Right & wrong way to use AI writing 🤖

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We all know tomorrow is Chocolate Covered Raisins Day, so feel free to use that in a Friday email blast. Or simply make up your own holiday.

As for today, we are looking at how to best utilize AI writing in emails, blogs, social captions, videos, etc. Also, the precise weaknesses of robot writers. It would be foolish to ignore a tool that can lighten your writing load. No one would go back to a typewriter, right? But it would also be crazy to think artificial intelligence is or ever will be flawless.

Tale of Two AI Writing Reports

Midas Touch (4-blog series) and HubSpot did AI writer reports.

Midas focused on B2B writing. HubSpot on general content.

My top-5 highlights from the reports:

Concrete human outline helped tremendously
AI specializes in SEO best practices
Templated content elements suit robot writers (i.e. meta descriptions)
The AI writer’s data set could be outdated
AI can mix up facts, statistics, even concepts (AI hallucinations)

The question that stood out to me most was raised by Midas. Besides saving time, why are you considering using an AI-writer?

“For example, ChatGPT’s knowledge is limited to 2021.”

No AI Writer Block

Writer’s block is a good reason… and excuse to use an artificial intelligence writer.

Writer’s block can strike any human writer for various reasons. Low energy. Rough week. Bad decisions on chocolate raisins.

But having an always-ready robot can and will produce a generation of lazy writers. Truth.

Writing is hard and easy to put off. Why do you think millions of people say they “could write a book” but so few ever type the first sentence?

AI Writing SEO Double-speak

While HubSpot touts the SEO powers of AI-generated content, what good is that if Google is gonna smite the bot content?

“Google’s helpful content update outlines its mission to “help people see more original, helpful content written by people, for people, in search results. Amidst the rise of AI writing tools, search engines can recognize AI because it typically lacks human expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness.”

Human expertise
Authoritativeness
Trustworthiness

If you can add those elements after ChatGPT lays out a solid SEO structure then that’s the value of AI in this arena. That is, IF you can add those elements more efficiently than by writing the entire article yourself.

Then, the suits…

Human Experience Can’t Be Plagiarized

I’ve mentioned AI lawsuits in past editions of Inbox Hacking (mainly AI art). So plagiarism will be a concern with AI writing too. Another reason you need a human to at least vet all AI content.

Even if AI writing evolves to the point no plagiarism is possible, there are other big problems. Midas highlighted them with the example of thought leadership writing which is derived from:

#1 A robot writer can insert facts and statistics but has no feel for the story behind the numbers.

#2 It can paste quotes from in-house experts, but can it make the readers understand what the expert wants to share?

#3 Knowing what the network or industry is talking about goes back to the possibly outdated data set the bot has.

#4 As for mistakes… What mistakes!🤖? These bots lie and make stuff up. Plus, it’s hard to get ChatGPT to be critical of even the worst people (I tested this extensively, no joke). So how likely is the bot to criticize the brand it is ‘working’ for, even when mistakes are part of a successful turnaround story?

The bottom line.

Should Your Organization Use AI Writers?

Yes. Should you turn bots loose on your email subscribers and blog readers? Um, no.

If you have or are a solid non-lazy writer, I suggest letting others work out the kinks on ChatGPT and its merry band of AI authors. CNET put on a clinic for what not to do.

I’m no idiot. Well, I am an idiot. But even I know better than to trust a new technology with articles I want to be accurate and helpful to my readers.

Right now, the best uses for AI writing tools are:

Blog outlines
SEO structuring
Producing endless subject lines to choose from

Most of all, I suggest playing around and testing AI writers. You don’t want to be the first to implement these tools. Being the last would not be wise either though.

Perhaps test ChatGPT by starting that book you always wanted to write 😉.

BTW – AI writers will be critical if you push them a bit. ChatGPT wrote the Yelp-style review below:

Keep reading for new stats, knowledge base, & an incredible AI-produced video.

Knowledge Base

🔌Knowledge is power but better stretch first.

Interview insights for producing a complex newsletter(s).

🃏Drip’s favorite April Fools email examples.

23 experts’ takes on email marketing trends.

💕Loyalty programs have big upsides— create / improve yours, 10 tips.

Self Help

Options suck.

Not to someone in the 1800s. They had like 6, and 3 involved farming.

Today, we’re overrun with options.

What to read, what to write about, which marketing tactics to lean into.

Focus would help, but that’s not an option.

Not while we’re plugged into machines with billions of options.

Currently, the only way to focus on what matters most is to schedule time away from screens.

It may also be the only way to be certain our reading, writing, and business choices are ours.

And not nudges from behind a screen.

*Shout-out to Inbox Hacking Subscribers →

⌨Kim at KimDoyal (Content marketing)

💸Stacey at APS (Payroll)

Facts and Stats

Most frequently used by brands in good customer relationships: Email 67% / Voice call 63% (Front survey)
86% of people searching on Google ignore paid ads. 70% of links clicked are organic (Marketing Insider Group)
80+% of industry experts integrate some form of AI tech into their online marketing (HubSpot)

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Marketing Musings

Lots can go wrong in email campaigns.

Besides sending one off during a bender… Tina in Indiana.

You also have to worry about subject lines not hitting the mark, spam filters over-filtering, and rendering issues in Outlook.

Even with all those worries, at least with email marketing, we can test our efforts before launching them into the world.

See how they look in various inboxes, check subject line scores, and check for spam warnings.

Hard to do that with social media or Google advertising.

Yeah, you can view ads before they go live. But once they do, how do you know where they are actually appearing with this magical automatic bidding and placement?

“US Senator Mark Warner (vice chair of the US Senate Intelligence Committee) sent a letter to the Federal Trade Commission in October 2018, raising his concerns over high levels of digital ad fraud, in the wake of Buzzfeed’s exposé. In this letter he accused Google and other major platforms of inaction and even wilful blindness to the scale of ad fraud, while continuing to happily pocket the revenue.” ~ Full article

Email marketing is more reliable, manageable, and most of all, believable.