How Business Owners Can Combat The Wave Of AI-Generated Content

Nick Leighton. Best-selling author, speaker #ChampagneMoment www.ExactlyWhereYouWanttoBe.com.

Content marketing remains one of the most effective and popular ways for business owners to reach audiences across online platforms. By posting valuable content on their websites, blogs and social media, they can better attract the attention of their target audience looking for information, entertainment and advice on how to handle real-life problems. The widespread use of AI tools over the last few years has made content creation much faster and easier. Today, companies can go from idea generation to publishing content in a matter of minutes.

According to a study from Amazon Web Services, 57% of all content on the internet is now fully or partially generated or translated through an AI algorithm. What started as an innovative solution to create content is starting to backfire. With a constant barrage of AI content, it’s difficult for high-quality content to capture the same attention from consumers.

While it might seem like a great opportunity to simplify your content creation process, AI still has limitations and downfalls that can negatively impact the traffic that marketers are trying to get from a content strategy. Challenges include lack of originality, inability to fact-check or quality control the content being created, oversaturation of the market and penalties from search engines when they identify the majority of site content has been AI-generated.

The good news is that consumers crave connections with brands that bring authenticity and originality. Since consumers are constantly bombarded with numerous advertisements and marketing messages every day, many are becoming more selective with the content they consume. With the right strategy, marketers can still combat the flood of AI-generated content.

As a business owner, whether you are marketing yourself or you manage others in your teams who have content responsibilities, there are six things you need to know.

1. Use AI selectively.

The intention of this article isn’t to say that AI shouldn’t be used at all. AI can be a very powerful tool that marketing departments can and should leverage. The idea is to use AI thoughtfully. For best results, companies should use AI alongside human employees. AI can help streamline processes and idea generation, but a human is able to validate that the information is correct and find ways to add a personal touch or creativity.

The reality is that AI still struggles to understand complex communication and context, especially when it involves human emotion, new slang terminology or deep cultural meaning. Humans are the perfect defense to help ensure that AI-generated content is accurate and doesn’t create any unintended PR incidents.

When using AI, it’s best to be transparent with your audience about its use in your content or marketing materials. This can go a long way to building trust with your end users.

2. Focus on niche topics.

A time-tested practice with content creators is to focus on creating content that covers unique, niche topics. This will continue to be a great practice when combatting AI-generated content, as AI is less likely to dive into niche or specific topics unless directed by a human prompt. While it may be impossible to stand out against AI in search results for generic topics, niche articles will continue to provide an advantage to human content creators.

3. Leverage personal stories and experiences.

While AI can easily simulate real human communication patterns, it doesn’t have the ability to share personal stories or experiences related to specific topics. This is where human content creators can stay one step ahead. Consumers are more likely to feel an emotional connection with content that is relatable, making personal stories and anecdotes a fantastic way to engage the audience. And for this reason, human-generated content is significantly more likely to be shared with a friend or family member over a bland AI-generated post.

4. Embrace creativity.

AI-created content relies heavily on existing information and data limiting its ability to bring fresh ideas. While AI struggles to create content that isn’t a regurgitation from another source, human content creators have the opportunity to bring fresh life and perspective to emerging trends and try new things to capture the attention of their audiences.

5. Engage with your audience.

Engaging with your audience is a great way to build relationships and trust. Many brands are supplementing their social media team with interactive AI chatbots. While AI chatbots can provide generic, preprogrammed responses, they struggle with making a real connection with a human audience. When your audience builds a connection with you, they are more likely to return and interact with your brand. Simply responding to comments and feedback in an engaging way can make a huge difference. You can also encourage interaction by introducing interactive quizzes, contests or polls.

6. Offer behind-the-scenes content.

Behind-the-scenes content is a great way to show the human side of your brand to your target audience. Content like team introductions, interviews, office tours or sneak peeks into the process behind your product or service can help you differentiate yourself from bland AI-generated content.

There are numerous benefits to embracing AI in your marketing efforts. Like they say, it’s possible to have too much of a good thing. Finding the right balance between AI and the creative human side is the perfect solution to continuing to engage potential customers and avoid turning them off to your brand.

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