#63: A.I., A.I., Oh...
The MessageUp Newsletter | Vol. 2, Edition 11
Hi there! Matt here, from MessageUp.
Was this newsletter written by a human?
Was it written by the same human as the previous newsletters on this Substack?
How would you know? Would you even care?
These aren’t entirely new questions. Debates over journalistic integrity, ghostwriting, and plagiarism have plagued (pun intended) the content industry for decades, if not centuries.
However, the advent of generative artificial intelligence models that can spit out prose more eloquently than the average human being has rekindled and redirected the conversation. Nowadays, it’s about human versus machine, rather than this human or that one.
There are some very real ethical and moral concerns being raised and debated, especially when AI models threaten to bypass copyright laws, magnify hidden biases, or accelerate the spread of misinformation.
There are also some practical concerns about the proliferation of content written by an emotionless, blindly accepting, but utterly convincing algorithm.
In this week’s post on The Framework blog, I sidestep some of the heavier issues (about which I have no business opining) and examine The Questions We Should Be Asking About Generative AI and B2B Content Marketing.
I understand the appeal of letting ChatGPT ideate, outline, write, and format your blog in one-thousandth the time it takes a human to do the same work. But, I also understand that authenticity and original thought are the mainstays of content that evokes an emotional connection, engages the reader, and stands out from the ever-growing crowd.
There is still much to be learned, debated, tested, and optimized.
Elsewhere on the web, having given each piece a side-eyed glance to check for signs of robotic creation, we’ve picked four articles for your delectation that cover redefining B2B personalization, 12 types of corporate video, the basics of setting up GA4, and what’s most essential today on a B2B website.
I’m especially curious about GA4, which is a burning issue for many of my clients and leaving them in dire need of a solid how-to article. I will be devoting some cycles this week to exploring it in greater depth and making sure my websites are being monitored effectively.
To round out this week’s note, my One Step actionable tip is a gut-check on originality. Whether you’ve been blending in some AI-generated content or not, this will help you assess whether originality and authenticity are helping your content to stand out—or if a lack of either or both is standing in your way.
Have a genuinely human week—including some fun with AI, if that’s your thing—and I’ll see you back here next Wednesday.
Cheers!
~ Matt
o/b/o Team MessageUp
Our Latest Posts on The Framework Blog
Jul 19, 2023 - The Questions We Should Be Asking About Generative AI and B2B Content Marketing
Jul 12, 2023 - Futureproofing Your B2B Marketing Strategy
What We’ve Been Reading
Here are some articles we’ve been reading this week that we hope you will enjoy and find valuable:
Unlocking The Power Of B2B Personalization
This piece by Forrester for Forbes calls on B2B marketers to redefine how they use personalization—shifting from an overarching goal of increased conversion rates to putting the customer first. It includes five questions for guiding a conversation about how B2B personalization can contribute most value to your target audience and business.
The 12 Corporate Video Types and When to Use Them
Can you even think of 12 different types of corporate video? Nor could we, until we read this helpful article by Emilia Dawson at Brafton. She explains some of the nuanced differences and how they contribute to effective video content marketing.
How to use GA4 to Optimize your Digital Marketing Strategy
As the sun sets on Google Universal Analytics (a.k.a. GA3), we're forced into the new world of GA4, whether we like it or not. Thankfully, smart people like Greg Jarboe, writing for Search Engine Land, are sharing helpful content on how to work this newfangled thing. This article is a must-read for setting up the basics, without which you'll miss out on many of the insights GA4 can deliver.
The 7 B2B Website Essentials: What Customers Want
As Ruth Stevens describes in this post for MarTech, there's frequently a discrepancy between what companies think their websites should achieve and what their prospects and customers expect to find when they visit. Take note of what's most essential today, and make plans to update and maintain your website accordingly.
Book Links
Secure your copies of Content Marketing: Mission Critical and Content Marketing: Making the Magic Happen in paperback or ebook format here (using discount codes MissionVIP33 and MagicVIP33, respectively) or via Amazon. Limited edition signed boxed sets, like the one shown above, are also available—click below for details:
One Step…
This week’s One Step actionable tip involves a quick self-assessment on the authenticity and originality of your content.
The goal is to assess whether a lack of either ingredient might be getting in the way of stronger content performance.
Effective content must raise itself above an ever-increasing ocean of plain vanilla garbage, much of it spewed directly from unfiltered AI. Conveniently, two things that human readers and online algorithms are both good at spotting are authenticity and original ideas. So, you should try to deploy both as consistently as you can.
Here’s the test:
Read back through the last five pieces of content that your team published. If they’re short (e.g., social posts) rather than longer form (e.g., blogs), you might increase this to ten pieces.
Rate each piece on a scale of 1 (very poor) to 5 (amazing) on its authenticity.
In other words: Was it clearly, unequivocally, and unmistakably written by a human member of your team?Rate each piece on a scale of 1 (very poor) to 5 (amazing) on its originality.
This means: Does it contain ideas that are unique to your company and that a reader will clearly see as being different from those expressed in pieces by other authors/companies on the same subject?Add up your scores for each parameter. The totals should each lie somewhere between 5 and 25 (or 10 and 50 if you read ten pieces instead of five).
There are no hard thresholds for success or failure here but anything below 15 indicates a clear opportunity for improvement, while anything over 20 is an excellent outcome (keep it up!)
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