Advertising has been constant for years even when it shows up in different media. But are people becoming more conscious of ads (especially with efforts to not target kids) or has the integration of ads into social media and influencer marketing made them harder to spot?
For a long time, when my kids were little, their wish lists for toys and ‘stuff’ usually came from 30-second commercials tucked in between their favourite cartoons. It was no different than when I was a kid, watching Saturday morning cartoons and seeing the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle figures and pizza truck that looked cool or the new My Little Pony set.
Eventually, as they got older, even their commercial consumption changed. It was no longer about television cartoons, because their on-air television consumption reduced in favour of online videos and streaming services. There were (are) still YouTube ads that would play before they watched their favourite gamer do a walk-through.
Then, as teens, with their phones in hand, more commercials and sponsored posts showed up on Pinterest and Instagram – sometimes clearly marked as an ad, other times, integrated into a campaign that made it less clear.
Adults and kids are constantly being marketed too. The house hippo offered a conversation about truth in advertising when we were little (and continues today) but navigating a world that is always pitching, always trying to sell, and always telling us that our lives would be better somehow if we had just one more thing, is hard to overcome.
And yet, I feel as though younger generations are more aware of their shopping habits and attempts from companies to advertise to them. Sure, you can look at the popularity of the Stanley Cup water bottles or the Sephora Tweens conversation to absolutely destroy my theory quickly, but all around there’s something that isn’t quite the same as when we were teens and we all insisted on buying name brand clothing only, or were driven heavily by what we saw on television.
Younger people are thrifting, are more aware of how consumption affects the environment and are questioning what materials something is made from or who made it. They have ad blockers on their computers and click on “Skip” at the first possible moment when YouTube pushes an ad to them. Is this a sign that they want less advertising?
And what role does influencer marketing play? Maybe younger people aren’t as convinced by an ad, but if their favourite celebrity is creating a product, are they more likely to buy it? Are you or I?
We know that advertising works. I can point to items in my house or that I’m wearing that were from an ad I saw online. However, the more aware we are, is it easier for us and our kids to make smarter purchasing decisions? To not feel the same drive? Start these conversations with your kids and hear what they think!
Everyone wants to scale their business but hardly any make it a success.
Only 22% of new businesses launched in the past decade have pulled it off. 70% of startups struggle to scale, and half of small businesses don’t make it past year five. The odds don’t look good.
It’s an important phase and the rewards are there if you can crack the code. Join the 22% with 7 ChatGPT prompts to help you scale.
Scale your business with ChatGPT: prompts for ideation, planning and success
Know when to make your move
“Adopt the role of a business analyst. What are the key indicators that suggest my business is ready to scale? Help me assess whether now is the right time to expand in [describe your industry/niche].”
Timing is everything. Don’t jump too soon, but don’t miss your window. Use this prompt to get it right. If you decide it is time to scale, move on to this next prompt.
“Guide me through developing a scaling strategy that aligns with my current business model and market conditions. What steps should I take to prepare for growth? Ask 5 questions, one by one, about my business plan before providing a draft strategy [Include your business model and business plan]”
A solid plan is your roadmap to success. Without it, you’re just wandering. ChatGPT can suggest areas to explore that you may have missed.
Spot your scaling opportunities
“Acting as a growth advisor, help me identify potential scaling opportunities, such as new markets, products, or services. How can I evaluate and prioritize these options in line with the scaling strategy outlined. Here’s what we have tried so far: [describe that here]”
The right opportunity can skyrocket your growth. Get a list of ideas, discount those that won’t work, then choose a few and double down.
Prepare for the pitfalls
“What are some common challenges businesses like mine face when scaling, and how can I mitigate them? [Add more specific business details if required] Provide specific strategies for navigating potential pitfalls.”
70% of scale-ups fall short in at least one critical area, identified by McKinsey as being product & strategy, go to market, technology, people, operations, capital and governance. Cover all your bases.
Build your dream team
“Help me create a plan for scaling my team as my business grows, especially as I explore [specify the strategy you want to explore]. What roles should I prioritize hiring for, and how can I maintain a strong company culture? Here’s information about my team right now: [include that here]”
Your team can make or break your scaling efforts. Get a second opinion on the people you have in place, and build up with the best new hires.
Get your finances in order
“What financial considerations should I keep in mind when scaling my business as planned? Guide me through managing cash flow, securing funding, and planning for financial sustainability. First, ask me questions about my current finances so you have a deeper understanding of my situation.”
Successful scale-ups raise 250% more investment than anticipated. If you’re going for funding, be prepared for a windfall when you get this right.
Streamline your operations
“Assist me in refining my operations to support scaling. What changes should I consider in processes, technology, or partnerships to handle increased demand? First, ask me questions about my current operational setup and point out any areas of concern. Then move onto adaptations required for scaling.”
Efficiency is key. Make sure your operations can handle the growth, then throw everything at the top of the funnel. Without this step, your business could buckle under the strain of even your first efforts at scaling.
Scale smart, scale fast: ChatGPT prompts for insane business growth
Use these prompts to start your scaling journey with ChatGPT. Tailor them to your business for personalized advice and keep refining your plan until you’re confident in your scaling strategy. Get better as you get better.
You’ll know you’re ready to scale when the stats motivate you, not scare you off trying. Join the elite set of startups that successfully scale. Your scaling journey starts now. Make it count.
Founder of Coachvox AI – create an AI version of you. Forbes 30 under 30 class of 2017. Post-exit entrepreneur and author of Ten Year Career. Competitive powerlifter and digital nomad.
Welcome to the digital jungle. Hear that noise? It’s the sound of content saturation, which seems the only possible outcome in a world that generates 2.5 quintillion bytes of data each day. To hold all that data, we’d need 50 billion four-drawer filing cabinets—each day.
Understandably, it’s incredibly difficult for any one piece of your marketing content to stand out. Content saturation is why your carefully crafted posts, videos, and ebooks feel like whispers in a hurricane. But what if you could turn those whispers into roars?
Enter bold, strategic content marketing. This approach is about creating content that turns heads and drops jaws by challenging conventions and offering unique value. It’s content backed by a strategy that takes informed risks, pushes creative boundaries, and maps every piece of content back to broader business goals.
As important as it is, I’m not just talking about the content itself. I’m talking about how you conceive, create, and distribute it—the underlying strategy. A study published in the peer-reviewed journal PLOS One showed that content strategy plus well-written content that serves readers leads to higher content marketing effectiveness.
In other words, the difference between content created without strategy and content based on strategy is like the difference between content that adds to the noise and content that makes your audience hold its breath.
Now that’s power. Let’s dig into how you can unlock it yourself.
Crafting content that commands attention
When your content challenges the status quo and dares to be bold, your message will break through. getty
So, what’s the secret sauce of bold content? It’s simple enough: Dare to be different. Take a stand. Challenge the status quo. Tell stories others are too afraid to touch. Remember the last viral video that left you speechless? Or that blog post that flipped your world upside down? That’s what I’m talking about. It’s content that shows up in your feed—owns your feed—dominating it for days.
Old as it is, take Dove’s Real Beauty campaign, for example. It dared to show women of all shapes, sizes, and ages in its ads. Bold move? You bet. Dove challenged beauty industry norms. Its campaign went viral and sparked conversations about beauty standards, positioning Dove as a brand that stands for something more than just selling products.
Or how about Patagonia’s “Don’t Buy This Jacket” campaign? In a bold move contradicting basic marketing principles, the company asked customers to think twice about their purchases, showing that it cares more about the planet than profits. Talk about walking the talk.
Bold creativity, meet razor-sharp strategy
Strategy is where this magic happens. It’s the pre-brief brainstorming, planning, and intention that backs your boldness with purpose. Every piece of content, from the basic three-times-a-week LinkedIn post to the daring video exposé, comes to life through a clear vision mapped to specific business objectives. It’s bold creativity with a game plan.
Think Netflix. Its content strategy goes beyond promoting shows to creating experiences. Memes, behind-the-scenes content, witty social media banter—it all adds up to keep you binging—and subscribing.
The impact? It’s like turning on a megaphone in a library. You build authority, drive engagement, and turn attention into action. In a world of copycats, originals win big.
Dollar Shave Club is another example. People went bonkers when the company dropped its bold, hilarious “Our Blades Are F***ing Great” campaign, which went viral and disrupted an entire industry. Within 48 hours of the video’s release, 12,000 new customers signed up.
That’s the power of bold.
Case study: A go-big or go-home approach to bold content marketing
Vishal and Sejal Jain, founders of Sunshy Digital Media Agency and Thoughtful PR. Vishal Jain and Sejal Joshi
Digital marketing experts Vishal and Sejal Jain cracked the code to bold, strategic content. As the brains behind Sunshy Digital Media Agency and Thoughtful PR, this power couple has been shaking things up for clients and themselves.
Their approach? It’s all about strategic alignment, constant analysis, and data-driven decisions. And their approach is seasoned with boldness—boldly going where no internet marketer has gone before. Their boldness sets them apart.
Shifting to video-first content
Vishal and Sejal’s bold approach began in-house before fanning out to client work. “We saw the rise in video consumption and knew we had to adapt,” Sejal says. “By reallocating resources to produce high-quality video content, we saw a 500% increase in audience engagement,” she says. It was a bold move that paid off.
The finance influencer campaign: A 400% increase in revenue
Picture this: 50 social accounts, 10,000 videos, and one finance influencer. Sounds almost impossible—precisely what Vishal and Sejal thought. But they also knew this: In today’s content-saturated market, sometimes the impossible is exactly what you need.
“Go big or go home,” Vishal says. “We knew we had to do something unprecedented to help our client hit their goals.” And they did, generating 100 million monthly views and a 400% revenue increase.
That’s bold content marketing on steroids—data-driven, strategically aligned, and dominating the digital space.
Why go so bold?
Vishal explains. “We pursued this bold strategy because a campaign of this scale was unheard of in the finance industry,” he says. “Creating 50 accounts across platforms and producing over 10,000 short-form videos was a massive, unconventional approach. Who does 50 accounts and 10,000-plus videos? We do.”
Mitigating risk with meticulous planning
Don’t mistake bold for reckless, though. Sejal is quick to point to their meticulous approach. “We crunched the numbers hard,” she says. “To calculate the risk versus reward, we analysed the influencer’s current engagement metrics and projected potential growth based on a significant increase in content output. We estimated the resource investment against the potential reach and revenue uplift. Yes, the risk was high due to the scale of the operation. But the potential reward was off the charts.”
The payoff
The flooding of feeds as a bold content marketing strategy. getty
The payoff was even bigger than they dreamed. “We didn’t just capture attention,” Vishal says. “We owned the conversation and completely disrupted the finance content space.”
The numbers confirmed it. “The actual results confirmed that the calculated risk we took was well worth the reward,” says Sejal. “It led to 100 million monthly views and a four-times revenue increase, surpassing our initial estimates.”
The kicker is that their flooding of feeds was a form of strategic saturation. Every video mapped to the client’s goals. Ultimately, content marketing magic happened because they combined audacious ideas with thoughtful strategy. They were loud, but not for the sake of it. They were also intelligent, intentional, goal-oriented, and unafraid to push boundaries.
Expanding globally and even more bold strategies
As Vishal and Sejal’s companies expand globally, they face new content marketing challenges. “Cultural differences, language barriers, and varying content consumption habits all came into play,” says Vishal. “But these challenges also present opportunities.”
Their approach to global content marketing is, characteristically, bold. Rather than simply translating existing content, they create culturally specific content for each market. “We’re leveraging local influencers, using regional platforms, and tailoring our content to local preferences,” Sejal says. “It’s a more complex approach, but it allows us to build deeper connections in each market.”
Overcoming challenges
Bold content marketing isn’t without its challenges. Vishal and Sejal have faced everything from resource constraints to negative feedback on particularly daring campaigns. “Not every bold move pays off immediately,” Vishal says. “But we’ve learned that the biggest risks often lead to the biggest rewards.”
One particular challenge they’ve faced is maintaining consistency across bold campaigns. “It’s easy to get caught up in the excitement of a big, bold idea,” Sejal says. “But we always have to remember to tie it back to our overall strategy and brand identity.”
Their approach to overcoming these challenges? “Data, data, data,” Vishal says. “We’re constantly analyzing our results, learning from our mistakes, and refining our approach. Bold doesn’t mean blind—every risk we take is calculated and informed by data.”
The power of personalization
Content personalization goes hand-in-hand with bold content strategy. getty
While mass content creation was the goal of their finance influencer campaign, Vishal and Sejal also understand the importance of personalization. “In today’s market, one-size-fits-all content just doesn’t cut it,” Vishal says. “We use data analytics to understand audience segments and tailor our content accordingly.”
Sejal believes personalization is about striking a balance between reach and relevance. “Our bold strategies get attention, but the personalized touch keeps the audience engaged,” she says, noting that their approach involves creating content variations that speak directly to different audience segments. “Whether we’re tweaking headlines or developing entirely different content pieces for different demographics, we want to make sure our bold content resonates,” she says.
Embracing emerging platforms
Staying ahead in the content game means being willing to experiment with new platforms and formats. “We’re always looking for the next big thing,” Vishal says. “When we see potential in a new platform, we’re not afraid to jump in and test the waters.”
This willingness to embrace new technologies has been crucial to their success. “By being early adopters, we’ve been able to establish our clients as leaders in their spaces before the platforms become oversaturated,” Sejal says. “We’re bold enough to venture into uncharted territory.”
They thoroughly research emerging platforms, test content strategies, and quickly scale up successful approaches. This agility allows Vishal and Sejal to capitalize on new opportunities before competitors catch on.
The art of storytelling in bold content
Powerful storytelling is at the heart of Vishal and Sejal’s bold content strategy. “Even the most daring content falls flat if it doesn’t tell a compelling story,” Sejal says. “We focus on creating narratives that resonate with our audience’s aspirations and pain points.”
Their storytelling approach involves conducting deep audience research, identifying emotional triggers, and creating stories that match brand values while pushing boundaries. This combination of empathy and audacity in storytelling has been key to their content’s ability to cut through the noise.
“Being bold doesn’t just mean being loud or shocking, though” Vishal says. “It can also mean telling stories that others are afraid to tell and approaching familiar topics from entirely new angles.”
Success beyond vanity metrics
The best content metrics go beyond vanity. getty
As content marketers, it’s easy to get caught up in likes, shares, and views. However, Vishal and Sejal focus on metrics that truly matter to their clients’ bottom lines. “Vanity metrics are just that—vanity,” Vishal says. “We focus on lead quality, conversion rates, and ultimately, revenue generated.”
Sejal says their goal is to connect content performance to actual business outcomes. “We’ve developed custom dashboards that show our clients exactly how our bold content strategies are affecting their key performance indicators,” she says. This focus on tangible results has helped them prove the ROI of their bold strategies, making it easier for clients to buy into more daring approaches.
Continuous learning and adaptation
Another key element of Vishal and Sejal’s success is their commitment to continuous learning. “We never stop educating ourselves,” Vishal says. “Whether attending conferences, taking online courses, or simply experimenting, we always seek to expand our knowledge and skills.”
This mindset of perpetual learning allows them to stay ahead of trends and continue delivering cutting-edge strategies for their clients. “Our industry moves fast,” says Sejal. “What worked yesterday might not work tomorrow. Our boldness extends to how quickly we’re willing to adapt and try new things.”
Looking to the future
As they continue to push the boundaries of content, Vishal and Sejal are excited about the future. “We’re seeing a shift towards more authentic, purpose-driven content,” Sejal says. “Brands that can tell genuine stories and connect with their audiences on a deeper level will win in the long run.”
With their innovative approach and strategic mindset, Vishal and Sejal are leading the charge into the next era of content marketing. Their story is an inspiration and a roadmap for marketers looking to break through the noise.
Best practices for bold content creation
Best practices for bold content marketing. getty
Ready to make some bold waves yourself? Here’s your playbook.
1. Start with a strong foundation
Know your brand, your audience, your goals. As Sejal says, “You can’t break the rules until you know them inside out,” a knowing that includes a deep understanding of your audience. What are their pain points? What makes them tick? What kind of content do they crave? Once you have that foundation, you can start thinking about pushing boundaries.
Reita Hackaj, founder of Senstylable, a global fashion and style platform, echoes this sentiment, emphasizing the importance of vision and understanding the nuances of your chosen platform. “I had the visionary idea to start the Senstylable channel on Instagram, a platform entirely based on short-form video content that revolved around women and their stories,” she says. “This approach, which placed women at the centre of their narratives long before it became mainstream, demonstrates how bold, visionary content can set new industry standards.”
2. Let data be your guide
Use analytics to spot opportunities and measure success. The numbers don’t lie. Collect data and then interpret and act on it. Look for patterns in your most successful content. What topics get the most engagement? What formats perform best? Use those insights to inform your bold content ideas. And don’t forget to keep measuring as you go. Set clear KPIs for your bold initiatives and be ready to pivot if the data suggests a change in direction.
3. Align boldness with strategy
Every wild idea should tie back to your business goals. No exceptions. It’s easy to get carried away with creative concepts, but always ask yourself: How does this idea serve our larger objectives? Perhaps your goal is to increase brand awareness, drive more leads, or establish thought leadership. Whatever it is, make sure your bold content ideas are strategically aligned. Don’t play it safe but do be intentional about your boldness.
4. Quality meets quantity
Go big, but never compromise on value. Every piece of content should pack a punch. And be consistent, but don’t churn out mediocre content just to meet a quota. Strike a balance between regularity and quality. Whether creating daily social media posts or monthly in-depth articles, make sure each piece adds value to you and your audience. Remember, one piece of bold, high-quality content can rock the world in ways that dozens of forgettable posts cannot.
That said, consistency is also crucial, as Adnan Jaloudi, co-founder of Jaloudi Consulting, points out. “Consistently making good content you’re passionate about has a compounding effect,” he says. For content creators, Jaloudi recommends repurposing content across multiple platforms. “If you’re a content creator with a YouTube channel, you may find it most effective to have a lot of accounts repurpose and post short-form clips to TikTok, IG reels, YouTube shorts, and Twitter,” he says.
5. Stay true to your brand
Bold doesn’t mean becoming someone else. It means being more you than ever. When you’re pushing boundaries, it may be tempting to reinvent yourself completely. However, the most successful bold content is authentic to your brand voice and values. Think about how you can amplify your existing brand personality in unexpected ways. If you’re known for your expertise, how can you share that knowledge in a bold, attention-grabbing format? If humour is part of your brand, how can you take it to the next level?
6. Iterate, iterate, iterate
Be ready to tweak and refine. Some of the best campaigns start as good ideas that become great. Bold content often requires trial and error. Don’t be afraid to launch a bold initiative, gather feedback, and make improvements. Pay attention to how your audience responds and be willing to adjust your approach. This iterative process improves your content and shows your audience that you’re responsive and always striving to give them the best experiences.
What’s next? It’s your turn to roar
Go ahead! Now it’s time to go forth and create bold, strategic content!. getty
In the content kingdom, the crown goes to the strategic and bold. But it’s not about shouting the loudest—it’s about saying something worth hearing.
We’ve seen how several trailblazers are changing the game—taking risks, pushing boundaries, and reaping rewards. Now it’s your turn to make some noise.
Consider:
Brainstorming boldly—set aside time to brainstorm at least one audacious content idea that aligns with your brand and goals. Don’t hold back. Let your creativity run wild!
Audit your content—conduct a thorough content audit to identify areas for improvement and opportunities for bolder initiatives.
Analyse your data—dive deep into your analytics to understand what’s working and what’s not. Use those insights to inform your future content strategy.
Experiment and iterate—try new things and step outside your comfort zone. The most successful bold content often comes from experimentation and refinement.
Seek inspiration—look for examples of bold content marketing in your industry and beyond. What can you learn from their successes and failures?
Bottom line? Your audience is out there, holding their breath. What bold move will you make to captivate them? Don’t just add to the noise—break through it. Take a page from the experts, embrace the power of bold, strategic content marketing, and start creating content that leaves a lasting impression.
Since 2002, Renae Gregoire has been helping B2B companies and thought leaders get their big, bold ideas out into the world, influencing and selling for them. Across hundreds of clients,….read more
Branding goes beyond designing a simple logo and slapping your creation on all of your product packages or employee uniforms. It goes to the root of your business personality and how your business projects it to the public.
Every business values its brand, and building a reputable brand that people trust takes time. Thankfully, the rise of AI and its potential have made it an effective tool to help businesses supercharge their branding, alongside human creatives.
Although graphic designers may see the generative aspect of artificial intelligence as a source of conflict for their own artistic processes, GenAI can offer a more collaborative outlook when it comes to content ideation and brainstorming. This paves the way for greater productivity and originality without losing that all-important human touch in content marketing.
Many leading creatives are using AI already and it’s possible for you to use affordable tools to boost your startup or SME and supercharge your existing branding processes.
What to do before picking an AI tool for your branding
Besides considering costs, you need a quick roadmap before you jump on the AI trend. These are steps you should consider as you aim to improve your small business’s brand:
Identify what areas you want AI to work on: will that be simply designing your branding?
Investigate available tools
Pick what best fits your business and your budget
Train your staff
Scale up gradually
Artificial intelligence tools can level up your branding and build recognition among multiple audience segments. How? Let’s take a deeper look at how AI can spark marketing innovation for businesses and marketers:
How can AI level-up your SME branding?
There are many ways in which artificial intelligence can level up small business branding, and some key emerging use cases include:
01. Next-Generation brand design
Your brand design will be the first point of contact between your business and your audience. With this in mind, it’s vital to adapt your branding to appeal directly to your customer profile, their expectations, and their values.
For many SMEs, branding can be a resource-heavy and time consuming process. However, generative AI tools have helped to remove the common pain points for brands and empower businesses to assist with rapidly building engaging multimedia and text-based content that resonates well with leads and provides concepts for designers to run with.
ChatGPT has quickly emerged as a leading resource for budget-friendly marketing materials, and large-language models (LLMs) are capable of performing a number of tasks based on a simple series of user prompts.
From detailed ads to blog content and even brainstorming sessions for new slogans and catchphrases, generative AI offers SMEs and graphic designers the chance to tap into a smart marketing assistant on a smaller budget.
Platforms like Midjourney are also resources for improving business logos and other areas of brand design.
(Image credit: MR.Cole_Photographer via Getty Images)
As we’ve already touched on, ChatGPT is a good example of an LLM that’s capable of understanding user queries on a natural and contextual basis.
This makes generative AI chatbots one of the cheapest yet most effective brand development tools for small businesses.
AI chatbots use machine learning (ML) algorithms to be trained to understand more common and easily solved queries while diverting more complex issues to your existing customer service units.
This brand move helps your business stay helpful to customers while maintaining that all-important laser-focus on marketing innovation among creative employees.
You can use these tools to maintain a consistent brand image by harmonising your brand voice across all of your marketing channels. Artificial intelligence can help SMEs adopt a more omnichannel approach to marketing, helping to convert blog posts, announcements, and new campaigns into blog posts, newsletters, and press releases accordingly.
For graphic designers, this can help to provide a collaborative environment where your designs can be automatically cropped, adapted, and optimised for each channel.
Furthermore, with AI’s ability to analyse data, you can gather actionable insights from your customers. This helps your business customise marketing to fit individual customers and boost your brand image.
Generative AI is even capable of providing a level of personalisation that’s previously been impossible for human marketers to undertake. In using ML to accurately segment customers based on their likes, purchasing behaviour, and even demographics that could change their content delivery expectations.
This can pave the way for generative AI marketing tools to create content on pages that’s fully customised to appeal directly to specific audience segments, helping to maximize engagement opportunities.
04. Website optimisation
(Image credit: Klaus Vedfelt on Getty Images)
Your website is usually where most of your customers will transact with you. AI tools can help you build a website from scratch and optimize it.
Having a stable website that performs well and ranks well is essential if you are starting an online business in the current scenario. It is best for your brand if your website loads fast and has an optimal design and message that is uniform with other media forms you use, and AI can help you with this (as can some of the best website builders for small business).
There are AI tools that can help your website rank better, load faster, and make the entire web process easy for your customers. Generative AI website builders can even pre-populate your pages and automatically add your branding to make it easier than ever to build an engaging online presence.
This can help your content travel further, providing translations on-the-fly and adaptations that match the right segmented audience and their expectations.
05. Social Media management
(Image credit: Alexey Yakovenko via Getty Images)
Social media management is a place where brands are made or marred. Having a great social media presence will benefit your brand.
With simple AI tools, you can take care of part of the social media hassle, such as scheduling posts or generating content ideas. This frees you up to create content and meet your customers expectations.
While this level of automation can be excellent for optimising repetitive tasks, AI will form a more collaborative bond with content creators, who can use the tools to polish raw ideas and conceptualise new campaigns based on customer insights.
Today, social media networks are becoming heavily characterised by their demographics, with different customer segments using platforms like TikTok compared to X or LinkedIn, for instance. This calls for artificial intelligence solutions to strategize content and schedule different posts optimized for their host platforms. Generative tools can understand these intricacies and draft diversified posts for maximum engagement.
06. Incisive social listening
Social media is important, and while you are crafting great content for your brand image, you should also be aware that your brand is being talked about.
You cannot always keep track of every mention or @, but with AI tools, you can listen and gather information on how your brand is perceived by customers and strangers. This can be helpful in decision-making for your small business.
This is another excellent example of how designers and creatives can achieve synergy with artificial intelligence. The tool can provide far greater levels of information about the type of content customers want to aid the creation process in a more resounding manner.
Social listening has become an important means of understanding sentiment towards your brand. Although reviews and mentions from high-reputation accounts are essential to brands, they rarely tell the full story of how your SME is viewed by your target audience as a whole.
There are plenty of AI social listening tools available, and they can work wonders in uncovering sentiment towards your brand throughout your channels. This can pave the way for insights into how you can optimise your strategy for specific social networks, understanding common customer pain points, and understanding any areas that consistently confuse your target audience.
Embracing the AI revolution
Small businesses and marketing creatives should not shy away from using AI tools to their advantage, especially for projecting a strong brand and building a niche for themselves in competitive markets.
There is so much to gain with the available AI tools, and they can transform your SME in various areas, from things like automating payouts and running payrolls to social media management and online marketing. Through actionable insights, accurate customer segmentation, and a deeper level of personalisation, AI can transform your customer experience on a comprehensive level.
While designers and creatives may hold justifiable concerns about the threat of AI and automation technology in marketing, the most effective use of the technology will be more collaborative, helping to form ideas and shape the design process.
The AI revolution is already underway, and by moving decisively, it’s possible for your brand to outmanoeuvre your competitors and win a stronger market share sooner rather than later.
Dmytro is the CEO at the SEO, copywriting and content marketing agency in Solvid and the founder of the web analytics startup Pridicto. His work has been published in Shopify, Zapier, Make Use Of, VentureBeat, Mention, WordStream, BuzzSumo, and Campaign Monitor.
In today’s fast-paced digital world, the pressure to produce high-quality content quickly and efficiently is more intense than ever. Whether you’re a marketer, educator, or content creator, the demand for engaging and visually appealing material can feel overwhelming. But what if there were AI tools out there that could not only ease this burden but also enhance your creative process?
Imagine having access to a suite of AI-powered tools that streamline everything from video production to web design, allowing you to focus on what truly matters—your unique voice and vision. This guide by Aurelius Tjin introduces you to eight such new AI tools that are transforming the content creation landscape, offering solutions to everyday challenges.
Essential AI Tools for Modern Content Creators
TL;DR Key Takeaways :
Gamma automates the creation of presentations, documents, and web pages, focusing on customization for quick, high-quality content production.
Dream Machine by Luma converts text prompts into videos, offering a cost-effective way for marketers to diversify media content.
Hostinger’s AI website builder simplifies web design with text prompts, supporting e-commerce and mobile-friendly designs for business growth.
Perplexity provides real-time information retrieval with source references, offering up-to-date data for informed decision-making.
YouTube Summary with ChatGPT generates transcripts and summaries of videos, helping professionals quickly extract key information.
As you dive into this guide, you’ll discover how these tools can transform your workflow, making tasks that once seemed daunting feel like a breeze. From Gamma’s intuitive presentation creation to Dream Machine’s text-to-video magic, each tool is designed to unlock new levels of efficiency and creativity. These AI solutions not only save you time but also open up new possibilities for content creation across various media formats. So, whether you’re looking to enhance your research capabilities with Perplexity or simplify video content analysis with YouTube Summary, these tools are here to empower you on your creative journey. Ready to explore how AI can elevate your content game? Let’s get started!
Gamma stands out as a versatile AI-powered platform that transforms the creation of presentations, documents, and web pages. By automatically generating content, themes, and layouts, Gamma allows you to focus on fine-tuning and customization rather than starting from scratch.
Key features of Gamma include:
Intelligent content suggestion based on your input
Customizable templates for various industries
Seamless integration with existing data sources
Real-time collaboration capabilities
This tool is particularly valuable for professionals who need to produce high-quality, visually appealing content under tight deadlines. Whether you’re preparing a business proposal or designing a website, Gamma streamlines the process, allowing you to achieve professional results in a fraction of the time.
Dream Machine by Luma: Bringing Text to Life
Dream Machine by Luma offers an innovative approach to content creation by transforming text prompts into captivating video content. With a user-friendly interface and a generous free tier of 30 credits per month, Dream Machine makes video production accessible to creators of all levels.
Notable aspects of Dream Machine include:
Intuitive text-to-video conversion
Wide range of customizable video styles
Integration with popular stock footage libraries
Easy editing and refinement options
This tool is ideal for marketers, social media managers, and content creators looking to diversify their media offerings without investing in extensive video production skills or equipment. Dream Machine enables you to create engaging video content that resonates with your audience, all from a simple text prompt.
Hostinger: Redefining Web Hosting with AI
Hostinger is transforming the web hosting industry by incorporating AI into its website building platform. This innovative approach allows you to create sophisticated websites using straightforward text prompts, eliminating the need for complex coding or design skills.
Hostinger’s AI-powered features include:
Text-based website generation
E-commerce functionality integration
Mobile-responsive design optimization
SEO-friendly structure suggestions
For businesses aiming to establish a robust online presence, Hostinger’s AI capabilities offer a comprehensive solution. By streamlining the web design process, you can focus on strategic growth and content creation, rather than getting bogged down in technical details.
Perplexity: Transforming Information Retrieval
Perplexity is changing the game in research and information gathering by providing real-time results with credible source references. Unlike traditional search engines, Perplexity offers up-to-the-minute information, making it an invaluable tool for professionals who rely on accurate and current data.
Key advantages of Perplexity include:
Real-time information updates
Credible source citations
Contextual understanding of queries
Conversational interface for natural interactions
This tool enables you to make informed decisions based on the latest available information, enhancing your research capabilities and making sure you stay ahead in your field.
Notebook LM: Elevating Document Management
Notebook LM, an experimental tool developed by Google, takes document management to new heights. By allowing you to upload and organize personal research documents, Notebook LM ensures more accurate and relevant information retrieval.
Standout features of Notebook LM include:
Personalized document indexing
Advanced search capabilities within your documents
AI-powered summarization of complex texts
Integration with Google’s vast knowledge base
This tool is particularly beneficial for researchers, academics, and professionals who need to manage and navigate extensive data sets efficiently. Notebook LM’s capabilities streamline the research process, significantly enhancing productivity and depth of analysis.
Teller: Simplifying Screen Recording and Video Creation
Teller is transforming video creation by offering a comprehensive screen and webcam recording solution. With its user-friendly interface and advanced features, Teller is perfect for educators, trainers, and professionals who need to produce instructional or presentation videos quickly and efficiently.
Key features of Teller include:
Simultaneous screen and webcam recording
Automatic silence removal for concise content
Built-in captioning for accessibility
Easy editing and sharing options
By automating many aspects of video production, Teller allows you to focus on delivering high-quality content rather than getting caught up in technical details. This tool is invaluable for creating engaging tutorials, product demonstrations, or online courses.
Pictory: Automating Video Content Creation
Pictory transforms the way you approach video content by automatically converting scripts or blog posts into dynamic visual presentations. This tool is particularly useful for content creators who want to repurpose their written content into engaging video format without extensive editing skills.
Pictory’s standout capabilities include:
Automatic integration of relevant stock footage
Intelligent caption generation and placement
Customizable branding elements
Multi-format export options for various platforms
For social media marketers and content creators, Pictory offers a way to maintain consistent, high-quality video output with minimal effort. This tool bridges the gap between written and visual content, allowing you to maximize the reach and impact of your message across different media formats.
YouTube Summary with ChatGPT: Efficient Video Content Analysis
The YouTube Summary with ChatGPT browser extension is a fantastic option for professionals who need to extract key information from lengthy video content quickly. By generating transcripts and concise summaries of YouTube videos, this tool saves valuable time and enhances information retention.
Key benefits of this tool include:
Automatic transcript generation
AI-powered summarization of video content
Quick access to key points and timestamps
Integration with ChatGPT for further analysis
This extension is ideal for researchers, journalists, and busy professionals who need to stay informed on various topics without dedicating excessive time to video consumption. By condensing video content into digestible summaries, you can efficiently extract valuable insights and stay up-to-date in your field.
These eight AI tools represent a significant leap forward in content creation and management technologies. By incorporating these innovative solutions into your workflow, you can dramatically enhance your productivity, creativity, and efficiency across various media formats. Whether you’re a marketer crafting compelling campaigns, an educator developing online courses, or a researcher managing vast amounts of data, these tools offer tailored solutions to meet your specific content needs. Embrace these AI-powered technologies to stay competitive in the rapidly evolving digital landscape and unlock new possibilities in your content creation journey.
A good social media marketing strategy forms the backbone of a social media presence. More importantly, it is about drawing up a plan that not only attracts your target audience but also engages and grows them. Businesses that wish to expand their online footprint partner and share their expertise with companies such as Creation Infoways, which really can make a difference.
They come with a very deep understanding of the digital landscape and bring with them tailored solutions to drive measurable results.
Developing a Social Media Marketing Strategy
Developing a social media marketing strategy simply starts with understanding your brand objectives, which have goals, knowing the target audience, and choosing the right platform that best focuses on a specific target. Your strategies will need to correlate properly with your overall business objective if you want to increase brand awareness, generate leads, or drive sales.
Key elements of a successful social media strategy would be:
Audience Analysis: Who your customers are and where they hang out online.
Content Planning: What to share, how it will resonate, and the kind of engagement that is expected.
Platform Selection: Picking the right channels for your campaigns.
Performance Metrics: Establish KPIs for campaigns.
Creation Infoways offers total assistance in this regard and makes your strategy fluid so that it is up-to-date with the trend changes.
How to Know the Best Time to Post on Social Media?
When it comes to social media, timing is everything. Knowing the best time to post on social media can make a huge difference in your engagement rates. While there is no one-size-fits-all answer, sometimes looking at the activity patterns of your audience can help to gain insights about exactly when to post.
Factors that affect the best times to post
Audience demographics: What is the age group and region in which your audience is generally online?
Platform algorithms: It may be that some platforms give more credence to what has been posted most recently.
Industry trends: What are the trends in posting of competitors and industry peers, and how can you take advantage of high activity times?
Creation Infoways Advanced analytics are used to determine the best times you should be posting as per your audience, ensuring that your content gets maximum visibility.
To maximize your reach, you need to know how the social media algorithm works. Algorithms define what every user sees in their feed and usually do this by the relevance, engagement, and timeliness of your post. Understanding them deeply can help in producing content that does well organically.
Understanding the Social Media Algorithm
Some key factors help us understand social media algorithms:
Engagement is key: Get people to engage through comments, likes, and shares.
Content quality: High quality and relevant content is more likely to weed through the algorithm and frequently to the top.
Consistency: As regular posting keeps your content frequent and relevant, then no chances of bouncing back in an algorithm.
The content by Creation Infoways is optimized to be up-to-date with the latest algorithms, and hence your brand will never be left behind in the race.
Leveraging Social Media Analytics
Social media analytics give you insights that help back up your campaigns. Use data analysis to understand what is working and what is not, which will guide you in making the proper changes in your strategy to realize better results.
The main metrics you will be watching include:
Engagement rates: Likes, shares, comments, and general interaction
Reach and impressions: See how many people see your content.
Conversion rates: How your social media effort translates to sales or leads.
Creation Infoways monitors these metrics by using advanced tools for analytics that come up with actionable insights to aid in refining your strategy for better performance.
Benefits of Having a Social Media Calendar
A social media calendar helps keep the content timely for every business, relevant, and consistent. It allows planning the posts, maintaining a campaign timetable across all platforms, and saving the business from scrambling at the last minute.
Simplify Your Content Creation: Plan out when to post and create content in advance.
Consistency: Post content continually without any breaks.
Campaign Coordination: Integrate and work your social campaign with your other marketing campaigns.
We will help you create a personalized calendar that enables you to show up online consistently without having to develop content day in and day out.
Social media growth requires strategic planning, engaging content in the platform, and a consistent effort to grow the count of followers along with building the community.
Strategies for Continued Growth on Social Media
Varied content: Diversify your content.
Influence marketing: Associate with influencers to have a larger reach.
Engagement posts: Make posts to initiate a discussion.
At the same time, Creation Infoways gives you amazing brand creative growth strategies to engage your audience, make a following, and expand your reach.
Why You Need to Work with a Social Media Marketing Agency?
Partnership with a social media marketing agency is important at the current time. Creation Infoways will work out the proper strategy to force you through the social media ranks. Its professionals work on every component of the strategy for absolute success, from content creation to analytics.
Here are the Pros of Working with Creation Infoways:
Expert advice: Access knowledge and experience from professionals.
Customized Strategies: Get a personalized strategy that matches up with the uniqueness of your brand.
Comprehensive Services: Ranging from strategy development to content creation and performance analysis, acquire the benefit of full-service services.
Choose to work with Creation Infoways and, hence, keep your mind free to concentrate on your main business. They will take care of the rest, making sure that your social media activity is in a constant state of growth while keeping your people engaged.
Engagement is what makes sure that a social media campaign is powerful. This doesn’t mean that one can just post and expect magic to happen. Active engagement with an audience is a critical way to develop relations and establish brand loyalty.
Some of the ways to keep an audience engaged and invested in a brand include responding to comments, asking questions, and compelling user-generated content.
Creation Infoways believes firmly in engagement and provides strategies to increase not just interactions but also build a community around your brand.
They turn your followers into loyal customers by enabling meaningful connections with your followers, thereby building a community around your brand hence improving your brand’s overall success on social media.
Creation Infoways helps you create a winning brand strategy that works well alongside the objectives and goals set for your business.
Creation Infoways’ team will see to it that you get every aspect of a social media platform right from visuals and messaging to building the essence of your brand most perfectly.
Conclusion
Having a sensibly structured social media marketing strategy is pivotal for a brand desiring to make it big in the online space. It is a process from understanding the algorithms to leveraging analytics and, at the same time posting at the right times in a detailed manner.
Trust Infoways to create an impact on your social media. We create growth and deliver returns. Your brand, with these strategies in place and also partnering with the right agency, can succeed in the digital world for a long time.
No big surprises here! “Gifting” simply means sending free products to creators.
As a brand, your goal is to earn a shout-out from influencers in exchange for products.
You don’t have to look hard to find #gifted products across Instagram and TikTok. Gifting campaigns are big among CPG brands looking to earn reviews and user-generated content.
Unlike paid collabs, gifting campaigns rarely involve contracts or commitments for creators.
And whether your brand gets a shout out or review is at the influencer’s discretion.
Here’s a snapshot of the benefits of gifting campaigns for brands and creators alike:
Benefits For Brands
Benefits For Creators
Budget-friendly. This assumes you have lots of time and inventory on hand.
You can start gifting ASAP. Gifting campaigns involve little to no back-and-forth between you and your creators. Sending free products doesn’t require you to negotiate rates or content details.
Gifted content can feel more authentic than a “polished” influencer post. Creators receiving gifts are inclined to promote brands authentically and enthusiastically.
Less pressure and legwork. There’s no need for creators to negotiate. That’s because they’re receiving gifts. Creators aren’t required to post.
More creative freedom. Gifted posts involve fewer details and instructions on behalf of brands. This is good news for creators that don’t want to worry about sacrificing their style.
Free products. Enough said! Gift-only collaborations can be enticing to up-and-coming creators who might be new to influencer partnerships.
The key to making a gifting collaboration work? Sending the right products to the right people.
What do we mean by that, though? Think of working with influencers as a value exchange. If your brand’s gift wanted to be viewed as valuable, you need to…
Gift products that are worth posting. Unpaid collaborations won’t feel “lesser” if your product is relevant to the influencer and their audience. For example, a skincare kit is a natural fit for a makeup influencer versus a fitness creator.
Send products with a “cool” factor. Bonus points if your product can “wow” viewers on camera. Not to mention you’re less likely to get ghosted. The easier a creator can integrate a product into their existing content, the better.
Bundle products to boost the value of your gift. When we talk about “value exchange,” consider the literal price tag of your product. The greater the value, the more likely you are to earn great content. Consider how PR packages are popular because they make it easy to bundle your products. They also provide a comprehensive sample of what you offer.
“Value” is in the eye of the beholder. This highlights the importance of finding the right creators.
Again, micro-influencers and small creators know how to authentically promote products. Overly promotional posts are a turn-off to their audiences. That’s also why gifting collaborations involve less direction from brands to creators.
Consider that balancing creative freedom with brand requirements is a challenge for 50% of creators. Translation? Brands can’t ask too much of creators for gift-only collaborations.
The short of it? Influencers must differentiate between promotional posts and organic posts about products they like. This applies to gifted products with no other form of compensation.
There are a few ways that creators can do this according to the FTC:
Including hashtags like #gifted to disclose partnerships
Using clear language (“I was gifted this product by…”)
Explicitly stating (in a caption or video) that a brand sent them a product to review
The major social platforms pretty much follow the FTC’s lead. Gifted posts fall under the umbrella of “branded content” on Instagram and TikTok.
According to Instagram themselves, brands should “clearly” disclose gifted partnerships. Many creators will outright say they were gifted a product in their post captions. Others might tag the brand and use a #gifted hashtag. TikTok’s branded content policy outlines similar rules.
There’s no one-size-fits-all way to disclose gifted collaborations. This is actually good news for brands and creators, though. Gifted posts don’t have to sound rigid or needlessly promotional. If you need more evidence, check out our examples of influencer gifting that highlight how.
The takeaway? Influencers and brands can get creative while still playing by the rules. Many skincare brands have their own branded #gifted hashtags for creators promoting products. Below is an example from Supergoop.
Remember that it’s up to you to establish these requirements with creators. This is why brands should find influencers who already know the rules for promoting products.
Note on Affiliate Links: You might be tempted to provide influencers an affiliate link or promo code along with free product for their followers to take advantage of. Still, you must disclose this sort of partnership as well. Consumers must be aware that although products were given for free – if they make a purchase, the influencer will be making a profit.
Paid Influencer Collaboration Basics & Best Practices
Paid collaboration between brands and influencers involves financial compensation beyond free products.
These collabs are popular for brands targeting specific creators with large audiences.
Benefits for Brands
Benefits for Creators
More explicit creative direction. With paid collaborations, brands can request specific verbiage and talking points.
Financial commitments result in less ghosting and a more involved relationship with creators. For example, you can ask creators for post analytics and performance data.
You put the final “stamp” on creators’ posts. Paid collaborations allow you to build in steps such as an approval process or revisions.
Consistency. Creators want to work with brands long-term and successful paid collaborations can be the starting point for an ongoing partnership.
In some cases, these types of posts can be easier for creators to make. That’s because brands provide clear directions and talking points to follow.
Greater compensation. Kind of speaks for itself, right?
Think of paid collab posts like traditional ads. The difference is that influencers can inject some much-needed creativity into their posts. It’s well-documented that creator-based ads perform better on TikTok and Instagram than non-creator ads.
Consider that influencer ads themselves can also serve as their own form of paid collaboration even when featuring gifted products. For example, Spark Ads on TikTok are unique as creators can earn pay-outs for their posts via TikTok Shop or get compensated for their Spark Ad Codes.
Partnership Ads (formerly “Branded Content Ads”) are a popular form of paid collaboration on Instagram right now, too. These ads take organic creator content and transform it into promotional content. These posts contain the “paid partnership” label on Instagram (see below).
Beyond budget, the key difference between gifting and paid collaboration is creative direction.
With most paid collabs, brands call the shots when it comes to what influencers say in a post.
Sponsored content involves a detailed creative brief with explicit instructions and talking points. On the flip side, gifted posts let creators freestyle and share unfiltered thoughts.
Instructions can remove some of the personality from your sponsored content. This again highlights the importance of creative freedom. That said, skilled creators can strike a brilliant balance between personality and promotion.
Here’s a five-word summary: when in doubt, disclose it.
Again, Instagram and TikTok have similar policies for paid collaborations and influencer gifting. Both are considered “branded content.” For sponsored posts, creators must take steps such as:
Including disclosures like #ad or #sponsored in their post captions
Using the “Paid partnership” tag on platforms like Instagram
Failing to do so isn’t worth the potential backlash and fallout (think: fines and suspensions).
Despite their similarities, note that not all disclosure hashtags are the same. For example, #ad implies that a post’s language and endorsement are approved by a brand prior to posting. Meanwhile, the #gifted tag is more of a general label.
The FTC is crystal clear that disclosures are the responsibility of brands and influencers (hint: not social platforms). On that note, applying a “sponsored” or “paid partnership” label isn’t considered a disclosure by default. According to the FTC:
“Just because a platform offers a feature like that is no guarantee it’s an effective way for influencers to disclose their material connection to a brand.”
And that’s why we still see the #ad disclosure in paid collaboration posts.
Whether you’re sending free products or compensating creators with cash, both strategies are effective at boosting influencer ROI. It’s all about creating an equitable value exchange.
The most important piece of the puzzle, though?
Sending your product to relevant influencers at scale.
Brands can’t get significant awareness and better social search rankings with just a handful of gifted posts. To maximize your influencer marketing ROI in terms of time and budget, a high volume of content is crucial.
But paying individual influencers for hundreds of posts isn’t realistic for brands in-house.
That’s where Statusphere can help. Our micro-influencer marketing platform matches brands with creators from our vetted influencer network using 250+ first-party data points. We only match brands with creators that actively want to post about their products.
Since you only partner with creators from our network, content is guaranteed and scalable. Our platform has already generated 75,000+ authentic posts on behalf of 400+ consumer brands. We specialize in helping brands scale gifted collabs and paid campaigns with smaller creators.
Want to learn more about our software? Get in touch with one of our experts to see how we can streamline your influencer marketing efforts with guaranteed content at scale.
LinkedIn has over 1 billion users from 200 countries. 16.2% use it daily. 49 million people look for jobs there every week. LinkedIn is where the money’s at. But when you’re a busy founder, you don’t have time to mess around. Writing posts takes ages and you have other things to do.
ChatGPT can help. Here’s how to make it write LinkedIn posts just like you in five simple steps. Copy, paste and edit the square brackets in ChatGPT, and keep the same chat window open so the context carries through. Be proud to publish every time.
Make it sound like you
Your posts should sound like you wrote them. Not a robot. ChatGPT needs to get your style. How you talk. What words you use. Head to LinkedIn, look at your analytics and find your top performing posts of all time, then give ChatGPT those as examples so it can copy your vibe.
“Your task will be to write my LinkedIn posts. First read these posts I wrote. Tell me how I write and create a style guide to use in the new posts. Make the style guide include what kind of words I use, my sentence length, my tone and style and structure. Include what makes my writing unique. [Include example posts]”
Read what it says. If it’s right, move on. If not, give it more posts or explain what it got wrong.
Pick your topics
Your goal is to reserve a space in someone’s head for the thing that you do. Especially on LinkedIn. If a connection thinks of someone else first, you’ve lost the game. To achieve this, stick to what you know, and do it consistently. Keep going until people see you as the expert, and then don’t stop. Pick three or four main things you’ll post about, which become your pillars. Your followers will know what to expect from you and this matters for showing up online.
“Now, give me 10 ideas for LinkedIn posts about these topics: [list your content pillars, based on the topic you want to own and be known for]. Present the ideas using one sentence for each one and make them punchy.”
Look at the ideas and choose the best ones. Take them forward using the next few prompts.
Get the post
Good instructions make good posts. Bad ones make rubbish. Get your instructions right and ChatGPT will pump out killer content. Spend time on this bit because it pays off.
“Let’s go forward with idea [select the idea you want to go forward with first]. Use my writing style that we just described. Start the post with a hook, which should be a short, sharp, punchy line that grabs attention with my target audience but should not be a question. Then add a rehook, a short line that comes after the hook, that sets up the post and signposts the rest of the post. The main part of the post should fill a knowledge gap in my target audience, so I should help them do something in distinct steps, adding value with each one. Write new sentences on new lines, with line breaks. The penultimate line should be a compelling statement that strongly states one of my audience’s strong beliefs back to them. The final line should invite engagement on my post, inviting people to comment. Make sure the answer to this question is something they would be proud to share. Before you write this post, ask me questions about my target audience. Then ask for a personal story to incorporate in the post.”
Make it better
First drafts are never perfect. That’s fine. Read what ChatGPT writes. Then make it better. This is where okay posts become great ones. The ones people remember and share.
“Change this post to make it more [specify what you’d like changing, for example chatty, professional, simple, punchy]. Do not use these words [include the words used in the post that you wouldn’t use in real life]. Also don’t [anything else you’ve spotted that you don’t like]. Now give me the post without the section titles.”
Keep re-prompting until you love it. The more you tell ChatGPT, the better it gets at writing like you.
Double check
ChatGPT forgets things. Chances are, with this journey of prompting you’ve just undertaken, it’s gone away from your original style guide. So here’s where you double check. Get ChatGPT to mark its own homework by comparing the draft post with its original instructions.
“Now review this draft and refine it to better match my style. Shorten any sentences that are longer than [specify, for example ten words], and simplify any complex language, including [specify sentences that are too complex]. Replace any words that don’t sound like me with ones I would use. The part that I think doesn’t flow well is [specify that here if applicable], so rewrite it to sound more natural. Add any final touches to make the post engaging and authentic. Once refined, give me the final version ready to post.”
Now ask it to repeat this process for the other ideas you liked. Give ChatGPT the rest of the numbers, one by one, until you have a month’s worth of content ready to go.
“Now let’s learn from this process and repeat it to create post idea [number]. Ask me questions before creating the post in the same style.”
Level up your LinkedIn with AI power: ChatGPT prompts to grow
Getting ChatGPT to write your LinkedIn posts saves time. But it’s more than that. It helps you post quality stuff that people want to read. Stuff that grows your brand. Make ChatGPT analyse your style, select your topics, then write the perfect prompt. Make it better and double check.
Tonnes of LinkedIn content could be five prompts away. Try these today and watch your likes and comments go through the roof.
Founder of Coachvox AI – create an AI version of you. Forbes 30 under 30 class of 2017. Post-exit entrepreneur and author of Ten Year Career. Competitive powerlifter and digital nomad.
Of all the professions potentially impacted by ChatGPT, few face more existential threats than human writers. From having their content lifted to training AI to lose freelance gigs outright to algorithms, writers are understandably anxious about what the future holds.
On the flip side, you’ve got companies eager to wield ChatGPT like a budget-cutting lightsaber. According to a Resume Builder report, 58% of businesses using ChatGPT rely on it for copywriting—and 48% of those companies have used AI to replace employees.
For businesses, it sounds like a win: ChatGPT is affordable (even under its paid plans) and cranks out content faster than you can say, “meeting adjourned.” But the truth is, turning to AI over hiring a real, live human writer comes with risks that should give any business leader serious pause.
Herein lies the crux of the ChatGPT problem. Sure, you’re getting content quickly and on the cheap, but spoiler alert: quality suffers. We’ve all seen it before—what you save in dollars, you’ll pay for in reputation. And no one wants their brand’s content to look like the knock-off version of a luxury product.
Using ChatGPT to churn out content is like showing up to a potluck with a store-bought cake and passing it off as homemade. It’ll get the job done in a pinch, but when it comes to building long-term trust and credibility? Not so much.
ChatGPT’s Quirks: From Biases to Blunders
Let’s talk about ChatGPT’s shortcomings. It’s like that well-meaning intern who’s eager but always gets something wrong. The AI is prone to hiccups ranging from unintentional biases (hello, issues with racism, sexism, and more) to factual inaccuracies that can make your brand look like it skipped a few steps in research. (Digital Trends profiled these little AI missteps if you need a laugh—or a reminder to double-check your sources.)
Then, there’s the plagiarism problem. While ChatGPT can generate new content, it’s still pattern-matching based on the information it’s been trained on. This can lead to something dangerously close to existing copyrighted material, which is a great way to land in legal hot water. Nobody wants to deal with lawsuits over blog posts or the PR nightmare of being accused of stealing ideas from a competitor.
Martina Chisholm, Vice President of Marketing at Merit Financial Advisors, puts it perfectly: “At Merit, we use ChatGPT strategically—not as a substitute for human creativity, but as a tool to enhance our content. ChatGPT helps with brainstorming, outlining, and refining ideas, but the human touch ensures our brand’s voice and identity stay intact.”
Exactly. A human writer’s accountability—knowing their reputation and livelihood are on the line—adds a layer of quality control that AI simply can’t match.
Oh, and in case you missed it, ChatGPT spent part of February 2024 spitting out gibberish. Even the worst writers rarely turn in nonsense (though I’ve met a few close calls).
Data Risks and Privacy Nightmares
Digital generated image of abstract AI data chat icons flying over digital surface with codes. getty
Let’s not forget about privacy. With employees feeding business data into ChatGPT for various tasks, sensitive information could end up in the AI’s brain (for lack of a better term). And while ChatGPT’s memory isn’t perfect, the last thing you want is your proprietary info swirling around in an AI’s training data. If you value confidentiality (and we assume you do), this is an area to tread carefully.
To avoid an oops-worthy situation, businesses need clear policies on AI use, setting boundaries on what info gets shared, and running audits on ChatGPT’s output. And hey, a little plagiarism-checking software couldn’t hurt either.
Plus, with AI regulations always evolving, staying on top of data protection laws is a must. The last thing your business needs is an embarrassing (and costly) misstep because someone was too chatty with ChatGPT.
Defining Quality in the Age of AI
At the heart of the debate is a question of quality. Are you satisfied with content that’s passable, cheap, and efficient? Or are you aiming for something that makes your brand stand out, something memorable, something human?
As Vox’s Sigal Samuel points out, if the internet becomes an endless echo chamber of ChatGPT-generated content, the AI will eventually start feeding off its own work. Think about that for a second—an infinite loop of regurgitated writing that kills originality and creativity. The worst-case scenario? The internet has become one big, bland blog with all the personality of a cold bowl of oatmeal.
Even if your business isn’t producing the next great American novel, originality matters. Whether it’s a blog post, product description, or marketing email, that spark of creativity is what separates you from the pack. In a crowded marketplace, having a unique voice is your secret sauce, your competitive edge. And it’s not something an algorithm can replicate—at least not yet.
ChatGPT: A Tool, Not a Takeover
Digital generated image of AI world made out of transparent and glowing cubes against grey … [+] getty
In the end, it’s about making smart choices. Sure, ChatGPT can crank out content, and in some cases, it’s a useful tool to have in the mix. However, businesses that lean too heavily on AI run the risk of sounding robotic (literally) and losing the personal touch that connects with customers.
Writing is a craft—a skill that takes time to hone and effort to master. If we settle for “good enough,” we risk losing what makes our brands, our voices, and our messages special. So, while ChatGPT is here to stay, human writers aren’t going anywhere. In fact, investing in good writing might just become your business’s best-kept secret weapon in a world of AI-generated everything.
After all, when everything starts to sound the same, it’s the brands with a beating heart behind the words that customers will remember.
Jennifer Jay Palumbo is an award-winning writer and journalist with twenty-five years of experience in crafting impactful and engaging content. Specializing in topics around working mothers and neurodivergence, she brings a unique perspective as the mother of a neurodivergent child. Read More….
In today’s digital landscape the right approach to small business marketing combines advanced technology, data-driven insights, and effective digital platforms. Here’s a comprehensive guide to small business marketing to companies navigate the current marketing trends and tools that can drive business success.
Key marketing tools for small businesses
Following is a summary of 11 key marketing tools that small and growing businesses should consider when leveraging owned, earned and paid media:
1. An optimized small business website
A high-performing website is crucial for marketing today. An optimized site increases your page rank on Google and other search engines, and in today’s world, fewer than 1% of searches go to the second page of a search. Key elements of an effective small business site include:
Memorable domain name: Choose a name that reflects your business and is easy to recall.
User-friendly design: Ensure your site is visually appealing and intuitive. Sites should have a clear structure, intuitive navigation and information that is easy to access.
Search engine optimization (SEO): Implement SEO best practices to rank higher in search engine results.
Mobile optimization: Since over 55% of global web traffic comes from mobile devices, you’ll want to ensure your site is mobile-friendly.
Valuable content: Regularly update your site with engaging content like blogs and articles that address your audience’s interests and needs.
Fast loading times: Optimize page speeds to improve user experience and SEO rankings.
Secure hosting: Use reputable hosting services to protect your site’s data and performance.
Additionally, integrating tools like Google Analytics (now called GA4) and Google Search Console (GSC) can provide valuable insights into your site’s performance and user behaviour.
2. Paid search engine marketing (SEM)
Paid search engine marketing, in which you pay if a keyword is clicked on that drives traffic to your website, remains a powerful tool for driving targeted traffic. Platforms like Google Ads and Bing Ads allow you to:
Bid on keywords: Use tools like Google keyword planner to select high-value keywords relevant to your business.
Control costs: Set daily and monthly budgets, and adjust bids based on performance.
Analyse performance: Track key metrics to assess and refine your campaigns.
3. Paid listings and display ads
Paid listings on platforms like Yelp, Facebook, and Pinterest can boost visibility. Use Google’s Display Network to target ads based on user interests and behaviour. This approach allows you to:
Choose ad formats: Use banners, text ads, or video ads to capture attention.
Track return on investment (ROI): Monitor clicks and conversions to measure effectiveness. Track your costs, record and monitor revenue, and record all expenses. Make sure to measure lead generation numbers, customer acquisition, and sales metrics as valuable insights into your marketing effectiveness.
Testing: By experimenting with different ad copy, targeting options, and formats, businesses can identify what resonates most with their audience, refine their strategies, and ultimately improve click-through rates and conversions. This can include A/B testing, target audience variations, ad copy variations, call-to-action (CTA) testing or visual elements where you test different images or videos to determine which visual elements attract more attention and engagement.
4. Content marketing
Content marketing remains a cornerstone of effective digital strategies. Key tactics include:
Blogging: Regularly post optimized content to drive organic traffic. Nine out of ten marketers use blogs as part of their content strategy.
Guest posting: Publish articles on popular platforms such as Medium and AllBusiness.com to enhance your reach and SEO. Strive to create “evergreen” articles, which are designed to remain relevant and valuable over a long period of time, regardless of current events or trends. Unlike timely articles that focus on current news or trends, evergreen content addresses topics that have enduring interest and utility.
Video content: In 2023, individuals spent an average of 17 hours a week watching videos online. Utilize platforms like YouTube and TikTok to engage your audience.
Content platforms: Leverage content recommendation platforms like Outbrain to expand your content’s reach.
5. Social media marketing
Social media is a powerful tool for engaging with your audience. Focus on platforms such as:
Facebook: Effective for broad audience reach and targeted ads.
Instagram: Ideal for visual content and influencer partnerships.
LinkedIn: Best for B2B marketing and professional networking.
TikTok: Useful for viral video content and younger demographics.
With over 5 billion global social media users and growing, effective social media marketing can significantly enhance your brand’s visibility and engagement. To be effective, you must regularly post interesting content to obtain and keep followers.
6. Influencer marketing
Influencer marketing involves collaborating with individuals who have a significant and engaged following on social media platforms like Facebook, TikTok and Instagram to promote products or services. These influencers, who can range from celebrities to niche content creators, leverage their credibility and relationship with their audience to drive brand awareness and influence purchasing decisions.
The impact of influencer marketing on broader marketing efforts can be profound, as it allows brands to tap into authentic, targeted communities that are often more receptive to recommendations from trusted (or at least known) voices.
This form of marketing can enhance brand credibility, expand reach, and generate higher engagement rates compared to traditional advertising. As consumers increasingly seek personalized and relatable content, influencer marketing has become a powerful tool for connecting with audiences in a meaningful way.
7. Online business directories
It’s important for business owners to list their companies in prominent and reputable business directories. Often these listings are free, but even if you must pay a small fee, it can be worth it.
The benefits include
Exposure to potential clients and customers.
Boosted SEO through backlinks.
Improved online presence and brand awareness.
Increased credibility for your business.
Low-cost or free marketing.
The following is a list of top business directories to consider listing your business:
While less prominent today, radio can still be effective. Many people are in their cars during peak commute hours. To maximize radio advertising:
Targeted placement: Choose stations and time slots that align with your target audience.
Engaging content: Create memorable and concise ads.
Consider your market: Are you a B2C company (business to consumer) or B2B company (business to business)? Is your market local (like a neighbourhood restaurant), national (such as selling payroll services), or international (such as selling unique clothing to multiple markets)?
The cost-effectiveness of radio compared to TV makes it a viable option for more localized campaigns.
9. Press releases
Press releases are valuable for announcing significant business updates. Ensure your release is:
Newsworthy: Focus on unique and timely information.
Well-structured: Include a strong headline, key details, and contact information.
Multimedia: Incorporate multimedia elements like images and videos to increase engagement.
10. Email marketing
Email marketing remains effective when executed correctly. Best practices include:
Segmenting: Personalize content based on customer preferences and behavior. Use data to segment your lists and target markets.
Offering engaging content: Provide valuable information, special offers, and updates.
Optimization: Use A/B testing to refine subject lines and content.
Using AI-driven tools: These can help automate and personalize email campaigns, improving engagement rates.
11. Direct mail marketing
Despite the digital age, direct mail still works for certain audiences. To optimize direct mail:
Use targeted lists: Use well-researched mailing lists to improve ROI.
Implement creative designs: Ensure your mail piece stands out and is easy to read.
Track mailings: Monitor responses and effectiveness.
More tips to enhance your marketing campaigns
Here are some additional tips to optimize your marketing campaigns:
Segment: Segment your target market to a specific audience. Segmentation can be done with respect to age, gender, income level, education, geography, purchase stage or brand loyalty, and more.
Business lists: Consider using high quality business lists such as Dun and Bradstreet, Experian Business, ZoomInfo or InfoUSA. These lists can be used in multiple channels as well, maximizing the value of the lists.
Track real time: Track your marketing campaigns in real-time to get immediate insights, make quick adjustments, and understand what is working or not.
Key metrics: Track the key metrics in your campaigns, such as click-through rate, engagement rate, conversion rate, sales, revenue, customer acquisition cost, market share, and churn rate.
Software and AI: Use software and artificial intelligence (AI) tools for social media management, content creation and testing of alternative ads.
Budget: Allocate your budget wisely. Assess the performance of different marketing channels and allocate your budget to the ones that deliver the highest ROI. Continuously review and adjust your spending to focus on the most effective strategies.
Keep current: Stay updated with trends. Keep up with the latest marketing trends and technologies. Experiment with new platforms, tools, or strategies to stay ahead of the competition and reach your audience in innovative ways. Keep up to date with experts by seeking articles from reputable business sources such as AllBusiness.com.
Promote across channels: Share earned media coverage on your website, social media platforms, and email newsletters. For instance, if a major publication writes about your product, feature this article prominently on your homepage or social media profiles.
Showcase social proof: Use earned media as a form of social proof by highlighting positive reviews, testimonials, or features from reputable sources. This can build credibility and trust with potential customers.
Strengthen relationships with media: Build and maintain good relationships with journalists and influencers. This can lead to more favourable coverage in the future and expand your media network.
Repurpose content: Convert mentions and reviews into additional content, such as blog posts, case studies, and infographics. For example, if your company was featured in a popular tech blog, you could create a detailed blog post about the experience and its impact.
Ready to enhance your small business marketing strategy?
Developing a comprehensive and modern small business marketing strategy requires leveraging a mix of traditional and digital techniques. By integrating artificial intelligence tools, optimizing SEO, utilizing effective SEM strategies, and harnessing the power of social media, you can create a dynamic and effective marketing approach. Start by experimenting with different strategies, tracking your results, and refining your approach based on performance data.
Feature Image Credit: Getty
By Dominique Harroch
Dominique Harroch has acted as a Chief of Staff or Operations Leader for multiple companies where she leveraged her extensive experience in operations management, strategic planning, and team leadership to drive organizational success. Her background spans over two decades in operations leadership, event planning at her own startup, and marketing at various financial and retail companies. She can be reached via LinkedIn.
