We’ve noticed that many companies who haven’t updated their blogs in years are suddenly posting something new at least once a week. We’ve also noted why: They’re using AI to write their blogs. You can tell by the style. You can tell by way of the subject matter. And you can tell by how they all sound alike.
So let us acknowledge something: People like us, who write for a living, have an inherent reason to dislike when the companies could be hiring us to write their blogs instead of using AI. So yes, we will own that bias.
But we also think we can make a strong case that the companies doing this will not get the results they’re hoping for.
The idea here isn’t completely without merit on the surface.
You tell AI to write a blog about a topic on which you want to be a high-ranking search engine result. If you work in metal forming, you tell AI to write a blog about metal forming that’s designed to hit all the right SEO notes. You don’t really care if people read it. What you care about is that, when they search Google for metal forming, your blog is the first result.
If you do it this way, you’ll probably do OK on Google. And you might figure that’s a pretty good return on investment when you didn’t hire a writer to do it.
But there are several problems with this:
First, you’re not the only company doing this. From what we can see, just about everyone is doing it. So as much as you may be hoping for a top ranking on Google, you’re really just keeping up with the industry norm.
Second, your content is going to sound exactly the same as everyone else’s.
Now, you might ask, so what? As long as people are finding it – which means they’re landing on your website – that’s all that matters. But that’s not going to tell them anything that makes you stand out from the crowd.
The point of marketing is to demonstrate to your market that there’s something special about you. Turning your blog content over to AI does exactly the opposite of that.
Third, AI-written content is soulless to the point it’s not worth reading. Where are you in your own company’s content? You can find articles on Wikipedia that will teach you more than what you’re posting on your own website, and that does not reflect well on you or your company.
So where does this leave us?
It really comes down to what you want from your marketing content. If your answer is “generate clicks and cost me nothing,” AI copy might be able to do that. But you have to remember it’s doing the same thing for your competitors too, so it’s a wash.
If your answer is “make a strong and effective case for what’s different and special about us,” you’ll need actual people who know how to do that. And you’ll get further than the people who gave the first answer.