It may not seem like it right now, but I’m growing increasingly confident that in the near future, we’ll see a vast difference in how brands communicate via content. Right now, as we’re all aware, there’s a lot of what’s come to be known as “AI slop” doing the rounds. Think vague articles stitched together with hyphens (you know what I’m talking about), or try-hard social posts with a discerning number of rocket emojis. 🚀
Perhaps the most jarring occurrences of AI-generated content in our daily lives are visual – bizarre images and videos circulating online, ‘deepfakes’ and eerily airbrushed adverts. ‘The man of tomorrow’, wearing some expensive new aftershave, who looks perfect until you notice he’s missing an earlobe, has an oddly blurry hairline, or whatever the case may be.
AI is undoubtedly incredible, and I think we’re right to be pushing it to its limits. However, it’s important to remember that the everyday consumer is still as sceptical and as human as ever.
For a while, it seemed like even major online publications were spouting out fully AI-generated articles, perhaps thinking they could ‘get away with it.’ I mean, who wouldn’t want to be able to produce mass content quickly? Mass content that’s grammatically perfect; can mimic a brand’s tone of voice; be tailored to a certain demographic, and include all the right keywords.
However, the logic of this quickly breaks down when you consider why you’re producing content in the first place. Is it just to show Google that you’re doing something? To prove you deserve a top spot because you’ve churned out blog after blog, insisting you really are the ‘best restaurant in Manchester’ or the ‘most reliable plumber in Yorkshire’?
Of course not! Especially when it comes to long-form content like articles, if people are choosing to click through to these resources, it’s because they want to learn something new, to get to know your brand, and ultimately, because they respect your authority on a chosen topic. So by letting AI take the reins rather than using your own words and voice, you’re arguably doing your customers, or potential customers, a disservice.
We can all jump on Google or ask Alexa what product to buy, and we’ll get an answer based on some indiscernible algorithm. But, as we all know, just because the majority of people online are saying something, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s true.
If you’re a business owner, your real value lies in the experience and judgment that you’d confidently share face-to-face: the product you recommend because you’ve used it countless times, the long-standing myth you take great pride in dismantling, or the genuine thanks you earn by telling a customer that, despite what they might think, the cheaper version of a product will actually perfectly suffice for their needs.
These aren’t majority opinions scraped from search results and regurgitated back to you; they’re genuine insights, based on your experience, your expertise. And these are the nuggets of wisdom that people actually want.
Of course, we put content out on social media or our blog pages to attract people in the hopes they’ll book our services or purchase our products. But we also do it because we want to tell our customers something, we want to share our story, our message, our opinions. OUR opinions, not the opinions of the masses!
I truly believe people are becoming much more aware of AI patterns in text, and the time will come when it simply won’t impress us anymore. People crave substance, not just style. Most readers would be far more engaged with an article that’s a little rough around the edges, one that sounds like a mate, like the person on the end of the phone when you call your company, or the friendly face you meet when you walk into your store.
Your content should reflect your brand values. If, like many businesses do, you claim to value transparency, authenticity, and honesty, maybe these are even listed on your ‘About Us’ page right now, this should be reflected in your content too. People are becoming desensitised to perfection; give us messy and real over polished and robotic any day! Content should have meaning, not just be thinly veiled, salesy drivel disguised as something more interesting than it really is.
Technology can be incredibly useful for speeding up research, increasing output, and saving time, but you at least need to think about what you’re feeding it. Feed it nothing original, and it will simply glean the internet for the most popular answers on a topic and parrot them back to you. Do you really want to just regurgitate what your competitors are saying, even if you don’t fully agree with them?
If you give AI nothing, all it will do is echo the internet’s loudest voices. If you have different, better insights, take the time to formulate them in your own words. Speak as you would to a customer. Finding your voice is the hardest part of creating content, but once you make the mental shift to ask yourself, ‘how would I talk to my customers if they called me right now?’, whatever comes to mind is usually precisely what you should be conveying. All that’s left to do is put pen to paper, neaten things up, and hit publish.
