Using AI to write your online content? You could be doing your business more harm than good.

You may be thinking ‘so what?’ In this day and age, surely EVERYONE is using AI for SOMETHING. What’s wrong with letting ChatGPT write a few of my social posts? And you’re right.

Large Language Models (LLMs) like Chat have come a long way since their emergence just three years ago. (LLMs have been around for decades, but the development of more accessible platforms has made AI an everyday commodity for anyone with an internet connection.)

The result? An online explosion in AI generated content. If you are using a chatbot to bang out your blog articles and social posts, you’re certainly not alone. So, if everyone’s at it, why is it so easy to spot – and why is this a bad thing?

Generally speaking

Generic, boring, unimaginative – is this how you’d describe your business’ brand – or how you want your customers to view you? When you use AI to create your content, this is the message you’re putting out. The AI’s words might say what you want them to – but are they saying them in a way that reflects your business’ personality?

Using tools like Chat to communicate with your customers makes your business sound bland and your blogs and posts blend in. Don’t be tempted to choose ease over effectiveness or let AI cramp YOUR style. Putting a little time and love into your content makes all the difference – and if you’re really strapped, you could hire a human copywriter to it for you!

On repeat

Although AI falls short on tone of voice, it’s very good at using the same well-worn phrases over and over again. Not only do these AI idioms stand out like a robotic thumb, they make your content look old before its time.

Anyone casting a quick eye over your brand-new blog and seemingly being met with the same guff from the last one is going to bounce without a second glance.  

The other issue is that, to be blunt, they make your content look lazy – and this reflects badly on how people view your approach to your business – and your customers. Only a sloppy, careless copywriter would resort to repeating the same words and phrases.

There are over 600,000 words in the Oxford English Dictionary, not to mention all the made-up Gen Z and Alpha ones that haven’t been recorded yet – don’t let AI rob you of those riches!

Show your customers you care about them and your business with quality copy that captures people’s attention.

Vanilla essence

Another of Chat’s delightful robotic quirks is its ability to write content for EVERYONE. If it were a flavour of ice cream, it would be vanilla. Inoffensive, nice enough, does the job – what’s not to like about vanilla?!

‘Great’, I hear you say, ‘I WANT everyone to read and understand my content.’ But actually, do you?  

Think about it: who’s your ideal customer? Is it anyone and everyone, or can you picture them clearly in your mind’s eye? Ask yourself:

• Do they fall into a specific age group?
• Do they identify as a certain gender?
• Is their cultural background important to them?
• What are their hobbies and interests?
• Is it someone above a certain paygrade? Or someone with a specific life goal in mind?  

Whatever your ideal customer looks like, we bet they’re not vanilla. And they probably don’t see themselves as ‘vanilla’ either.

Whether they’re saucy, fruity, or a bit nutty, they’re going to have their own identity and their own district flavour. There will also be similarities between your customers that mean they identify with many of the same things.

When you use AI to create your vanilla content, you obliterate all opportunities to recognise and acknowledge those key identifiers that speak directly to YOUR ideal customer to help you connect with them.  

People like to feel seen. By including puns, irony, in jokes, cultural references, and trends that your customers relate to (and AI does NOT), you form a very special human bond with your client base that makes YOU their favourite flavour.

Woops-a-dAIsy

Fast? Yes. Efficient? Yes. Accurate? Hmmm… not always.

It’s no secret the content churned out by LLMs like Chat is stuff its hoovered up from elsewhere on the internet and spat out like a ball of AI gum.

This can be advantageous for the purposes of speed. HOWEVER, what it produces is not always accurate and, in some cases, is downright laughable.

Publishing those things without checking them first makes you look a bit silly. In a world where you want your customers to see you as an expert in your field, AI blunders are doubly embarrassing – not to mention damaging. They undermine your authority, make customers question your methods, and ultimately cost you their hard-won trust.

If you must use AI for some quick research, make sure you spend some time checking those facts before you press the big ‘Go’ button on your content!

Always ‘right’

On the flipside, even if its ‘facts’ are sometimes questionable, AI generated content is always ‘right’. It will structure sentences within your post or blog perfectly, which frankly looks a bit weird.

NO ONE writes or speaks like that, and it screams ‘robot drivel’.

It also has a nasty habit of structuring certain types of content in the same way every time – overuse of emojis and bullet points, anyone? 😊

While you could make arguments for consistency of style there is also something to be said for variety.

Admittedly, AI can be good at picking up spelling mistakes – something you definitely want to avoid wherever possible. However, it’ll usually default to the American spelling of certain words unless you tell it otherwise. Be careful how much of this creeps into your copy; if words like ‘realize’, ‘fantasize’, and ‘utilize’ are not in line with your brand voice – and you’re primarily speaking to UK customers – it’s always best to opt for the UK spelling instead.

Eager to please

As well as getting full marks for its spelling, punctuation, and grammar, AI is a ‘people pleaser’, going out of its way to NEVER upset ANYONE. Ask an AI for content on a contentious issue, it will always choose the ‘safe’ line, never siding with one view on an argument, hot topic, or debate.

This results in utterly benign content, totally lacking in opinion and devoid of any feeling. But is this how you want your business to be seen?

By showcasing your values and underlining your stance on potentially divisive subjects, you show the human side to your business. Sharing passionate online content – backed by evidence – that your customers can get behind is another way to build a bond with them and cement your brand identity.

Be bold, be brave, be controversial even! Your commitment to a cause inspires customer loyalty and allegiance.

Where does Google come into all this?

As I mentioned at the start of this article, not only is it easy for other humans to spot your AI content (which isn’t a good look for any business), it’s also easy for Google to spot it too – and this spells bad news for your website.

It might seem like a quick SEO win to churn out a bunch of blog prompts and get ChatGPT to write and optimise them. But even if the results are jammed with all the best keywords, your content is still likely to sink.

That’s because, despite being a machine, Google is on the side of the humans. Its criteria for content follows the EEAT rule, which stands for:

• Experience
• Expertise
• Authority
• Trustworthiness

This means that when Google responds to a search query, it looks to find content that fulfils these criteria in relation to the search and prioritises results that showcase these qualities in the pages it throws up.

For example, if you enter ‘recipe for granola’ into Google’s search engine, it will scour the web and look for granola recipes that show:

Experience from the author, i.e. first-hand hints and tips from someone who’s tried and tested the recipe.

Expertise from the author, i.e. evidence such as links to their LinkedIn profile that shows they have working knowledge of nutrition or food preparation.

Authority within the content, i.e. high-quality, informative material that sites other high-profile sources within its learnings.

Trustworthiness from the website, i.e. transparency about who is behind the content with contact and customer service information readily available.

But it goes deeper than this. Google also prioritises content ‘written by humans for humans.’ That means all the quirks and idiosyncrasies that are personal to you and your brand – Google LOVES! In fact, it actually goes so far as to penalise any content it feels doesn’t exhibit enough human traits by pushing it down the rankings.

So, all those ‘perfectly drafted’ AI paragraphs? They’re probably doing your website more harm than good.

In today’s digital world where everyone expects results at the touch of a button, it’s easy to see the appeal of letting Chat take charge of your online written content. But some things are still worth the wait. The effort you put into creating your own content really does pay off with your customers and your Google rankings. And if you don’t have time or writing just isn’t your thing – that’s where we come in!

Your online channels are a powerful marketing tool. With the help of Formation’s digital communication experts, we’ll transform your business. Speak to a member of the team today.