Social Media Fragmentation, Content Marketing Best Practices, and More on AI Marketing
Without wasting a moment of your time, we’re going to summarize what we found to be this month’s best content marketing reads…as quickly as possible (thus, the TL:DR Edition).
Social Media Fragmentation’s Impact on Content Creators:
Takeaway and Source:
“As the social media landscapes continue to evolve, with platforms’ ever-shifting focus, the continuing pivot-to-and-from-video, the algorithm and audience changes, social media content creators have been caught in the middle. They say dealing with the constant jostling is time consuming and difficult to manage.
“You individually might not have any interest in a certain platform, but if it is bursting in popularity among a desired demographic, then don’t underestimate how useful it may be,” said Haze.”
The first paragraph says most of it super well - keeping up with the endless changes in the Social Media landscape is really, really time consuming and difficult for content folks. What works on Fb doesn’t necessarily work on IG, which also might or might not work on YouTube. The second quote is also great because it states what most people think, but might not say: just because I’m not interested in creating for a specific platform, doesn’t mean it’s not important to have a presence there. We’ve said in the past that you should not be a part of platforms ‘just because’, and if you’re going to do it, make sure you do it right. That still stands. Recognize the need to be on specific platforms strategically, then participate on that platform authentically.
Misunderstood Best Practices in Content Marketing
Takeaway and Source:
“Frankly, too many businesses think only about themselves when creating content. They create content to put the company, product, services, and employees in the best light. But in doing so, they fail to consider the interests and needs of the audience outside their business.”
This is spot-on. When we participate in communicating our positioning with our audience, one of our primary goals is to exceed their expectations. Our goal is NOT to ‘make ourselves feel great about the service/goods we provide to our customers.’ That’s the wrong approach. Think about your audience, think about what they want, then create content that exceeds their expectations.
AI Content Might Cause Your SEO More Harm than Good
Takeaway and Source:
“AI-generated content often lacks nuance, depth, and originality, which can harm the credibility and reputation of a brand. Moreover, using AI-generated content can perpetuate stereotypes, bias, and exclusionary practices, as algorithms tend to replicate existing patterns and preferences.
Because AI content tools make it so easy to create content, it’s now easier than ever to produce the same content as everyone else. And if everyone uses the same AI to create content, no one is creating new content. We will, in effect, create an echo chamber with no new thoughts or ideas coming in. This leads to a narrow and non-inclusive view of the world.”
There is no doubt, whatsoever, that ChatGPT’s core technology will make positive waves in just about any knowledge worker’s world (if it hasn’t already). It’s not coming for your job, it’s coming to help you with your job, which in effect might push you to do more or more of something else with more free time. I really like this article because it does outline the limits of LLM AI tools. It’s based on what it samples, and it samples the Internet…which is a pretty interesting place.
The big takeaway, as far as I can tell, is that it’s a really great starting point, but if you generate written content about a topic from tools such as ChatGPT, you probably should have a human being edit it for a multitude of reasons.
FYI, no. None of this was written by ChatGPT.
