The Role of AI in Expanding Your Content

Even with a high production shoot, there are times when additional visuals are needed to fully realize your content strategy. This is where AI can come in. By leveraging AI tools, like Midjourney, you can extend the value of your shoot beyond the initial assets, creating supplementary imagery that complements and enhances your campaign. Giving additional legs to your creative in social channels where decay is high especially in reels/shorts is a great place to integrate AI imagery interspersed throughout owned and branded content. 

How AI Can Transform Your Content Strategy

1. Supplementing Your Shoot: AI can generate additional images that fit seamlessly with your existing visuals. For example, if your shoot focused primarily on product shots, AI can create B-roll imagery, flatly ingredient imagery, stylized fruit, macro shots of bubbles, backgrounds, or context-specific visuals that integrate with your primary content.

2. Filling Content Gaps: Sometimes, despite careful planning, certain shots might not turn out as expected or additional assets are needed. AI can help fill these gaps by generating images that maintain consistency with your shoot’s style and branding. 

3. Creating Versatile Assets:  I use AI tools to produce a range of supplementary images tailored for specific social media platforms like Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook. This includes using AI generated imagery laced into brand-owned content. I create carousels, still image posts, and reels where the AI B-roll is laced into the video. This helps create adaptable visuals that enhance your campaign’s reach and effectiveness.

Practical Tips for Using AI in Your Content Plan

• Integrate AI Early: Consider how AI can fit into your content plan from the start. This ensures that you use it as a complementary tool rather than a last-minute fix. As part of planning to use AI as part of your content strategy, I highly recommend taking high-resolution images of your products and packaging on a white plain background so that you can isolate them later in post and use generative fill to create whatever magical environment you’d like. I recommend shooting your product suite in a variety of angles with a few different key lights (camera facing, flatlay, every single angle) both in video and in stills. This foundational asset package will help you maximize and create so many more assets with ai and its worth the investment.

  Specifically talking to CPG folks here, if you’re doing ingredient spotlights, ie, say your product is a sparkling beverage with the key flavor being peach or strawberry, I’ve found AI to be excellent at creating ingredient or flavor cue stories. Fresh fruit get messy under hot lights and if you’re looking to extend your still photography, this is one place I would recommend doing it. 

• Choose the Right Tools: Use AI tools that align with your content needs. For high-quality, photorealistic imagery, tools like Midjourney can be particularly effective. (There are others, that’s just my personal favorite.)

• Maintain Brand Consistency: Ensure that AI-generated images align with your brand’s visual identity. Provide clear guidance and reference images to achieve consistency with your primary shoot. This tip is key. I often mockup backgrounds with the exact color of yellow I’m looking for so that the assets are brand compliant. 

• Leverage AI for Platform-Specific Content: Tailor AI-generated images to the specific requirements and formats of each social media platform, optimizing your content for maximum engagement.

Conclusion: Investing in high production photo and video shoots provides a strong foundation for your brand’s visual assets. By strategically incorporating AI into your content plan, you can extend the value of these shoots, create supplementary imagery, and ensure that your campaign remains dynamic and engaging across all platforms. Embrace AI as a valuable tool to enhance your content strategy and make the most of your creative investment.

Now, let’s take a look a real-life example.