How to stand out in a world of AI-generated content
If we’d had a coffee this time last year, and I’d told you that AI would be writing most of the content you’d be seeing now, you probably would have thrown your coffee in my face and called me a filthy liar.
Your overreaction would have hurt my feelings, and if the coffee was hot, it would have also hurt my face - but your disbelief would have been understandable. The pace at which AI has revolutionised the world of content has been breath-taking.
Here at Stellar Content, we have been early adopters, and we love that AI is helping us to enhance productivity, research complex topics, and come up with fresh ideas and angles.
But the thing about AI is: everyone has it. It’s like having a 10-second headstart on a race, and then finding out everyone else does too.
Everything AI can do for you, it’s also doing for your competitors - and Google knows this too. While you used to be able to move up the Google ranks reasonably quickly by ticking off your keywords and publishing new content regularly, that’s now become the bare minimum when it comes your content production.
So how do you stand out when everyone is churning out identical SEO-optimised content?
SEMRush’s new Social Media Trends report predicts that if you want to cut through the bland noise of AI content in 2024, you’re going to have to do one thing that AI can’t replicate: be human.
Not just human, but more human than you’ve ever been in a business setting.
It’s not that shocking when you think about it, right? What’s the one thing you’ve got that the AI bots haven’t got? Humanity. Lived experience. A quirky story. The ability to connect with storytelling.
That’s going to be the golden ticket to keeping your customers engaged, and bringing in new ones.
But make no mistake: this level of humanity isn’t something you can farm out to AI and then just finesse with a bit of a proofread. We know because we’ve tried it on several platforms to see how human we could make these stories. This is about as human as we could get:
Struggling artisan baker, Ben, flipped his fortunes by engaging his small Minnesota community with a weekly baking vlog series. Combining heartwarming stories with practical baking tips, he built a loyal customer base, and boosted his bakery's sales by 85% within a year. In 2023, his once-failing bakery became the heart of the town, serving not just bread, but warm tales of passion and success.
There is a place for AI in content generation, for sure, but the ease with which we can now generate thousands of words has the blowback effect of you needing to bring even more of YOU than you’ve ever brought before.
Whether you’re a sole operator or a huge multinational, you need to decide who you are in the business world and bring all of it to your blogs, social media posts, events, and marketing materials. Anything less will leave people sure they’re being talked at by a robot, and switching off.
So how do you bring the YOU? Here are a few ideas - print that bad boy off and keep it somewhere you can see it.
What it boils down to is sharing real stories- like that new project you've completed for a client, or the behind-the-scenes from your latest company event. If you want to see a brand that does this incredibly well, take a look at Australian jewellery brand Ruby Olive. Their Facebook feed features plenty of beautiful images of their merchandise, of course, but amongst that are videos of founder Skye at her desk or in the warehouse, sharing news and information in a natural and unrehearsed way. She’s fantastic at ‘real’ marketing - and Ruby Olive’s loyal customers love it because they feel like they know her.
And if you want to look at a bigger brand nailing their voice, you can’t go past Bunnings. They use their workers to bring that authentic voice to everything they do. And while they all have a slightly different voice, they are aligned in that they are all approachable, knowledgeable, and passionate about hardware or gardening or sausages.
Take a look at the below screenshot of an announcement from their media centre. It’s about their half year financial results, but it still features an unpolished image of their workers. It’s engaging and it’s real, and I feel like I can totally trust them. So smart!
Being authentic (and I mean really authentic, not like how people are authentic on the Bachelor) is about engaging in meaningful two-way conversations, not just with the prospect of making a sale, but by creating a relationship with your client base.
So, if your comms plan for 2024 was to generate buckets of keyword-rich AI content and hope for the best, I’m going to burst your bubble. Soz. But if you want to create a plan that brings more of you into your content than ever before, with a view to creating genuine relationships, we can help. Especially if you can fit 17 Cheezels in your mouth.
Click below to instantly book a chat, or email us at admin@stellarcontent.com.au
