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For most marketing agencies, AI is a heaven-sent tool…
It can do everything – from doing market- and audience research to generating content ideas, and from generating content to automatically publishing it and sending it to social media.
However, as with everything in life, there is a trade-off. Everything comes at a price.
Experience comes at the expense of hard lessons learned. Knowledge comes at the expense of time spent to acquire it.
Convenience comes at the expense of excellence. Just look around you, and it becomes obvious in many things around you.
5 Ways in which using AI can harm your brand and business.
1. Repetitive and duplicate content:
An AI content generator will use the same sources of information for multiple instances of the same question.
And yes, you may specifically include an instruction in your prompt to create unique content, but what happens when someone else asks the same question again, in the future?
Your “unique” content can be used to generate the next response.
And yes, we asked. If presented with the same question in more than one instance, the response will be “similar”, unless new information has come to light in the meantime.
On top of that, AI tends to repeat itself every so often, even if the wording may differ somewhat.
As a result, if you – for instance – use AI to generate blog content, there will be other AI generated articles out there with (very) similar content.
If any one of the other websites have a higher standing in Google’s search results, their article will be shown in Google search, and yours is likely to be buried on another page.
On social media, duplicate content can severely restrict the exposure of our content.
Of course, repetitive content is likely to alienate your loyal audience.
2. Incorrect information:
From time to time, AI gets it wrong. Completely. or as we call it in marketing circles, the AI “hallucinates”.
Just imagine that you put out short video clips with tips for prospective homeowners…
And one of those tips is incorrect.
Can you imagine the damage done to your brand if someone follows that advice, and loses a lot of money because of it, possibly facing financial ruin?
If word gets out, it can go viral, effectively destroying your brand.
Of course, if your content generation and syndication is completely automated, you probably won’t even be spending time on social media, so you won’t even know what is happening until your sales drop off a cliff.
We recently did an experiment using automated, AI-generated content, directly posted to Instagram. The idea was to help a website client who had a very limited marketing budget – so we decided to experiment with generated-picture posts due to that being the most cost effective option.
What happened? The AI-generated pictures were fantastic. The chronic spelling mistakes on the graphics were infuriating. No amount of prompt engineering could make it go away. At times, it even miss-spelled the client’s web address (short URL, just 6 characters plus the domain extension).
Now ask yourself this: If AI has trouble spelling a 6-character domain name…
How many other mistakes can slip in using text or video?
3. An AI chatbot can be culturally insensitive, and alienate frustrated prospects.
Let’s face it: AI has come a long way, but it still has a few things to learn. While it does have a reasonable understanding of cultural differences and cross-cultural issues, it might not understand culture down to each local level.
As a result, some of its responses can come across as being “tone deaf”. And in today’s society where everyone is offended by everything…
That is NOT a good thing for your brand.
Similarly, when someone is already frustrated (by a situation they experience, or their inability to find a solution), talking to an AI can turn sour very quickly.
In many cases, frustrated people no longer think clearly, and can fail to articulate the details of their situation. The AI chatbot, not knowing which questions to ask in order to get to the bottom of it, may end up giving repetitive, unhelpful responses.
Congratulations. You may have saved money on customer acquisition, but you just blew the sale. Not to mention that your “patronizing” AI will come up in subsequent human conversations.
And yes, we are speaking from personal experience (with AI chatbots).
Let’s not even talk about AI chatbots who feel they should be able to resolve the situation, and makes it hard for the visitor to escalate the conversation to a human being.
4. Low quality or generic content:
Unless you – or the person doing your marketing – has spent some time learning about creating effective prompts, and also spent the time to define your ideal customer profile, the content it puts out might not resonate with your audience.
People want to solve their issues or situations. They want answers. And if you don’t come across as someone who knows what they need or want, and don’t showcase your expertise, why would they spend their hard earned money at your business?
Low quality or generic content can make you come across as mediocre. And unless that which you sell is of small value, so people buy it on impulse, people don’t like buying mediocrity. They want the best bang for their buck.
5. Future regulation could make things messy:
Laws around AI are evolving. Maybe it’s not happening fast enough, but it is happening.
On top of that, some AI entities are much smarter than we think.
A while ago, a singer asked AI to create some songs for him…
It appears he shared his whole business model with the AI, because the AI went and registered itself as a business entity, and obtained copyright on the music it created.
When the time came for Spotify to pay out the royalties earned as people listened to his music, it was forfeited to the AI business entity.
If this trend expands, what would happen if, in a few years from now, you suddenly receive a “cease and desist” order, forcing you to take down hundreds of pages on your website, and thousands of social media posts?
In conclusion:
Using AI for marketing can be very helpful – depending on which level you are at in your business journey.
However, be sure to check every piece of content generated to ensure that not only is it good enough, but that it is also likely to be helpful to your audience.
You can survive duplicate content – even if it leads to a loss of traffic or exposure – but your brand will not survive low quality content.
And if you ever feel the need to use an AI chatbot, make it as easy as possible for any visitor to speak to a human instead.
No matter how efficient and affordable your chosen AI tools are, always remember you are dealing with real people. People with their own challenges, emotions and expectations.
If your AI tools don’t deliver on those expectations, and don’t provide for their emotions and challenges, your brand is at risk of going nowhere.