a custom range of one day.

Step 5

Set the event that will trigger your rule.

For this rule, we’ve set it to trigger when the clicks for this advert are less than 10.

If you want to add more, simply click the ‘Add Another Condition’ button to the left. You can customise your rules however you want. Step 6. Now, you just need to specify what you want to happen to your campaigns if this event is triggered. In this example, we’ve chosen to pause the campaign as it’s not performing and leaving it running would waste our budget.

Step 7

Once you’re happy, click ‘Save Rule’.

It’s that easy. Adzooma will take care of everything else, notifying you via the app or email when it’s been triggered. Which means you can sit back and focus on other parts of your business.

Ready to get started?

Create your first automation rule today.

Take Amazon as an example. If you’ve logged in to Amazon recently you may have noticed sections entitled ‘Related to items you’ve viewed recently’ or ‘Inspired by your shopping trends’. That’s a perfect example of machine learning making personalised suggestions based on your past behaviour.

Spotify does it too. They’ll make song and artist suggestions based on tracks that you’ve listened to previously.

But, is that as far as the technology can go?

I’m sure we’ve all been staring at a blank screen, fully into writer’s block and wishing that there was something that uses machine learning to write the words for us.

In the case of content creation, machine learning should work like this:

1. We give it data.
2. The program analyses this data and “learns” it, using it to predict what to write.
3. We get content!

Note the emphasis on should there. The point is that machine learning is growing at an incredible rate, but we don’t know if it’s quite there yet.

To see what’s out there, we tested some of the available options on the market to see how good they are – and whether the content they made was good enough to publish or not.

What is machine learning?

Machine learning is the science of computers improving themselves through repeated tasks and algorithms. It’s one of the most well-known forms of AI and powers a lot of the systems used in digital marketing. A significant benefit of machine learning is allowing systems to “learn” from its data, to find patterns, and make better decisions that humans may have missed.

However, it’s important to note that the data it learns from is dependent on who inputs it and what the data contains. If you input biased data into a system, the output will be biased too. Bias in machine learning is something data scientists attempt to remove to avoid harm society.

No – machine learning is not a threat

Machine learning and AI as a whole get mixed responses. Some people don’t trust it, preferring to rely on humans, who obviously never make a mistake.

Others are threatened by it. They think that if a robot can do their job better and more accurately than them, then what is the use for them now?

And this clearly isn’t helped by headlines like ‘technology has already taken over 90% of the jobs humans used to do’. But you can’t just skim the headlines. When you look deeper, you’ll actually start to notice the jobs that technology has taken over.

Firstly, there are things that we often forget. Take NASA for example. In the days before calculators were invented, they employed people to do the maths by hand. This is how they calculated space trajectories – yet today it would be unheard of to not trust a machine to help out.

It’s more accurate. It’s faster. It’s how we’ve gone from the moon to landing rovers on other planets.

The point is: technology and AI may have closed some doors. But they’re opening others that didn’t exist before. 20 years ago you wouldn’t have dreamed of someone’s job role to be creating online videos on YouTube.

Things change. It’s up to you to embrace it and get on the winning side of AI. Done right, it can simplify tasks, remove inaccuracies and save you time every single week.

Content generators hitting it out of the park

There are some cases that this works a treat. A great example of this is The Associated Press (AP) use of machine learning to automatically create write up posts of minor league games. 

How? With data. It uses game statistics from official minor-league statisticians at MLB Advanced Media and Natural Language Generation (NLG) technology to create legible posts that accurately run through the game.

This is great for building local interest and gives them more coverage – as these games were too minor to typically be covered by a real-life human journalist.

You can read some on AP, or the Minor League Baseball website.

These posts are factual. They’re accurate. They do the job they were supposed to. But they lack one critical thing that we might never be able to replace: creativity and emotion.

So, can machine learning create awesome content?

Here’s what we found using these 4 different machine learning generators:

Talk to Transformer

Talk to Transformer is a free content generator tool that tried to finish a piece of text from a snippet.

‘One of the hardest digital marketing challenges small businesses face is getting noticed online.’

Hitting go, this is what we got back:

And yeah, this isn’t publishable.

This story (obviously) never happened, and even though the words sound right, they make no sense.

I mean, in this story, something wasn’t working, so they took their entire website down. Bit of an overreaction, but okay. The consequence of that? Their website might be taken down.

Although saying that, I love the sentence “if you don’t know your market and your industry, you will probably not know much about it”. Brilliant.

Our takeaway

This tool is nowhere near ready to replace actual humans yet.

But, it can be used to spark ideas for you to write yourself. Just don’t spend hours using the bot to create fake stories. That’s not saving you time, that’s procrastinating.

Article Generator

Article Generator is a little more in-depth. You supply the keyword you want your content to rank for and select options from the drop-down menu.

Once you’re ready, it will generate complete, fully-fledged articles. This surprisingly also included images to illustrate the point it was making.

For this test, we went for a generic and broad keyword of SEO. The three articles we got back were:

• The Business of Enterprise SEO: Mastering People, Process & Platforms
• SEO: How Google Reads and Renders JavaScript
• Video: Rand Fishkin on the early days of SEO and starting and leaving Moz

Generally, these sound like regular topics you would see on a blog. The third one about Rand Fishkin is more specific and works more as a PR piece, rather than generic content about SEO.

It was an odd coincidence that we got his name supplied back after we just discussed Rand’s fictional collaboration album with Beyoncé [PDF]. Confused? Keep reading to the end and you’ll totally get why this was on our minds.

Ignoring this one, for now, we had a closer look at the other two.

Generally, they all made sense. It included stats, which was incredible. Such as “according to Google Consumer Insights, 84% of Americans are shopping in any given 48-hour period, in up to six different categories.”

Unfortunately, the writing wasn’t perfect. 

Some parts are a bit clunky that don’t flow. It’s like someone copied and pasted bits and pieces from all over the internet without any real thought about the article as a whole.

Which is exactly what it is. There’s an option to create unique content on the homepage, but you’ll need to pay for this option. But considering what we got from the free version, we wouldn’t rush to get our wallets out just yet.

There’s no real clear goal or point from each article. They give you stats and figures and pieces of information. But, they don’t tell you what it means, why it’s important or what you can do with it.

Our takeaway

This tool is good for generating content ideas and making a start with your posts. But it shouldn’t be used as the final picture.

The information needs to be understood and rewritten in a way to give value to your customers. It needs to be something they will actually want to read, rather than just a cut and pasted piece of text that does nothing for your business.

Articoolo

Next up on the list is Articoolo.

To use this, you need to first sign in and register for an account. Once you do, you’re prompted to describe the topic you want your article on and choose a maximum word count. This only goes up to 500 words though, so it can’t be used for longer form blogs.

You only have 2-5 words to put into the box, so you can’t get too specific either. For this test, we used “Small business SEO”.

It also takes quite a while to generate. But strangely, this filled us with more confidence. After all, good things are supposed to come to those who wait, right?

Once it’s ready, it will give you snippets of what it’s created. But to unlock it, you need to pay.

To see if it was worth it or not, we unlocked this test article.

Unfortunately, the results were incredibly disappointing. It was hard to read, difficult to follow and didn’t make a great deal of sense. In fact, we put into the Hemingway app to test readability, and the whole thing was lit up in red.

That’s a really bad sign. An ‘avoid at all costs’ type of warning signal there.

Nothing in the writing works together. There’s one sentence that promises points below that will “help out with fostering the user experience.”

But does it deliver them? No.

If you want further proof that this article is unusable, just take a look at this conclusion sentence:

“The visitors who’re intrigued in your products or services, where you must grab an opportunity to get your website optimised at reasonable prices, making it anchors for your requirements and needs.”

Yikes.

Our takeaway

It’s not worth paying for. The writing is substandard and certainly not good enough to publish.

On the plus side, the website did promise 100% unique content. So, we also ran it through a plagiarism checker just to make sure. And yeah, it held up.

It’s just a shame that the writing didn’t do so well.

Article Forge

Next up on the testing front was Article Forge, which requires a paid monthly subscription to use. It doesn’t just create content either. It also integrates with your WordPress blog, allowing you to schedule and publish right from the same place.

As a paid platform, the options when creating an article are much more advanced and in-depth. Giving you the ability to really customise what content you need before it’s generated.

Unfortunately, some of these options require you to connect to different platforms. Such as the ‘Guarantee article uniqueness’, which requires a Copyscape login.

After playing with a few of the settings, we tested this using SEO’ for the main keyword, following the same route as others.

For sub-keywords, we used broad terms like ‘small business’, ‘website’ and ‘eCommerce’.

At $47 a month, Article Forge was the most expensive option that we tested. And a great reminder that paying more doesn’t guarantee great quality. 

Like the other platforms we tested, the content was a letdown.

It made sense. But it lacks structure and value and any real engagement to make it an interesting read.

Halfway through, it mentions a search engine DuckDuckGo, with no context. In a section titled ‘The 5-Minute Rule for SEO’, it changes the focus to Atlanta businesses for no reason. And more importantly, it doesn’t actually give you a 5-minute rule for SEO.

There were stand-alone moments that were good. Like explaining that SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation at the start of a sentence. Unfortunately, this came after the 8th use of the word, making it too late to make a difference to this article.

And again, it passed the plagiarism checks, but that’s just not enough.

Our takeaway

Don’t get fooled into thinking that just because you need to pay for this service, that it’s any good at writing content. You’d be better off with user-generated content if you were looking for an external solution.

Like the others, it’s got a long way to go before you can use it to generate articles that are ready to be published.

One thing we did like about it was the headlines and the ideas that you can generate using a main and sub-keywords. But it’s a lot to pay per month just for ideas, so we’d avoid this for now.

Can robots take over content creation?

From our experiments, we’ve determined that these content generators are useful in places that are based on plain stats and data, such as baseball. But content-wise? They’re not there yet.

They’re lacking personality. They’re lacking emotion and spirit and that one, clear vision that makes content truly great. 

Until we get feeling robots with fully loaded personalities, we don’t think you’ll be able to replace content writing any time soon.

But, that doesn’t mean you need to avoid them. Used right, these tools can be pretty good for generating ideas when you’re stuck staring at a blank page.

We’re not the only ones who have been questioning what machine learning can do for us.

Earlier this year, our team attended SearchLeeds to see Britney Muller’s talk on Machine Learning for SEO. She used a Shakespeare generator tool, feeding it Beyoncé albums and SEO articles by Moz’s Rand Fishkin.

The result was his collaboration album (we warned you about this earlier!), which didn’t really pan out in a way that makes sense.

To be fair to her, this was putting data from two widely different sources. It was never going to be perfect. But it’s a good reminder that machine learning needs data. The more data you feed it, the smarter it gets.

It’s the same logic that our very own machine learning advertising platform uses. We call it the Opportunity Engine. Analysing your account 24/7, it uses data to suggest smart opportunities to improve the performance of your campaigns.

That’s not all though. Our powerful automation feature is also built to take hours off your workweek by eliminating manual, repetitive tasks. This means you have more time to focus on the bigger picture.

Want to see how it works? Try Adzooma for free today.

Further resources about machine learning

• Machine Learning Basics (video) by Simplilearn
• This is how AI bias really happens—and why it’s so hard to fix by MIT Technology Review
• A Tour of Machine Learning Algorithms by Machine Learning Mastery
• Machine Learning: What it is and why it matters by SAS UK
• How to Learn Machine Learning, The Self-Starter Way by Elite Data Science
• Use of AI in online content moderation [PDF] by Cambridge Consultants (2.7MB)
• How to Achieve Personalization at Scale with Machine Learning (video) by Raj Ramesh
• Machine Learning in Action for Search Engine Optimization by Andrea Volpini