Leveraging AI in Content Creation: Balancing Efficiency and Authenticity (vs Straight BS)

"In the ever-evolving world of SEO", How many time have you seen a piece of content open like that? It's more of the same AI generate garbage (no offence future overlords). There is a better way, the reality is, you need to be integrating AI into your content "development process". Note I didn't say "content creation" process. 

I'm not using AI to create content (unless it's the medium like a GPT... but more on that another time), I use AI to repurpose and rethink content. I use it to find ways to make content creation more unique and helpful to audiences. 

Here's how I navigate this:

Incorporating AI Tools

I see AI tools as a great way to go deeper faster. Push the boundaries and rethink content to be more unique and especially more specifically helpful to audiences. I often ask my AI assistant to consider my audience more in its answers and justify it's logic (never trust it blindly, it barely has it's own learners permit yet).

That said, I use AI to:

• Analyze trending topics, but ask it to provide me with topics that might surprise me (and validate the reasoning and sources).

• Generate outlines, but ask it to go deeper into sub topics and identify unique ways they could connect to one another in less hierarchical fashion (you should be playing around a lot here with your prompts... don't worry we all do it)

• Provide data insights that inform my content strategy, but ask it to find an additional corroborating source with citation (just like a reporter, 1 source is just an opinion, two is way stronger) 

All this helps streamline the content creation process, making it more efficient while not losing the specificity I need to really serve my audience.

Overcoming Challenges of AI-Generated Content

It's hard to make AI-generated content stand out. That's one of the reasons Google doesn't like it and frankly users don't either. It's more of the same. We live in a world with too many options, provided too quickly. More of the same doesn't actually help anyone. In the case of AI, most often you are working off the same dataset as everyone else. So the idea that something uniquely valuable would derive from that is low.

Whenever possible, try to get your hands on an internal or less publicly facing dataset that you can work off of. AI shouldn't author the content, but it sure can help you collect it and consider it and structure it.

That's not to say you shouldn't consider using AI if you do have publicly available data, just take it deeper. Go deeper into the why, the how, and have it help you create more specific, helpful, thoughtful actionable content (just ask how could this be more actionable for this audience).

AI Repurposing with a purpose

A client of mine had a guide. It was great, it was detailed, it was specific, it was expertly written, it was actionable, frankly it was everything you want a guide to be, but it was Looooonnnnnngggg. 

People just don't consume like they used to. It's what I call the "Wedding Album Syndrome", you know, you go to your cousin's house a year after their wedding and she says "Oh you haven't seen the wedding album yet" a heavy leatherbound book is then promptly put on your lap with far too many pages. You fainne interest trying not to flip too quickly, but we all know what you are really looking for... pictures of you. 

I know, it feels selfish right!? It's human nature and the same holds especially true behind the anonymity of a computer screen. 

People want content that serves them, specifically, in their terms on their terms. We want to find ourselves and what's most relevant to us in the content we consume. The idea of reading informational content in the hopes of finding relevance needs to be a thing of the past. My ads are personalized and I'm starting to think soon my content will be as well. 

So I actually built the client a custom GPT from the guide which asked a couple of questions to their audience. Each question was multiple choice and provided unique insights and actionable next steps to take from the guide based on how they were answering along the way (I also made sure it told them that they would get the whole thing at the end so they didn't have to bother taking notes).

It really "guided" the user though the content which ultimately gave them a tailored experience. They didn't have to look for the answers; the answers found them. Now does that mean the tradtional guide on the blog was a waste? NO WAY. Different medium, (different strokes for different folks) some people want to learn it all, other just want to see pics of themselves.

So what now? Hit me up I can come up with at least 15 different ways you can be using AI to repurpose your content and increase its audience relevancy 

Balancing Efficiency and Expertise

I think the first thing you have to do there is look for the expert content, right? So look for that expert. Look for the content produced by the expert. Don't ignore the expert. In fact, get as much information as you can from an expert. Once you have that, you can use AI to structure and streamline the information, but the depth and authenticity come from the expert's insights.

Meeting the E-E-A-T Criteria

So I think the best way to do that is to ensure that the author, who in essence should be the expert you're asking or interviewing or gaining this information from, can provide you examples so that you can extrapolate upon those using AI. This involves coming up with deeper questions, more insights, and identifying what you need to be asking of the author because the author still should be the author. We're still looking to them for their expertise.

Benefits and Drawbacks of AI

It's very easy to fall into the trap of over-relying on AI for content creation, which can lead to generic or shallow content. The key benefit of using AI is the efficiency and speed it offers, allowing for quick generation of content ideas, drafts, and analysis of trends. However, the drawback is that AI-generated content often lacks the depth, nuance, and personal touch that come from human experience and expertise. To counter this, it's important to use AI as a tool to enhance human-created content, not replace it.Leveraging AI in Content Creation: Balancing Efficiency and Authenticity (vs Straight BS)