Why AI-Driven Content Is Missing The Mark for Small Businesses
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✏️ ON MY MIND
Why AI-Driven Content Is Missing The Mark for Small Businesses
I’ve heard from two business owners this week that their blog and social media content has been off-brand and missing the mark.
I also know that both of those business owners have offshore assistants who manage the posting of social media content for their brands, and the assistants are using ChatGPT to write the content.
I’m also aware of a third business owner who is in a similar spot.
This is sadly becoming more common.
In a recent chat with a buddy who runs an SEO Agency, we discussed how they also observed similar struggles when CEOs/leaders of established businesses hand over content creation to someone with an AI tool, like ChatGPT, and expect fast and stellar results.
Sure, you may save your business time and money in the short term by delegating content to someone who costs less than hiring a seasoned marketer and giving them ChatGPT.
However, you’ll need to factor in the cost of reworking the content and bringing in someone with the right skills and experience to clean up the AI-driven mess.
5 Troubling Ways AI-content is Hurting Small Businesses
Strategy misalignment - Without thoughtful frameworks and quality checks in place, AI content fails to generate engagement, leads and sales for your business (isn’t that the #1 reason you’re creating content?).
Lack of resonance - Content often misses the mark on brand voice and audience nuances. It doesn't connect.
Credibility killer - When it’s obvious that AI was used to produce content, brand reputation takes a hit. AI is also known for “hallucinating” when it comes to stating facts. False claims in content can lead to a loss of trust and credibility among customers and stakeholders. When readers discover inaccurate information, they may doubt the accuracy of other content, products, or services offered by the business.
SEO oversimplified - You can't just feed topics to an AI and expect optimized, ranking content. Google's E-E-A-T standards emphasise Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness as requirements for any content to rank.
The inclusion of 'Experience' suggests Google values unique, firsthand life experiences in content. This isn't something AI can fabricate authentically. Businesses must input their unique narratives and experiences into the content.
Banal content - AI identifies common ideas but lacks the creativity to transform them into unique perspectives. The output can be generic.
Source: Paul Roetzer / Linkedin
The key is combining AI efficiency with human creativity, business strategy and emotional intelligence to produce content that truly resonates and converts.
This involves a deeper grasp of content strategy, brand voice, and some AI 'tuning'. However, even with the best tuning, AI can't replace human touch.
I’ve written about what separates humans from AI several times:
Is it time to say goodbye to your copywriter? (Jan 26, 2023)
Becoming Irreplaceable in the Time of AI: Are You Functional or Vital? (Aug 21, 2023)
So what can businesses do to address these challenges?
Here are a few things I’ve been working on with my clients:
Work with an experienced marketer with AI prompt-engineering experience to optimize your process for using AI tools to generate content that's 80-90% there in terms of messaging and brand voice.
Train team members to effectively utilize and refine AI-generated content, ensuring it's targeted, credible, and resonating with your audience. Show them how to check for signs of obvious ChatGPT/AI output and fix it as part of their workflow.
Implement a quality check process where you have a senior team member (someone who understands the business, brand voice, and target audience) review all work produced by the junior using the AI tool BEFORE they publish it.
Additionally, here are some cool ideas from a couple of clever cookies in my network:
Use the AI output to inform you of what NOT to write about.
Source: Yulia Olennikova / Linkedin
Make your internal AI policy clear.
Source: Trent McLaren / Linkedin
Where to from here?
The allure of lower-cost and rapid content production has led many businesses to overlook these nuances, resulting in generic and non-compelling content.
While AI is revolutionary, human intervention remains indispensable.
Whether it's a seasoned professional or a well-trained VA, a human touch ensures content resonates and reflects the brand's essence.
Photo by Levart_Photographer on Unsplash
🔥 Coming soon:
I'm currently developing workshop-style training to help established businesses maximize AI's potential in content creation for their teams. (shoot me an email if this something you’d be interested in for your own team)
🔥 Bonus video:
Want to learn how to generate 30 days of buyer-focused content ideas with ChatGPT in under 60 seconds? Check out my 12-minute training video at the bottom of this newsletter.
Any feedback or experiences with AI in your content journey? I'd love to hear your insights and challenges. Drop me a line!
-Anf
(This newsletter was drafted with the help of GPT-4, Claude-2 and edited by yours truly.)
👍 3 THINGS THAT CAUGHT MY ATTENTION
1/ Read: There is no “bouncing” back by Dan Norris
Every entrepreneur and founder should read this.
This hits deep as someone who can relate to the mental, emotional, and financial challenges of being an entrepreneur.
When serial entrepreneur and content wizard Dan Norris shared this on his Linkedin, here’s how I responded:
Damn, this is real, Dan.
"I forgot how fragile I was. I thought I was the guy who “bounces” back from failure. I was not bouncing, I was buried."
I had a pretty f*cked up couple of years in 2021-2022. I could have written this because that's how I felt then.
Also, you're not alone. It's not the first entrepreneur story I've heard like this. I went to F*ckup Nights in Brissie a few years ago, and all 3 speakers shared similar stories - different businesses and different experiences but basically the same message
This has definitely struck a chord with a bunch of folks. Check out all the supportive comments on Dan’s Linkedin post, and feel free to add your own.
2/ Watch: Become more VITAL in an AI World
In our fast-moving AI world, machines are taking over many functional tasks. But there's one thing they can't replace: our VITALITY.
3/ Read: The Complete and Untold History of My Book by Valentin Radu
This is hands-down the best book launch post I've read in a long time. What a crazy ride Valentin has been on to get here (announcing his book launch day).
With the amount of labouring and revision Valentin put into updating his book to ensure relevance and that he stuck to his North Star - I have no doubt that it will be valuable to ecom sellers.
As someone who is in the midst of rewriting my 30,000-word draft and frankly struggling... this is very inspiring.
💸 WEALTH BUILDING TIP
Rich life idea: Plan a vacation with friends and family (and pay for the accom)
Cathryn Lavery shared this on X recently - it’s the result of an experiment that she conducted in an attempt to overcome a common challenge for individuals who live in a different city or country from their family.
The problem:
Often, when we travel home to see family and friends, we end up leaving more tired than when we arrived. Mainly due to running around to catch up with everyone and trying to squeeze in time to do other “life admin”.
C and I went through this on our past two trips to Sydney. In fact, the last time we were there (Jan 2023), we mostly avoided trying to catch up with friends and skipped the whole scheduling of coffees, lunches and dinners.
Here’s what Cathryn shared: (click on the link below to read the whole thing)
I love this idea. Maybe you’ve already done something similar? Let me know.
🐦 COOL SOCIALS THIS WEEK
Today, we’re opening Ideogram to everyone on the planet! Sign up at ideogram.ai and have fun!
Ideogram enables you to turn your creative ideas into delightful images, in a matter of seconds. It’s free and has no limits, and it can render text!
smallbets.co just crossed ¾ of a million in revenue.
It still doesn't have:
- a cookie banner
- terms and conditions
- a real logo
- dark mode
- a trademark
- stripe integration
- unit tests
- a dot com domain
- a twitter handle
- a website footer
- multiple pricing… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
#XGSD#overthinker Day 6 of 30! Struggle street day! I overthink things and that can be more overwhelming than just doing.
Slow is very fast in fact.
Festina Lente.
#XGSD
🔧 TOOL OF THE WEEK
Castmagic
Are you tired of spending hours writing podcast show notes or paying someone else to do it for you?
Say hi to Castmagic - the AI-driven tool that will revolutionize your podcasting process! Say goodbye to tedious manual work and hello to effortless show notes creation.
Simply upload your MP3, and Castmagic will generate comprehensive show notes, episode titles, tweet threads, LinkedIn posts, and more.
🤔 PARTING THOUGHTS
I’m currently 15 days into my second 30-day X (Twitter) video-posting challenge.
💪 This Friday (Sep 1), a group of us are starting a 30-day Video Challenge on @X
We'll be posting daily to test X's latest algorithm updates, share best practices, and simply have fun with it.
If you're interested in joining, click the link in the comments below 👇
I woke up this morning at 5 a.m. and saw a WhatsApp message from our challenge host George that the #xgsd group was jumping on Zoom for a midpoint review.
I'm glad I saw that and jumped on in my half-sleepy, half-awake state 😂
During the review, we took a look at our Twitter analytics, and I jotted down the following observations on what’s been working so far.
General:
marketing topics for founders/creators
Of my top 10 tweets, 8 of them are the xgsd videos
Using Blink (android) app for Script AI, teleprompter + captions
likes and comments from xgsd team
captions
asking a question in the post text
Best days: Mon, Sat, Thu
Regular posting time (6-7am danang)
Engaging with other people’s videos and content before and after I post my videos
This was my top-performing video so far:
Hey SaaS founders & and marketers: Stop being so cheap with your influencer outreach! 🔥
#gsd#InfluencerMarketing#SaaS#MarketingTips
The best thing about the entire challenge experience? Our small group of creators all supporting each other through the challenge.
“If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”
– African Proverb.
Wishing you a beautiful weekend.
Anfernee Chansamooth
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Resources mentioned:
Copy and paste prompts for chatGPT: 👇👇
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