As a marketer, I’m fascinated by the growing availability of generative AI tools. I’ve been using them extensively to test their limits and see how I can best improve my efficiency and content creation for my clients.
What have I learned? Generative AI is great for generating first drafts and finessing final drafts, but it’s the stuff that happens in the middle that’s missing: the human touch. We’ve all seen the AI-generated junk popping up in our feeds—blog articles, LinkedIn posts, and emails that are void of all humanity.
So how do we stand out? How can brands maintain authenticity and build human connections in the age of AI?
The answer is simple: you MUST have a strong understanding of your audience and your brand.
What Makes a Strong Brand?
A brand strategy is the bridge that connects brands with customers. It’s about revealing the “why” and “who” behind your business. Sharing your brand’s story helps customers relate to you, support you, and trust you.
In fact, 90% of millennials say that authenticity is important when deciding which brands they like and support. They want to emotionally connect with brands, understand their values, and share their passions. It’s not just about having a great product; it’s about knowing who you are buying from and why they do what they do. This is where a solid brand strategy comes in.
A good brand strategy will help you:
Define Your Purpose: Start by clearly defining your brand’s purpose, vision, and values. How does your brand stay true to its original purpose? Embrace vulnerability and imperfection—it makes you more relatable.
Understand your target audience and the problems you are solving for them. A strong brand strategy starts with a deep understanding of your target audience. What are their needs and wants? What are their pain points? What are they looking for in a brand? Once you have a good understanding of your audience, you can tailor your brand messaging and positioning to resonate with them.
Define your key messages. Your key messages are the core messages that you want to communicate to your target audience. They should be clear, concise, and persuasive. What makes your brand unique? What are you offering your customers that they can’t get anywhere else? Your key messages should be reflected in all of your marketing materials, from your website and social media to your advertising and sales pitches.
Be consistent. Consistency is key when it comes to building a strong brand. Your brand identity should be consistent across all of your customer touchpoints. This includes your website, emails, socials and your customer service. When customers have a consistent experience with your brand and receive consistent messaging, they know what you stand for. This is what helps build trust and loyalty.
The Consequences of Generic Content
Generic and inauthentic content may seem like a quick fix to improve SEO and attract more traffic to your site, but it can have long-lasting negative consequences you need to consider before you push the “Publish” button. These consequences include:
- Loss of customer trust
- Decreased customer engagement
- Legal consequences
- Damaged reputation
- Decreased customer loyalty
Put simply, it’s not worth the risk. If you want to build a successful business and maintain a good reputation, focus on creating authentic content that accurately reflects your brand’s personality, values, and beliefs.
So how can you leverage AI to create authentic content?
Generative AI can be a powerful tool for content creation, but it’s important to use it in a way that preserves your brand’s authenticity and authority. Here are some tips:
Use AI to generate ideas, not finished products. AI can be great for brainstorming new topics, generating headlines, and creating outlines. But don’t rely on AI to write your entire piece for you. Your content should be infused with your own unique perspective, experience, and insights.
Edit and fact-check your AI-generated content carefully. AI is not perfect, and it can sometimes generate inaccurate or misleading information. It’s important to carefully edit and fact-check all AI-generated content before publishing it. You don’t want to end up like the Columbus Dispatch, do you? 
Add your own voice and personality to your content. AI can generate content that is grammatically correct, but it often lacks the human touch. Make sure to add your own voice and personality to your content by adding a unique story, insight or opinion that you have on the topic.
Also, we encourage you to read How Generative AI Can Help You Create High-Quality Content For Your Small Business. We outline great tools, prompts and things to consider.
As marketers, we must balance the power of AI with the importance of preserving our brand. AI can help us generate and refine content, but it’s our stories and our sincerity that will allow us to stand out. In the end, it’s the human connections we create that matter most.
If you need help refining your brand strategy and your key messaging, get in touch, we’d love to help out.
