One of my summer jobs during college was to answer people’s questions online. Essentially, I was paid to Google things before smartphones were ubiquitous, and when the most effective search results came from stringing keywords together.
As an example, if someone texted the service I worked for and asked “What was the population of the U.S. in 2009?” I would then Google “united states population 2009”. As a human, I would translate a human’s question into keywords a computer would understand. (The answer is over 306 million, in case you were curious.)
We have come a long way in the 15-ish years since then. Not only can you ask Google questions directly rather than with keywords, you can jump into a generative AI platform, ask it a question, and it creates a response that mimics a human’s reasoning and speech in seconds. It’s uncanny!
Those words stick out to me when talking about genAI, mimic and uncanny. A mimic is a simulation or imitation. When something is uncanny, it’s familiar, but in an unsettling way.
And this brings us to genAI’s impact on digital marketing: How is it being used? Is it effective? Does it feel human, or like it’s trying to be human? Let’s take a look.
The efficiency-to-slop pipeline.
When large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT burst onto the scene around 2022, they were quickly lauded for their abilities to generate multiple iterations of text for whatever you needed. As IBM puts it:
“Generative AI revolutionizes the content supply chain from end-to-end by automating and optimizing the creation, distribution and management of marketing content. Applications for AI in content marketing include automated content creation. Through these processes, AI tools generate high-quality blog posts, social media updates and ad copy based on specific keywords, topics and styles.”
Well, we know where this led us – dissections of how to tell if something was written by AI (justice for the em dash), images that all looked a little off (though they are rapidly improving), and wildly overpromising on events (looking at you, Willy Wonka Experience).
Was genAI efficient? Sure. Was it effective? Fast Company notes that when brands quickly deploy genAI, “they often inundate audiences with content that may be fast and efficient, but lacks personality. AI delivers real advantages in speed and volume, but brands soon learn it’s challenging to utilize while preserving credibility and emotional impact.”
Creating successful digital marketing content in the age of AI.
Every organization has different marketing and business goals, but if you boil them down, most companies are ultimately appealing to human consumers to achieve those goals. To appeal to humans, you need to be human, not just mimic us.
That’s what you get when you work with our integrated communications agency – human-generated content that connects with your human audiences.
How Dittoe PR applies AI insights to human expertise.
Regardless of the type of content Dittoe PR produces for our clients – be it op-eds, blog posts, internal newsletters or speaking proposals – everything we create is primarily written and designed by a human. GenAI tools can be helpful as we research niche industry-specific topics, poke holes in our arguments, or offer suggestions to tighten up long-winded prose, but we choose how to leverage AI insights. (Case in point, I asked ChatGPT how it would write that last sentence. Its “punchier” suggestion was, “GenAI helps us dig into niche topics, spot weaknesses in our thinking, and sharpen our writing.” I have chosen not to use that version.)
➡️ Read more about our content marketing + creation services.
How PR impacts AI visibility, and how we track it.
If you read our blog post on earned media and AI brand visibility, you know that genAI loves earned media. The media relations work we do at Dittoe PR makes an impact on how your brand is perceived by LLMs and, in turn, humans. How much of an impact? We can tell you.
Dittoe PR offers tiered reporting scopes that can include AI visibility measurement and analysis such as presence, sentiment and competitive share of voice across AI-powered search engines. Included with all PR scopes, our dedicated media database platform includes AI visibility badges to help us identify and target outlets and journalists that influence AI outputs and citations. For those who would like a deeper level of visibility reporting, we can offer this service for an additional investment using specialized tools from Semrush.
How social media impacts AI visibility, and how we can help.
Of course, LLMs are pulling from more than just news media. They also pull from your website, Google Business Profile, business listings across online directories, customer reviews, and, increasingly, social media profiles. Effective social media strategies should reinforce who you are and the services you provide while also signalling to LLMs that your business is active. You need to engage with the online community and post consistently, which is where Dittoe PR’s social media team comes in.
We use our knowledge of your brand, audience and goals to build a social media strategy and draft content that appeals to both humans and the AI search engines they’re using. Check out our “Impact of AI on Social Media” blog post to see how we balance AI tools and results with content that resonates.
Final thoughts.
The rate at which genAI is evolving today is, well, uncanny. Some people argue that AI is the only way forward and if you don’t start using it you’ll be left behind, but just as many are actively resisting its pull. Positive or negative, we can’t deny its influence. But that doesn’t mean we let it call all the shots.
You and your company still interact with humans in some capacity, whether you’re selling them shoes or developing administrative technology for an entire industry. At some point in the marketing journey, there will be a human calling the shots and making a decision. We ensure you, as a human, are talking to them even when AI tools are implemented in the process.
If AI’s rapidly changing rules and metrics are overwhelming your digital marketing, we can help. Get in touch to see how Dittoe PR can partner with you to successfully reach the right human audience with the right AI tools.
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