Ever have those Facebook connections where you wonder, “How did we ever become friends on here?” Me too, and on Monday night, I did something I never do — I responded to one of his posts.
This gentleman asked a question about content strategy. More specifically, he asked which AI tools his Facebook friends recommended to write posts for him.
I felt every impulse inside me to jump and wave maniacally, telling him not to use AI to write his posts. Instead, I simply responded with this:
Another stranger immediately replied on that thread, saying I was wrong. Google does not ding AI-written content.
While he might be right that it’s not explicitly stated, there’s more to the story here and it was my fault for not expanding on my comment. The outcome of publishing AI-written content can get your website and content pushed aside, which can cause you to get dinged by the algorithm. Things like:
Shorter time on site because readers can tell your content is written by a bot
Fewer shares because no one wants to share bot-written content unless it’s crazy funny or crazy good
Less trust, causing less returning visitors to the site
Not looking at SEO alone, there are even more problems with using AI-written content in your marketing. I could teach an entire course on these, but for the sake of time, here are a few of the big reasons why I’m putting my flag in the ground on the fact that using AI to write your content for you will put you in the danger zone.
Content Needs to be Helpful AND Human
A few months ago, Google released its Helpful Content update. Many strong content creators I know saw their traffic stall as a result of Google's attempt to prioritize helpful and human content over generic content.
Google didn’t hide this update. Instead, they shared that their goal with this fine-tuning process was to eliminate unhelpful and unoriginal content — in other words, the type of content you’ll often get when using AI because generative AI tools like ChatGPT pull from all content online.
Google’s Director of Product Management, Elizabeth Tucker said:
“We expect that the combination of this update and our previous efforts will collectively reduce low-quality, unoriginal content in search results by 40%.”
When there’s nothing new or original to add to the mix, Google doesn’t exactly deem that content helpful.
The human element is often ignored, causing your content to sound like a bot. This leads to serious head scratching when people call you and hear someone sounding different than what they “heard” when reading your content online. It also causes you to get ignored because the reader can instantly tell you don’t bring a whole lot of freshness to the table.
Content Changes Can Up Your Game
Content strategy has never been a set-it-and-forget-it type of game. It requires you to continually analyze what your readers want, what’s resonating, and where you might need to adjust your strategy.
Posting an AI-generated blog post and expecting a flurry of traffic overnight isn’t how the game works.
We don’t give our readers enough credit. They can see through the old tactics and our content creation fatigue, which ignores our words and pushes our ideas into the background.
If you leave your content creation to a bot, dust off your hands, and walk away, you’re missing huge opportunities.
Take a look at this article by SEO company Ahrefs about content changes. It shows exactly how content changes can impact your search traffic.
Content strategy requires you to think beyond posting and forgetting.
Instead, it requires you to adopt a posture of listening and engaging with your audience. While that sounds harder, it actually leads to a whole lot of other opportunities for your business, so it’s worth the time spent analyzing what your people want to know from you versus posting for the sake of posting and then wringing your hands with frustration when all that work doesn’t generate results.
Website + Social + Email is the Jab-Jab-Hook Needed to Build a Relationship
I get on my soap box about this stuff because I don’t believe in looking exclusively at one element of your content strategy as a surefire way to win. That’s what’s broken about content creation today and what’s causing entrepreneurs some serious headaches.
You buy a course all about creating reels, thinking it’ll be the silver bullet to growth, only to have your follower growth stay stagnant.
You buy a course on pinning to Pinterest, thinking that will be your surefire way to grow traffic, only to struggle to see the same results as the creator.
You buy a course on email marketing, expecting it to make all your sales for you, only to discover that your list growth is stagnant, so you’re not pitching your offers to anyone new.
Content creation is most effective when you take a strategic approach, intertwining various areas with one core, clear, consistent message. And that is where AI can come into the picture—helping you extract YOUR ideas from one core piece of content and transform them into posts on other platforms so that you can expand YOUR voice while growing without burnout.
Where to Use AI in Your Content Creation?
By now, you might think I’m anti-AI. Unlike Procreate, the app for artists who recently said they will never be in the AI arena, I’m not. However, I am on the side of keeping as much humanity in the creation process as possible.
When you start with your original ideas, thoughts, and voice, there are ways that you can tap into AI to simplify the many pieces of your content creation efforts.
Keyword Research
AI can help you find keywords faster than hunting and pecking through search results. Here are a few tools that tap into the power of AI that I recommend and have used to help uncover those keywords faster.
Content Edits
I make two core content edits on every post I publish — grammar (which I’m surprisingly terrible at for being a professional writer and bestselling author) and voice. Both of these edits can be done faster with AI tools.
Grammarly for grammar checks. While it’s not always accurate, it is helpful for quickly spotting simple errors.
Jasper.ai analyzes your content (not content from across the Internet) to identify your brand voice. Then, it offers suggestions and small tweaks to keep you sounding like you. Bonus: It also generates images if you like stock-looking imagery.
Social Media Posts
AI in social media is great for helping you find new topics to talk about in your social feeds and scheduling out your posts faster and
Find new post topics from your existing content. Ask ChatGPT to read your post, then pretend it’s a podcaster asking you questions about those posts. Turn those questions into reels or carousel posts on social media.
Scheduling tools analyze your profiles and schedule so you’re always posting at the best times for your audience. Several tools do this, but my favorite is Metricool.
This topic has ruffled a lot of feathers and created quite a stir lately as technology continues to emerge and evolve.
While there’s a lot of development unfolding in the AI arena…
… there’s still so much beauty to hearing the human voice come through via the screen, feeling that friend-to-friend style help from businesses, and seeing the people behind the posts instead of the bots interjecting piecemeal ideas.
How are you using AI in your content strategy?