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Optimization glossary

Content intelligence

What is content intelligence?

Content intelligence is a technique which uses software and artificial intelligence to measure the impact of content and generate content strategy insights.

Why content intelligence is important

Content marketing has become one of the primary ways in which marketers try to reach prospects and customers online. Accurate estimates are hard to come by, but by some measures hundreds of millions of pieces of content are created daily.

When accounting for all the different types of content being created from blog posts and white papers, to photos, videos, and social media posts, the amount of content creation being done by marketers is truly gargantuan.

Given the vast scale of content being created, it becomes increasingly difficult to get a full measure of the impact that content is having, which is where content intelligence comes into play. Measuring the impact of content created at a mass scale is greatly aided by big data analysis that artificial intelligence and machine learning systems can provide.

Content intelligence platforms help content marketers gain a better understanding of the impact that their content has, providing real-time reporting on the performance of their content as well as actionable insights for creating effective content that gets results.

Benefits of content intelligence software

Content intelligence software platforms provide a number of common benefits:

  • Metrics & reporting - Content intelligence software uses big data analysis to analyze all of the content that's being created, often in real-time, and can provide marketers with useful data such as what best content that is being created, the reach of the content, and the impact, helping content marketers to make better decisions as to what content to focus on.

  • Content analysis - Content intelligence platforms can also analyze individual pieces of content via natural language processing and identify characteristics such as style and tone-of-voice, as well as make recommendations for content creators on SEO an other improvements that can be made on the content. Because these recommendations are based on data, it helps to take some of the guesswork out of the content creation process.

  • Automation - Some content intelligence platforms help marketers automate aspects of the content creation and promotion process, using artificial intelligence and algorithms to analyze a piece of content and execute on decisions automatically.

  • Content management - Because content intelligence requires a large amount of data to work, it requires deep integration with the CMS. Some systems can work just by plugging into analytics tools such as google analytics, but others require a deeper integration with the content management system in which the content lives. Many content intelligence systems also provide CMS functionality.

Content intelligence tools

Content intelligence software is a rapidly growing space, and there are a variety of tools out there. The following is an overview of some of the more popular tools:

  • Buzzsumo - Buzzsumo helps marketers identify trending and popular content across the web around a topic via keyword search, helping content creators replicate successful content that is already performing well for other companies.

  • Optimizely CMS - A popular enterprise content management system that incorporates content intelligence functionality that provides real-time recommendations for content improvements driven by AI, right within the CMS itself.

  • Optimizely CMP - Content Marketing Platform is a tool that can be used for the entire content creation journey, and also helps with identifying avenues for content promotion, and often overlooked piece of the content marketing puzzle. CMP can help marketers identify influencers in their niche and recommend the ideal channels for content promotion.

  • SpyFu - SpyFu is a content intelligence tool focused on search engine marketing. SpyFu allows marketers to "spy" on their competitors and identify the keywords they are bidding on in Google Ads and other ad platforms, as well as the content that is being promoted via those platforms.

  • Contently - Contently is a tool focused on content analytics. Some of the data points that Contently helps marketers measure are attention time, returning visitors, and social reach of content.

  • Clearscope is the best-in-class SEO content optimization and intelligence platform that drives and protects your search traffic.

  • TrackMaven - TrackMaven is a content tool that is focused on competitor analysis. Using TrackMaven, marketers can compare how their content is performing against competitors across over 15 different channels to help identify where their content marketing strategy is working, and where it falls short.

  • Curata - Content curation is increasingly becoming as valuable as content creation itself, given the volumes of content being created daily. Curata is a tool that helps with content discovery and curation, and helps companies scale their content marketing efforts.