Is AI Content Fast-Tracking Your Brand’s Downfall?
You’ve heard it before, AI is replacing us, and if you don’t want to be left behind, it’s time to adopt and adapt–and quick.
But is AI really helping content marketers, or hurting them?
The TLDR: both.
While AI tools can absolutely help marketers save time, brainstorm, break down hefty data sets and transcripts, automate the most boring and repetitive parts of their jobs, and yes, even write, it’s just that: a tool–and one that’s often unreliable.
When used in the context of content creation, it requires careful prompting, rigorous fact-checking, and often arduous editing. But if you don’t know what to look for, or what your audience is looking for, it’s easy to look at its output and think “wow, why would I ever spend time creating my own content when AI can do it for me in a matter of seconds?”
Let’s talk about it.
The Power of Good Content
Content marketing is a long game. It rarely yields instant results, but over time, it’s one of the most powerful ways to grow your community, and in turn, your business.
Content is how you show up to and for your audience. It helps them find you online, shows them what you’re all about and why you’re different from your competitors, and should–keyword should–provide clear and consistent value that genuinely benefits them. When you invest in it, it gives back. It brings awareness to your brand, grows your audience, and maintains and strengthens relationships with the people who’ve already chosen to support you.
Producing more content is great, but proudly posting the unpolished output of generative AI won’t help you build and nourish that audience. In fact, it might cause you to lose them.
Please, Leave the Em Dash Alone
It didn’t take long for people to start posting and spotting AI content on platforms like LinkedIn when ChatGPT made its debut back in 2022. But if AI is producing content that’s so difficult to spot–to the point where we’re seemingly grasping at straws and em dashes to find it–why do we care about spotting it in the first place?
(If you couldn’t tell, we LOVE the em dash and we aren’t about to stop.)
Your content is how you represent your brand–be it personal or otherwise. When people realize you’re using AI to speak to them, which pulls and regurgitates other people’s thoughts and creations, they understandably get annoyed. They feel like you’ve taken advantage of their trust and wasted their time. And if you’re simply copying and pasting generative AI’s research and output, you absolutely have.
We could create article after article sharing the new “sure signs” to look out for in AI content (which will then be fed into it and eventually rectified), but we probably don’t need to tell you that real people don’t start their LinkedIn posts with “🚀 The Best Ways to Grow Your Business Nobody Tells You 🚀,” followed by the same list that everyone is sharing.
The problem is, as much as AI-generated content can be “easy” to spot, it can also be extremely difficult to spot.
We aren’t arguing that AI is inherently bad, but it’s important to be aware of the fact that it has a nasty habit of lying. It can fabricate “research” to satisfy your prompt, and presents it in a way that seems completely legitimate. Without careful fact checking and re-prompting, it puts you at risk of sharing information that’s objectively wrong or unfounded. An overuse of rocket emojis might make it glaringly obvious you’re sharing the output of AI, but it goes deeper than that.
You owe it to your audience to do your due diligence and show up authentically and ethically. If you don’t, don’t be surprised when they spot it and leave.
Want to learn more? Read this to see just how complex AI deception has become.
Just Because You Could Doesn’t Mean You Should
More and more, people are aware of AI content. Increasingly, they’re not buying it, and they’re not buying from or supporting the brands that are blatantly and excessively using it (we’re looking at you, Duolingo).
You could save hours by using AI to plan and script an entire podcast episode, and even use a voice generator to deliver it to your audience. But be honest, do you actually want to listen to that?
You could save thousands of dollars by asking it to create ads for your coffee shop. But do you actually want to look at that? Would it compel you to stop, or encourage you to keep walking?
The content you create and present to your audience is powerful. When you invest time and effort into connecting with your audience through authentic content that resonates with them, you build the community that can become your greatest asset.
If you’re ready to find your people and grow your business, we’re here to help you deliver content people won’t scroll past.
