If you spend much time on social media these days, the chances are excellent that you have at least a couple of friends who’ve experimented with Midjourney.
Midjourney is an “AI image generator from text” program capable of creating beautiful, brilliant illustrations for many purposes. Hobbyists love it for its expressiveness and ease of use, while digital marketers recognize its potential as a design tool.
But how exactly does Midjourney work, and how can digital-age marketers ensure they’re using it ethically? Let’s dive into what you need to know about how to use Midjourney for marketing and more.
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How Does Midjourney Work?
As an AI-powered image generator, Midjourney works very similarly to tools like DALL-E 2 and Stable Diffusion.
Users request images by writing text commands (called prompts) that tell the AI what to create. Prompts can be short and simple or long and highly descriptive. Many serious users develop their own unique prompting styles over time.
However, the major factor that differentiates Midjourney from the rest of the pack is that it operates through the popular messaging app known as Discord. Users leverage Discord’s interface to maintain a dialogue with the Midjourney bot, send it prompts, and receive the resulting images.
Each prompt yields four images based on the original request. Users have the option to request variations on any of the pictures. They can also isolate and upscale any of the images at any point in the process. Creations will be posted to each user’s gallery, or folks can save them to their personal devices if desired.
Learning additional commands will give Midjourney users the ability to do even more with the program. For example, changing settings, adjusting aspect ratios, or blending two images to create something new.
AI-Generated Art and Ethics
At this point, artificial intelligence models like Midjourney have been widely available for less than a year, so the long-term impact on the art world remains to be seen. There are also some ethical and legal concerns that need ironing out. Here are a few issues to be aware of.
Whether AI devalues human creativity
Many artists and designers are eagerly embracing Midjourney and adding it to their workflows. Others, however, are understandably concerned that such programs devalue the effort and years of training behind human-created material.
For example, when a state fair blue ribbon for “digital art” went to a Midjourney-created piece, thousands of artists took to the internet to express their outrage.
Meanwhile, others expressed concern that programs like Midjourney could cost them work, take away their jobs, and potentially render them obsolete.
Possible future legal issues
The AI behind Midjourney learns to work its magic by studying massive datasets consisting of many billions of publicly available images.
However, the matter of whether or not such datasets constitute fair use of copywritten photographs and artwork remains undetermined.
Potentially harmful stereotypes
There’s also some concern over whether AI models like Midjourney perpetuate harmful ethnic, cultural, and gender stereotypes.
For example, when an AI-powered avatar creator called Lensa went viral last year, many female users and people of color reported receiving avatars that reinforced harmful misconceptions or were overly sexualized.
5 Ways to Use Midjourney for Marketing
While Midjourney is definitely fun to play around with for its own sake, its potential as a marketing tool can’t be denied. Here’s a closer look at some of the ways you can ethically integrate it into your company’s approach to marketing.
1. Have your graphics team use it for brainstorming
As is the case with text-focused AI tools like ChatGPT, Midjourney is definitely capable of incredible things. But its output is most effective when combined with the irreplaceable originality that only human beings can bring to the table.
Try integrating it into your graphic design team’s workflow as a brainstorming tool for creating amazing logos, designs, and genuinely original imagery.
2. Use it to create unique images for blog posts
As many digital marketers are already aware, eye-catching images are a must when it comes to helping your content stand out. But stock images that fit the bill can be hard to find because many of the best ones are widely overused.
A skilled prompt-crafter or graphic designer can easily use a tool like Midjourney to produce incredible original graphics that are perfectly in line with your brand identity and chosen topics.
3. Use it to help your video content pop
Midjourney isn’t yet able to create animations or other moving images, but an experienced animator, illustrator, or video designer could easily take its output and finish the job.
The above video is just one example of how Midjourney creations can become stunning original marketing videos that turn heads.
4. Add visual appeal to your social media
As with keeping a blog perpetually filled with great material, maintaining a continuous flow of amazing social media content can pose quite a challenge—especially when it comes to the visual side of things.
However, offering tools like Midjourney and Adobe Firefly to your social media team as potential resources can easily solve that problem.
5. Streamline the creation of digital assets
Digital assets like ebooks and courses can be invaluable to a business from a marketing standpoint. Not only can you sell them outright as valuable digital goods, but you may offer them as free incentives to sign up for newsletters, share contact information, or refer friends.
AI-powered tools like Midjourney can drastically speed up the process of brainstorming, conceptualizing, and producing goods like these. If you also have a talented team of content creators capable of making the most of them, your content production can reach new heights.
Conclusion
At this point, AI programs like ChatGPT and Midjourney have changed the worlds of digital marketing and content creation forever. However, they’re incapable of truly replacing human creators or generating premium content on their own.
For the best results, balance Midjourney for marketing with a top-tier human effort by signing up for a service like WriterAccess. It’s a trusted marketplace that uses the power of AI to match brands like yours with the best writers, designers, and content creators for your projects.
Sign up for your free 14-day WriterAccess trial today, and step into a marketing future that leverages the best of what humans and AI can bring to the table together.
