AI Can Kill Content Marketing

Content marketing is foundational for many businesses, especially those seeking ongoing customer relationships. 

Producing content, however, has changed since OpenAI released ChatGPT 3.5 in November 2022. Generative AI has made creating content faster, easier, and relatively less expensive. But it has not necessarily made content better. 

Here’s why.

ChatGPT 3.5 can create content faster, easier, and cheaper. Is it better?

Nothing New to Say

Circa 2024, generative AI does not produce new ideas or even develop its own conclusions. Rather, it regurgitates information that it has indexed. 

Generative AI is excellent for some tasks. For example, gen-AI search results often answer a query on-site, which is handy for users but not website owners.

However, enter a generative AI prompt to produce content, and you can be certain it will not offer anything new. Instead, it will produce an article similar to everything else on the topic.

Careful prompting and editing help, but lack of originality is a fundamental problem with using generative AI for content marketing.

No Reason to Rank

In 2024, Google says it does not penalize websites for using AI-generated content. 

Nonetheless, if the content your company publishes is the same as everything else online, Google and other search engines will have no real reason to rank yours.

Search engines want to rank content demonstrating expertise, experience, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. Thus, just taking the output from a generative AI verbatim may not lead to content that deserves to rank.

Not Your Brand

A key element of successful content marketing is a consistent, distinct brand voice that resonates with the audience.

Men’s clothier Mr Porter is a good example. Its “The Journal” blog publishes original profiles and apparel suggestions with an opinionated, modern vibe. AI-generated content might miss these nuances, leading to content that feels generic or disconnected from the brand’s identity.

Put another way, AI might not capture your audience’s needs, preferences, and feedback as human-created content can.

If a company has built a reputation for being a bold, strong brand that supports environmental causes, a middling composition could change customers’ perceptions of the business.

Mr Porter’s “The Journal” publishes original, opinionated articles on men’s apparel, such as this profile of an NFL player.

Not Accurate

Large language models and other AI tools routinely produce inaccuracies. 

For example, in August 2023, the Associated Press published an article titled “Chatbots sometimes make things up. Is AI’s hallucination problem fixable?”

“Spend enough time with ChatGPT and other artificial intelligence chatbots, and it doesn’t take long for them to spout falsehoods,” wrote the AP’s Matt O’Brien. 

“Described as hallucination, confabulation or just plain making things up, it’s now a problem for every business, organization and high school student trying to get a generative AI system to compose documents and get work done.”

The most egregious have come more recently from Google’s Gemini and Adobe’s Firefly.

In February 2024, Gemini made headlines when it all but refused to produce images of white people because it had been programmed with diversity in mind. This programming resulted in wildly inaccurate images, which led Google Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai to send an email on February 27, 2024, ridiculing Gemini for its obvious bias.

In March 2024, Adobe’s Firefly reportedly produced historical images favoring diversity over truth.

Content marketers need to be on the lookout for “hallucination” and bias.

Not Your Content

Copyright infringement is an emerging problem for AI-generated content in two ways.

First, there are now legal fights over whether OpenAI or Google has the right to train models using copyright-protected materials. The New York Times’ lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft is perhaps the leading example. Courts will resolve these copyright issues, but the outcome could impact the use of gen-AI for content production.  

Second, AI content generators could be plagiarizing. Plagiarism detection software found that about 60% of the copy ChatGPT 3.5 produces is plagiarized, according to a February 2024 Axios report.

Content marketers should check any AI-written copy before using it.

5 Content Marketing Ideas for April 2024

In April 2024, content marketers can tap into activities and niche holidays while introducing their products.

Content marketing is creating, publishing, and promoting content — articles, podcasts, videos — to attract, engage, and retain shoppers.

Content is the foundation for search engine optimization and lifecycle and social media marketing. It relies on reciprocity: Provide something of value, and readers will reciprocate by shopping in your online store.

Here are five content marketing ideas your business can use for April 2024.

Connect Activities and Products

REI’s blog includes posts that read like a magazine feature whilst promoting the products the company sells.

REI, the outdoor apparel and gear retailer, published an article called “How to Hike the Camino de Santiago” in January 2024. 

The article reads like an adventure magazine, with an overview of the trail’s history and useful information about making the trip. This piece could appear in search results about the Camino de Santiago or be featured in REI’s newsletter. 

The post, however, goes further. It includes a section about what to pack for the journey and links to several of REI’s products. The section makes sense in the article’s context, provides additional value to the reader, and helps REI sell.

For your company’s April content marketing, describe an activity your customers are likely interested in. Combine good, magazine-style writing with sensible product links.

National Welding Month

National Welding Month is an opportunity to reach blue-collar readers.

April 2024 is National Welding Month. The American Welding Society established the occasion to remind us how important welding is in our daily lives and to call attention to the shortage of skilled welders.

Admittedly, articles about National Welding Month will not work for every ecommerce shop. Still, it’s an opportunity for the right merchant to reach an audience of blue-collar workers and well-funded do-it-yourselfers.

Potential article titles include:

• “The Future of Welding. Trends and Technologies,”
• “Careers in Welding: Opportunities and Challenges,”
• “Essential Gear for Every Welder.”

Aim for content to share via an email newsletter or social media, but don’t forget to publish it on your store’s website for SEO.

National Car Care Month

April 2024 is also National Car Care Month. It’s an opportunity to publish automobile-related content even for seemingly unrelated products.

Take, for example, “Mr Eric Bana’s Top Five Classic Cars,” an interview on Mr Porter’s blog published during National Car Care Month in 2016 with the actor, car enthusiast, and occasional race driver.

Mr Porter sells men’s clothing, but its online journal features all sorts of topics, including cars.

A similar article could include the favorite cars of your founders or top customers. Another could pair cars with the products your store carries. 

Imagine an online wine club with an article titled “If Brunellos Were Sports Cars, These Five Are Ferraris.”

National Burrito Day 

April 4, 2024, is National Burrito Day. The pseudo-holiday celebrates the ubiquitous Mexican-American dish. 

Traditional burritos are thin and simple, filled with meat, cheese, and little else. But in America burritos are often massive with diverse ingredients. 

For example, Iguanas restaurant in San Jose, Calf., makes a five-pound beast called the “Burritozilla” that could feed a family of four. And Better Homes & Gardens published a recipe for “Pad Thai Chicken Burritos,” demonstrating the diversity.

At five pounds and 18 inches, Burritozilla could feed a family of four.

The flexibility of burritos could provide compelling content for your business. Here are a few examples.

• Kitchen supply shop: “Secret Ingredients behind Authentic Mexican Burritos.”
• Online apparel boutique: “Fiesta Fashion Essentials for National Burrito Day.”
• Luggage merchant: “Best Destinations for Burrito Lovers.”
• Online toy store: “Burrito-themed Games for the Whole Family.”

National Handmade Day 

National Handmade Day occurs on the first Saturday in April.

The craftsperson Amy Bierstadt created National Handmade Day in 2017 to acknowledge the work and love that goes into unique, one-of-a-kind items.

The celebration — on the first Saturday in April, the 6th in 2024 — fits merchants selling kits, tools, and handicrafts. Content examples include patterns, blueprints, tutorials, recipes, and many more do-it-yourself products.  

Wide-base Strategy for Short-form Videos

TikTok’s algorithm surfaces new accounts. This has led some marketers to take a “wide-base” or “horizontal” approach to short-form video promotion.

With this tactic, a business owns several TikTok accounts. Each publishes the same or similar videos. The tactic aims to earn more total views than if the company had shared these short-form videos only on a single account.

New Heights

The wide-base account strategy appears most common with content creators.

For example, consider Travis and Jason Kelce’s “New Heights” podcast, one of the most popular U.S. sports-related shows.

“New Heights Show” is one of the most popular sports channels in the United States.

The show’s primary TikTok account, @newheightshow, has 3.9 million followers.

According to an individual familiar with the podcast, several other accounts publish the show’s content under different names, such as @newheightsfootball, @newheightsrewind, and @newheightsclips.

“New Heights Football” publishes nearly the same content as “New Heights Show.”

Views before Followers

The wide-base strategy aims to get more views and earn more followers. The approach is noteworthy because the primary metric is how many times folks watch the content. The follower count — often the lead KPI for social media marketing — is secondary.

A hypothetical example might help. Imagine you are the marketer at Fee Brothers, a brand that makes cocktail bitters and egg replacers for drinks such as the classic whiskey sour.

Your content marketing efforts include a series of cocktail recipe videos.

The recipe videos are relatively long and published on X and YouTube. And each episode is sliced up into short clips. With the wide-base strategy, the brand would release those clips under several unique, albeit small, accounts.

TikTok’s algorithm would surface all the videos to relevant users, expanding or widening the impact. Fee Brother’s primary account may receive the most views, but the wide-base accounts would contribute, too.

If the aim is to sell more cocktail bitters and egg replacers, more video views could lead to more customers visiting the brand’s online shop. Mission accomplished.

Secondarily, those short-form clips introduce viewers to the long-form recipe show and the primary Fee Brothers account.

Account Ideas

Publishing identical clips on multiple accounts is likely effective, but a little variety doesn’t hurt either. Here is an example.

• Primary account. Named after the business, this account publishes all of the clips and may have its handle (name) shown on the clips.

• “Clips” account. This one has a handle such as “FeeBrothersClips.” It republishes just about everything from the primary account.

• “Fans” account. This one also republishes nearly everything from the primary account.

• “Best of” account. Named with “best” or “bestof” in the handle, it publishes top-performing and high-priority clips.

• “Mistakes” account. This account shares clips featuring bloopers or behind-the-scenes action from the primary show. These clips may be unique, sharing the message and implied product promotion.

Follow a similar pattern to create a wide base of small accounts.

Short-form How-to

Marketers should monitor short-form views across all accounts. Follower count, the secondary KPI, is measured only for the primary account.

To connect views to sales, include a coupon code in the clips or otherwise track when clips correspond to increases in traffic and transactions.

For best wide-based results:

• Use the proper format. Even if your primary videos are in a standard horizontal format, make vertical clips for TikTok, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, Snapchat, and X videos.

• Have a clear hook to grab attention. This might be an image, the video clip’s title, or a thumbnail.

• Keep it short. Seasoned marketers typically recommend 11-to-17 seconds for TikTok, about 10 seconds for Instagram Reels, and up to a minute for YouTube Shorts, X, and Snapchat.

• Post consistently. Short-form video platforms often have a target cadence. WordStream, an agency, recommends publishing one to four times daily for each TikTok account.

• Show products in use. Remember the hypothetical Fee Brothers example. A long-form cocktail recipe shows the company’s bitters in use. Do the same whether you sell clothes or power tools.

• Use humor. A short-form video is often best when it is funny and informative. Don’t be afraid to make viewers laugh.

Execution

This wide-base video clip strategy is meant to produce relatively more short-form video views than a business can generate from a single account. It appears to work best on TikTok, although it’s worth testing on any social media network.

5 Content Marketing Ideas for March 2024

Content marketing in March 2024 can go beyond St. Patrick’s Day and college basketball. Instead, marketers could focus on puppies, other forms of “March Madness,” the time change, spring fitness, and do-it-yourself crafts.

Content marketing is the act of creating, sharing, and promoting content such as blog posts, videos, or podcasts to attract, engage, and retain shoppers. Content marketing can be a key part of search engine optimization, lifecycle marketing, and customer loyalty.

What follows are five content marketing ideas your business can use in March 2024.

National Puppy Day

If content marketing is about attraction, National Puppy Day on March 23, 2024, might be one of the best topics. Puppies are fun, cute, and adorable.

Puppies are so cute they attract prospects, which is one of the main goals of content marketing.

Like many “greeting card” holidays, National Puppy Day’s origins are unclear. However, the American Kennel Club and numerous animal advocacy groups support the event.

Online shops selling pet products will have the most opportunity to publish National Puppy Day blog posts, podcasts, and the like. Still, all sorts of ecommerce businesses can produce puppy posts. Here are a few examples.

• Online used bookseller: “10 Top Puppies from Fantasy Literature.”
• Garden supply store: “How to Grow a Puppy-friendly Garden.”
• Internet camera shop: “How Your Pup Can Help Build an Instagram Following.”

March Madness but Not Basketball

“March Madness” content does not have to be about basketball.

Ecommerce content marketers can take some liberty with “March Madness” and focus on “mad” activities that don’t include college basketball.

For these articles, frame the products your store sells or the shoppers it serves as some kind of “March Madness.” Here are a few examples.

• Movie memorabilia merchant: “March Movie Madness: 10 Best Movies Ever Released in March.”
• Women’s apparel boutique: “March Fashion Madness: 10 Spring Outfits to Up Your Dating Game.”
• Online Toy Store: “March Madness: Top 25 Toys Right Now.”

Daylight Saving Time

Ben Franklin was among the first to recommend daylight saving time.

On March 10, 2024, the clocks in the United States will spring forward for daylight saving time. Searches on Google for the term will soar in early March.

Marketers can use the heightened interest to produce content related to the time charge.

The aim is not to create a sales pitch but rather to offer engaging, educational, or helpful content relevant to the products sold and the industry served.

Here are a few example article titles.

• Workwear store: “The Ultimate Guide to Spring Workwear.”
• Art supply boutique: “Spring Art Projects Inspired by Longer Days.”
• Online game stop: “Adjusting Your Play Schedule around Daylight Saving Time.”

Another angle could be historical or political. For example, a rare book merchant could publish an essay about the history of daylight savings time and how it impacted America’s growth. The essay might mention several rare books on the topic, making the connection from content to products.

Spring into Fitness

Spring fitness can be a good content marketing opportunity.

Jay Baer’s book, “Youtility: Why Smart Marketing Is about Help Not Hype,” was published in 2013 but remains relevant for content marketing.

One of Baer’s concepts in the book was that content marketing works best when it assists the marketer’s audience to achieve a goal or decision.

“Spring into fitness” could be a March 2024 content marketing idea that does what Baer recommended. Stores that sell products related to health, fitness, getting outdoors, travel, or similar healthy habits can create content that teaches, engages, and ultimately aids their readers.

National Craft Month

Crafty content in March could include profiles of a store’s customers.

March is National Craft Month in the U.S. The event emphasizes the broad range of crafts folks might participate in.

National Craft Month can be a good opportunity for content marketers to showcase customers. Start in February by identifying and interviewing customers who have used the products a store sells to build a project. Then, profile those customers throughout March.

These efforts combine good content with word-of-mouth marketing since every featured customer will likely share and promote the profile to their family and friends.