Our in-house innovation lead, Tim Metz, explores new ideas and technologies for our customers and content. In this article, he shows how content teams can use AI tools in their research process. Your first experiences with ChatGPT are likely similar to mine: excitement, wonder, and fear, quickly followed by disappointment — and some relief — about its hallucinations. Those incorrect facts, figures, and fantasies have branded AI as untrustworthy. Much has changed since ChatGPT’s release. Its Plus version browses the web and reads files. The GPT-4 engine on which it runs is much better than its ..read more

Manual link-building isn’t for the faint of heart. You knock on many doors, endure countless rejections, and occasionally score a few backlinks — campaign after campaign after campaign. It’s a disheartening process many content marketers have to endure. But there’s another way.  Create linkable content you know people want to reference on topics that naturally attract high-quality backlinks. We’re going to walk you through that process and teach you how to find linkable content ideas that generate backlinks on autopilot. 7 Steps to Identify Topics With Organic Link-Building Potential Attr ..read more

Blindfold a dozen marketers. Ask them to describe the guiding principles of a case study. You’ll hear the same answers again and again. Make the customer the hero of the story. Follow a recognizable format — something like problem, solution, results. Back up your claims with evidence, be it a quote, data point, or anecdote. So why are persuasive, wallet-opening case studies so darned rare? Case studies are one of the most widely templated types of content in existence. But following a template usually comes at the expense of thinking from first principles. Most marketers create things that loo ..read more

AI is a force multiplier for great writers.  It took us a long time to say that. Two years of experimenting with a host of generative writing tools — GPT-3, Copy.ai, Writer, Jasper, and ChatGPT. But our decision is: it’s an advantage. And because we think it’s an advantage, we’re incorporating it — in thoughtful, measured ways — into the work we do for ourselves and for customers also interested in experimenting. We’ve found that we can create great content — content that gets results — with a blend of human and machine. And we’ve dubbed this blend: the Content Cyborg. Here’s why and how ..read more

“You should add some more narrative to your articles,” my editor said in our regular catch-up. “Sure,” I answered. “I’ll write a fictional story for one of my clients.” The next day, I found my meeting notes, that goal, and a blank screen in front of me. “A fictional story for a customer? What was I thinking?” I went down a Google rabbit hole, hoping to find out more about storytelling in content marketing. I came out hours later, more confused. I clearly wasn’t ready for such a hero’s journey. So I decided to settle for a lesser quest: finding out when to use storytelling in content marketing ..read more

Most blogs still depend on tired old stock photography. But what if you could create unique, scroll-stopping visuals without any expense or real skill? What if you could create content marketing images that made the reader smarter—and made you a better writer? Every graphic on the Animalz blog was created using free tools (and without any design expertise). Here’s how it happens. Stock Photo Failings It’s worth considering why featured images have become a standard part of most editorial processes. There are good reasons. Images can: Snare the reader’s interest in crowded places like social f ..read more

This is the Animalz content marketing strategy. Take it. We’ve been working on a guide to writing Animalz-style content with a view to helping our team contribute to the blog. Then we thought: why not share this more widely? If you’re curious about why we’d give away our secret sauce, it’s because there is no secret: spend ten minutes reading our blog, and these principles should be apparent. And even if every company in the world adopted these principles, I think we’d be okay with it — the internet would be a more interesting, helpful place. The Problem Statement There are a few constraints t ..read more

As content marketers, thousands, if not millions, of people see our content. We have a large cultural impact footprint. With that influence comes a duty to create content that contributes to the cultural shifts we want to see in the world — even if the brief we’re writing is a list of the best marketing automation software or describing what a data lake is. Cultural shifts are made not just by talking explicitly about the issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) but by infusing inclusive practices in everything we do. Dozens of inclusive language guides tell you which words to swap wit ..read more

A writer’s biggest worry is running out of time, inspiration, or both before yet another deadline. There’s still research to do, the outline to restructure, and that perfect quote to find somewhere in a swamp of browser tabs. Oh, and then the actual writing of the piece itself. Note-taking is a necessary evil throughout this process called writing. For most writers, it’s a chore—not enjoyable, but without notes, composing a coherent piece is difficult at best. Notes also suffer from this unfavorable view of note-taking. They end up like so many other nameless notes—single-use scribbles, disc ..read more

Writing is an incredible tool for furthering your own understanding. It challenges you to articulate ideas in a coherent way. It highlights gaps in your logic. It functions like an analytical partner, helping you to explore topics with greater clarity and structure than thinking alone allows. But there is a crucial distinction to be drawn between writing as a tool for thinking and writing as a tool for communication. One is writer-centric, exploratory, and optimized for understanding; the other is reader-centric, cohesive, and optimized for persuasion. The type of writing that best helps you ..read more