Last week, a friend asked me to review a new research report he compiled as a lead magnet for his business. But I knew his strategy was flawed before I even saw the report. I had to provide an email address to access the research. I didn’t want to become part of his email “lead nurturing” program, so I never downloaded the report. “Gated content” killed his content marketing strategy.

I know that sounds counter-intuitive. Most marketers point to the high cost of making exceptional content … Asking for an email address seems like a small price to pay for this value. But by making it difficult for people to access your content, you’re leaving the true value of your marketing on the table. I’ll explain why.

The current state of gated content

Here are some points to provide a perspective of our marketing world today.

• People hate gated content. Even marketers who gate their content know this. Research shows more than 90 percent of the people interested in the content abandon the sign-up process because they don’t trust what happens next to the email address.
• Many marketers justify gated content as a fair value exchange but research shows this is not true. Consumers state they are “resigned” to annoying marketing practices and more than half immediately unsubscribe to a site even after they opt-in.
• Acquiring email addresses in exchange for gated content may not be compliant with privacy laws in Europe and many U.S. states.
• We are clearly in an era of Content Shock where the competition for content views is vicious. One of the visible manifestations of this trend is BuzzSumo research showing how social shares on a topic decline precipitously as a subject becomes saturated. In other words, unless you are among the first to create content on a topic, getting your content to be seen and shared is extremely difficult.

A new content marketing philosophy

In my book The Content Code, I provide an updated view of content marketing strategy.

The philosophy behind the book revolves around the practical idea that the economic value of content that is not seen and shared is zero. Therefore, we must develop competency in not just producing content but igniting it so that it is seen and shared by the most people possible. The most economic value of content marketing doesn’t come from the content, it come from the transmission of the content.

Creating great content is no longer the finish line; it is the starting line. The book outlines six possible strategies to remove barriers and give your content the best possible chance to flow and reach the most people possible.

Requiring people to provide an email address to access your content is about the worst thing you can do in this new view of “content success.” In essence, gated content places a stop sign in front of your content flow. It is an anachronistic way of thinking.

The value exchange

The decision to provide a barrier before your content must boil down to this: Are you going to receive more value from a trickle of people providing their email address, or the flood of people seeing and sharing the content freely? Let’s look at a case study to figure this out.

My friend James Carbary provided this example of how the gated content value exchange played out for his own business. He wrote:

“It took five months for us to get 295 people to sign up for the gated opt-in offer on our website. This progress seemed incredibly slow, so I tried something different.

“A couple weeks ago, I published a status update on LinkedIn explaining that I’d developed a list of 67 content topics that work well on that site. If people wanted the ideas, I asked them to leave a comment that said ‘I want it.’ Then I explained that I would turn the ideas into a free PDF if 100 people left a comment.

“In three hours I had over 150 comments. That post has now been viewed more 160,000 times, and 692 people left a comment saying they wanted the content ideas. We turned the ideas into a PDF, and replied to every comment with the link.

“In five days, my content spread to 692 people, compared to to 295 people in five months. We collected ZERO email addresses through the LinkedIn content but I’m beginning to see why un-gated content might be a smarter strategy.”

The case for amplification

James told me that the most tangible benefit of the ungated strategy was a connection with a high-potential customer and a podcast interview with this powerful new connection.

Some implied benefits in this un-gated content example would probably be easy to track down:

• Of the 692 people who asked for the content, how many were entirely new LinkedIn connections for James? He didn’t get an email address, but he did get a signal of interest and arguably these new LinkedIn connections might be more valuable in the long-term than an email address.
• How many of the 692 people responded to a call to action at the end of the report and visited a website, or organically subscribed to receive more content?
• How many shared the free content with more people inside and outside the company? How much additional flow did this receive because it was free?

Even if the percentage of people sharing content is the same whether it is gated or ungated, you will reach many more people with a base of fans numbering 692 versus 295. And that is happening in a matter of days versus months!

Finally, I shared James’s story, and linked to his website. I can’t recall ever linking to gated content that would require my readers to sign-in to something. So the benefit created by this post would have never happened if he hadn’t given his content away for free.

If you subscribe to my philosophy that the company that moves the most content will win, there is no question that un-gated content provides more potential value.

Branding and trust

I was discussing this issue with a colleague and she said “gated content annoys me. Why would a brand want to be annoying? The company is making me distrust them because I have no idea what will happen to that email address.”

A few years ago, I gave up my email address and (shudder) phone number to access a report from a company I loved and trusted. The next day, I was interrupted at a birthday party from a sales rep calling me from this company. My email was placed on lists for newsletters, webinars, and holiday sales.

Even after I “opted out,” of communications, I was still receiving phone calls and spam from this company.

By abusing me in this way, the company ruined its brand. It went from a company I loved to a brand I would never work with again.

A simple thought exercise: If you’re in a hotly-competitive field (like SEO or digital marketing) and one company has gated content and the other gives their best content away for free, which one will have a more positive brand view?

The research supports un-gated content

Roger Dooley is an expert in the field of neuroscience and marketing. In a post, he points out that from a psychological perspective, un-gated content is the undisputed content champ. Roger writes:

Requiring a user to give up his info before viewing good content is a reward strategy – give us your info, and we’ll reward you by letting you see our wonderful content. This is an appealing strategy at first glance – 100% of the people who use the content will have completed the form, and the information should be a powerful motivator for visitors to proceed.

In fact, most users confronted with a form won’t complete it. If they arrived at the site looking for some specific information, they will likely hit the back button and see if they can access it without the aggravation of form completion and without the risk of getting spammed later.

It turns out that a reciprocity strategy works better – give them the info they want, and then ask for their information. The research shows that twice as many visitors gave up their information if they were able to access the information first. It’s counterintuitive, perhaps, but even though these visitors were under no obligation to complete the form, they converted at double the rate of visitors seeing the “mandatory” form.

The neuromarketing takeaway here is that if you invoke reciprocity, you’ll be working with the way our brains are wired and will be more likely to get your visitors to do what you want them to. (And, as an added bonus, your SEO person will be happy that along with your visitors, Google will be able to see your content, too!)

Gated content and measurement

A compelling argument for gated content is measurement. Providing a tangible demonstration of the value of content marketing is difficult. It’s intoxicating to tell a client or your boss that an eBook (or whatever) resulted in a countable number of sign-ups that might be stretched into a claim of “leads.”

Measuring content marketing can be exceedingly hard. Most can’t do an adequate job. I acknowledge that gating your content may be the politically correct thing to do even if the strategy is flawed based on today’s market realities.

However, I think “social shares” is a more powerful measurement than “number of email addresses.” An email address may translate into … nothing. But a social share represents organic advocacy — better than any ad you could pay for.

An unpopular view

I’ve had many negative reactions to the idea of un-gating content. Here is one of them:

I think if you understand Funnels and the importance email still plays in the sales process then you wouldn’t have written this article. It’s not just about sharing good content — it’s also about turning your audience into customers. How do you do that when you never ask for an email address to move the relationship forward?  It’s all about moving folks through your customer journey. 

I would politely suggest this is an anachronistic view of a world that works in “funnels.” It’s not “your customer journey.” It’s THEIRS.

Most marketing today is not your marketing — it’s the sharing of information that’s going on without you. And if you have a gate, that clogs up the information you want to be shared. Let’s do the math and generously assume that 10% of the people who see your post will call for an appointment. We know that 90% of the people who come across your gate will go away. So for every 100 potential customers, you earn just 10 content views, and one call.

If I un-gate the content, I get 100 views and 10 calls. I am 10x more productive. Also, I have 100 people potentially SHARING my article instead of 10 for you.

By the way, what will you do after getting that email address? Spam your way to glory? That’s why people don’t trust gated content in the first place. You’re part of the problem.

I realize it’s a new way to think, but I can’t imagine a business today working hard to get customers to their site and then letting 90% of them walk away. If you ask people for an email AFTER they see the content, research shows it works better.

In any scenario, the numbers work in my favor, not yours.

A simple rule of thumb

One of the themes in my recent writing is that we have lost our way in marketing. Often, those setting the “standards” we follow aren’t marketers; they are SEO experts, statisticians, and IT professionals. I am not diminishing the worth of these resources, but maybe a statistical evaluation is not always the best guidepost for a marketing decision. Perhaps we need to get our heads out of dashboards and spreadsheets and look at what is happening with our customers in the real world.

Just because something seems favorable because of an A/B test or backlink strategy, it doesn’t mean we should do it … especially if people hate it.

So I’ll end this post with a simple piece of advice. People hate gated content. Don’t do things people hate.

Instead, dig deep to discover what your customers love. Now, go do that thing better than anybody else.

Need a keynote speaker? Mark Schaefer is the most trusted voice in marketing. Your conference guests will buzz about his insights long after your event! Mark is the author of some of the world’s bestselling marketing books, a college educator, and an advisor to many of the world’s largest brands. Contact Mark to have him bring a fun, meaningful, and memorable presentation to your company event or conference.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram

Illustration courtesy MidJourney.

The post Why Gated Content Kills Your Marketing Success appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

One of my favorite strategic brainiacs is Mathew Sweezey, and we used our latest podcast episode to explore the ideas we’re most excited about for the New Year. I think these are non-obvious, interesting, and worth your time!

Some of the items we discuss:

• Why enterprise-level AI integrations will finally begin to drive ROI
• The human-driven opportunity of experiential marketing
• Why brand communities are the new media
• Why marketing success might depend on change management
• How marketers will overcome a pandemic of dull

… and more!

Sit at the table with us, won’t you? Listen in as Mathew and I explore what the year has in store for us. All you have to do is click here:

Click here to enjoy Marketing Companion Episode 306

Please support our sponsor, who brings you this fantastic episode.

Bravo for Brevo!

This episode is brought to you by Brevo (formerly Sendinblue). Brevo gives you the tools to attract, engage, and nurture customer relationships.

Now, any business can build automated customer experiences, email marketing workflows, and landing pages that guide your customer to your main message. We are here to support businesses successfully navigating their digital presence to strengthen their customer relationships.

Go to https://www.brevo.com/marketingcompanion to sign up for Brevo for free and use the code COMPANION to save 50% on your first three months of Brevo’s Starter & Business plan!

The post Six marketing megatrends we’re watching right now appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

This week marks the tenth anniversary of the most famous blog post I’ve written, and arguably one of the most well-known blog posts in marketing history. I am not one to reminisce or grow crazy over anniversaries, but publishing this post ten years ago was a unique, unexpected life experience and cultural moment worthy of explanation.

Today, we’ll look at the impact of Content Shock and lessons from one of the most widely shared business blog posts in history.

The idea behind the blog post

It was the summer of 2013. I was on a plane to give a speech in Montreal, but I couldn’t relax because I was uneasy about my talk. The topic was familiar enough — social media and content marketing. But something was wrong.

Back then, producing corporate content was still a novel idea. Content fueled this concept of inbound marketing. Instead of cold-calling customers (outbound marketing) we could produce relevant content that would auto-magically bring leads to our website.

But it wasn’t working, at least not as easily as it had in the early days. The leading purveyor behind the idea, Hubspot, had never turned a profit (ironically its OUTBOUND sales costs were too high!). Niches were filling up with blog posts and podcasts and infographics competing for attention. We had to spend more of our budget on quality and promotion just to get a few views. And it was just getting worse.

The world was flooded with content, and the easy days of content marketing were coming to an end. On the plane to Montreal, I scribbled a note — “The world is in content shock.”

The premise

When I have a new idea for a book or blog post, I never go with it right away. I let it sit for months to make sure I’m right.

I didn’t publish the Content Shock post until January 06, 2014. I had seen enough by then to know I was right. It was simple economics: Any time there’s a huge surplus of a good, or a scarcity of a good, there has to be a response in the economic system. And we had a surplus of content!

Here’s a simple example. In the earliest days of TV, anybody could walk down to a studio and create a cooking show or a craft show. The entry barriers for success were low because the channel was so hungry for content. Similarly, in those early days, it was easy to advertise and support a show.

As television became more popular, the channels filled with content. Competitors appeared, not just on the local level, but nationally. Networks were created that attracted the best writers and the biggest stars. Content became more expensive to produce and sponsor.

Television entered a never-ending content arms race. You can still see it happening today. An episode of The Mandalorian cost a staggering $15 million to produce. A few years later, Wanda Vision cost $28 million per episode. The Lord of the Rings TV series cost $60 million per episode.

And so it goes.

This is exactly what is happening on Facebook. On Instagram. On Tik Tok. On every place we publish, whether it is B2B or B2C.

And so, I decided to write about this pattern. Content marketing was moving into a new phase, and it wasn’t going to be easy.

The outfall

Today, this idea of Content Shock is taken for granted. Of course if there is more competition, it becomes more difficult and expensive to compete. In fact, it becomes impossible for some.

While I knew this idea was true, I nonetheless sensed it would not go over well with the people in the industry actually selling content marketing as a red-hot, can’t-fail idea.

The post attracted thousands of comments — more like long conversations! To my surprise, about 95% of the comments were positive and suggested that I had tapped into a market reality, like this one from marketing expert Doug Kessler:

And yet, my blog post was characterized as “controversial.” If 95% of the people agreed with me, why would it be controversial? As I explained to my wife, if 95% of the people in our country agreed with something but the president disagreed, it would be controversial.

In this case, almost every content marketing thought leader took aim at me.  I was fine with it. I have a thick skin and enjoyed the great debate. That’s how we grow. But there was one comment I’ll never forget …

The laugh

The commentary didn’t end at my blog. My post sent a ripple of conversation into seemingly every blog, podcast, and video in the marketing industry. It was great that a professional debate was happening … with one exception.

On a well-known podcast, one of the hosts was asked whether my article had any legitimacy. He paused … and then laughed. “NO!” he said emphatically. He went on to describe the practice of content marketing as having unlimited potential. There was no concern about content saturation or the economic viability of content marekting, he claimed.

In my 15 years of blogging, this is the only comment that ever truly, deeply pissed me off. It wasn’t because he disagreed with me. It was because this was a respected voice acting as a charlatan to protect his own business interests. He was lying to an audience I cared about.

This comment was the primary reason I wrote The Content Code book. I needed to insert some rational truth into the content marketing madness. The premise of the book: “The economic value of content that is not seen and shared is zero. Here is a plan to ignite your content in an era of Content Shock.”

The laugh launched a book. And I’m still a little pissed : )

The legacy of a blog post

The Content Shock post generated tens of thousands of comments all over the web. For three solid weeks, I spent almost every hour of the day responding to comments. An important point — this most viral of posts had no measurable impact on my business. It did not even result in a meaningful boost in new subscribers. Goes to show that “Viral” is an overrated goal.

Hundreds of blog posts have been written about the original post. Thousands more linked to the article. I continue to get links to that post every week. “Content Shock” is still among the top 10 posts on my site every week, 10 years later!

Over time, the industry adopted the term as a way to describe the overwhelming competition in a world saturated with content. It has been featured in books, conferences, and speeches around the world. I’ve had people describe Content Shock to me, not realizing I was the one who came up with the term.

Two years after I wrote the post, Buzz Sumo did an analysis of marketing content trends, showing that content saturation was eating into the success of some of the biggest sites in the industry like Copyblogger and Moz. Founder Steve Rayson stated that “content shock is here.”

Battling the difficult economics of content saturation is a fact of life today in the marketing world!

Spiky content

Why did this post go viral? It was timely, it was relevant. But it was also spiky.

In my Personal Branding Master Class, I teach about the importance of “spiky content,” a phrase coined by Wes Kao. Spiky content provides a bold point of view that cuts through the clutter. It goes like this:

1. A spiky point of view can be debated.

2. A spiky point of view isn’t controversial for the sake of it.

3. A spiky point of view teaches your audience something relevant they don’t already know.

4. A spiky point of view is rooted in evidence, but it doesn’t have to be a proven fact or universal truth.

5. A spiky point of view requires conviction. 

“Content Shock” is a great spiky case study!

When I wrote this post, did I know I was absolutely right? I thought so, but there was no way to know for sure. The argument was built on evidence, but of course, it could be debated. And I wasn’t taking a stand to start a fight. I thought about this idea for six months before publishing. I wrote this post because I’m passionate about marketing, and I care about its future.

If you care about something, try creating some spiky content of your own. It’s really the only way to stand out today.

The future, the solution

After the initial post, I had another insight about Content Shock. It’s not just a trend. It’s a pattern (I explained this here). Every channel eventually fills with content, driving up the cost to compete. It’s a repeating pattern.

I wrote several follow-up posts, including one framing Content Shock as the most important content marketing strategy, instead of being a problem.

If Content Shock was becoming an issue in 2014, you can only imagine what is happening today in a world overtaken by AI. Some project that in a year or two, 95% of the content on the web will be created by bots. Bots don’t sleep, they don’t get writer’s block. Their ability to churn out content is infinite.

One of the counterarguments to Content Shock was that the world wasn’t being saturated with content; it was being saturated with bad content, so true artists still had a chance. Perhaps that was valid for a time, but most niches are filled with great people doing great work, or AI bots that are not far behind. The world is filled with so much great content, all of it vying for our attention.

Content Shock is here to stay.

I think there are two solutions to Content Shock.

The most common path is the inevitable arms race. Just look at what is happening in the battle between Netflix, Apple, and other streaming services. The demand for quality content, and the cost to produce that content, goes up, up, up. That is the inevitable pattern in every content niche.

There is another solution. What if you cared for the content and even more for the person or brand producing it?

Why are you reading this today? If you’ve made it this far, it’s because you’re interested in the topic. But maybe you subscribed to this blog in the first place because you believe in me. Maybe you will share this post on LinkedIn because you consider me a thought leader, or even a friend. The content matters and cuts through because I matter to you as a person.

This is a solution available to any business of any size, and it’s why I shout from the rooftops every day that you MUST be working on your personal brand.

I don’t have the resources to compete with the biggest media sites and cut through the Content Shock. You probably don’t either. But you can be the most human company in your niche and nurture an audience who loves you as a person.

Thanks for obliging me this Content Shock retrospective. It was a weird time in my life, but overall, it produced positive results and I’m proud of the blog post.

Go forth and publish some spiky content! Thanks for being here and supporting me through these many years.

Need a keynote speaker? Mark Schaefer is the most trusted voice in marketing. Your conference guests will buzz about his insights long after your event! Mark is the author of some of the world’s bestselling marketing books, a college educator, and an advisor to many of the world’s largest brands. Contact Mark to have him bring a fun, meaningful, and memorable presentation to your company event or conference.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram

Image courtesy Midjourney

The post The Blog Post That Shocked the World appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

There has been a flurry of panicked posts about protecting your content from AI. There have been lawsuits, probes, and new software that prevents sites like ChatGPT from accessing your content from being absorbed into large language models. Within 14 days of the availability of code that can prevent AI data scraping, nearly 20% of the top 1,000 websites in the world began using it.

What should you and your business do? Should you keep AI away?

My advice today might seem counterintuitive. Maybe when AI comes to suck up your content, you should say, “suck away.” Actually, we need to come up with a better phrase than that. But you know what I mean.

Let’s pause, take a deep breath, and rationally examine the issue of protecting your content from AI in the context of your future business success.

Acknowledging complexity

First, I must acknowledge that this is an insanely complex and evolving issue. The legal, ethical, and economic considerations for large enterprises, newspapers, movie studios, and other media companies are unique.

When it comes to protecting your content from AI, any individual artist, author, or other creator may disagree with me, and I honor their right to make their own decisions.

My post today specifically aims at content creators, entrepreneurs, and businesses trying to rise above the noise and achieve business benefits from their content marketing.

The bottom line is, I believe that more business benefits will accrue to you by NOT protecting your content from AI, even if it is copyrighted. To understand why, let’s begin by reviewing an important content marketing philosophy …

Unleash your content

Here is a fundamental truth: The economic value of content that is not seen and shared is zero.

Chances are you’re working hard to create amazing content. You post on social media and engage with fans to build your audience. All good. Now, your job is to get that content to move through your audience and beyond, and that means focusing on content transmission (This strategy was the subject of my book The Content Code).

I’ve been against gated content, and the ridiculous notion that you shouldn’t publish on “rented land.” Of course you should. My view is, publish your content everywhere your audience could possibly find it, consume it, and share it! Unleash your content!

The first consideration: If you protect your content from AI — a technology that is becoming the foundation of search and content discovery — and your competitors don’t, will you be better off? Probably not.

An old dilemma

The argument about protecting your content from AI is strangely familiar. This is the same debate we had in the early days of content marketing — “What??? You want me to give away my content and best ideas for free?”

Yes, we all had to do that because if we didn’t provide free and helpful content, the competitor down the street would. Their content would be highlighted by search, discovered, and shared … and we would lose.

Publishing free content was a radical idea. Before the internet, many businesses made money from their protected content. Research firms built profitable businesses by selling original reports for hundreds of thousands of dollars. That business model is nearly obsolete now. For better or for worse, information flows freely on the web. Once you publish anything, anywhere, it will probably find its way to the open waters of the web.

Let’s get specific about what’s happening to copyrighted content today, with or without AI. I put tremendous effort into my books, and making money from a business book is not easy! Every month, I find some nefarious group that is selling illegally digitized versions of my books. There are even sites out there selling my blog posts as aids in writing student term papers.

For a while, I tried to fight back. But it’s like that arcade game Whac-A-Mole. Every time I try to take a whack, another illegal site pops up somewhere else. If people really want to access and spread your content, there is no recourse, there is no stopping it.

So, even if you create a wall around your content, it will probably seep into the AI machine anyway. If you use software defense against AI, what would keep somebody from cutting and pasting it manually into an LLM?

Let’s put the issue of attribution aside for a moment. If you’re not freaked out by Google using your content for free, why are you freaked out about AI using it?

My first business from AI

A few months ago, I reported getting my first consulting contract from ChatGPT.

A new client found me by searching for “top 10 marketing experts.” I tried this myself, and the list would shuffle on each query, but I was usually in the top 10. Friends tried this in Europe, and the same names came up.

Let’s be honest. Am I one of the top 10 marketing experts in the world? No, I’m not. I could easily name 10 people in my circle of immediate friends who are smarter than me!

How did I make that AI-generated list? It’s the same way I show up on “best-of” blog lists and Google search results — I’ve had the tenacity and courage to put my content into the world with fierce consistency for 15 years.

AI is the future of search — it’s called Search Generative Experience (SGE). It’s already incorporated into Google.

My new client found me because I am present on the web, and now I’m present on AI. I believe that will serve me well as search evolves.

The cost of invisibility

Beyond revenue, there is an implication for impact and influence.

One of the organizations fighting AI content practices is The New York Times. This news organization is arguably the newspaper of record in America and one of the most important news sources in the world. As more students, researchers, and students turn to ChatGPT and other platforms for knowledge and research, is it in the best interest of The New York Times to be unaccounted for?

If you’re protecting your content from AI, you’re no longer part of the public conversation, at least as it is represented on ChatGPT and other AI platforms. Your view is invisible. What do you risk when you and your business are unaccounted for?

My smart friend Aleksandra Pimenides recently commented in our RISE marketing community:

“AI is an important source of knowledge transmission. Teachers take something and pass it on to their students. Libraries have books for people to read and learn. Likewise, LLMs act as an intermediary of transmission. Do Newton’s descendants get paid every time a student is taught the principle of gravity? Do libraries get fined when people go there to read and learn about subjects for free? To what extent should information and knowledge be monetized? Maybe there’s a distinction to be made between knowledge and information?”

A view of the true risk

I think much of the anxiety on this subject comes from an image of some AI bot cutting and pasting your unique content without attribution. That’s not exactly how it works.

Here is an explanation from Benedict Evans, which appeared in his wonderful newsletter (edited slightly for style)

“LLMs are not databases. They deduce or infer patterns in language by seeing vast quantities of text created by people — we write things that contain logic and structure, and LLMs look at that and infer patterns from it, but they don’t keep it. So ChatGPT might have looked at thousands of stories from The New York Times, but it hasn’t kept them. Moreover, those stories themselves are just a fraction of a fraction of a percent of all the training data. The purpose is not for the LLM to know the content of any given story or any given novel — the purpose is for it to see the patterns in the output of collective human intelligence.

“This is not Napster. OpenAI hasn’t ‘pirated’ your book or your story and it isn’t handing it out for free. In Tim O’Reilly’s great phrase, data isn’t oil; data is sand. It’s only valuable in the aggregate of billions and your novel is just one grain of dust in the Great Pyramid. This isn’t supposed to be an oracle or a database. It’s supposed to be inferring ‘intelligence’ from seeing as much of how people talk (as a proxy for how they think) as possible.

“If this is, at a minimum, a foundational new technology of the next decade, and it relies on all of us collectively acting as mechanical turks to feed it, do we all get paid, or do we collectively withdraw? It seems somehow unsatisfactory to argue that “this is worth a trillion dollars, and relies on using your work, but your own individual work is only 0.0001% so you get nothing.” Is it adequate or even correct to call this ‘fair use?’ Does it matter, in either direction? Do we change our definition of fair use?”

In the United States, copyright rights are limited by the doctrine of “fair use,” under which certain uses of copyrighted material for criticism, commentary, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research may be considered fair.

As an example, I took a snippet from Benedict’s copyrighted newsletter, provided proper attribution, and used it today to teach. That’s fair use.

Here’s the problem with AI. Think of your copyrighted content as a lovely cake that you baked. It is your original and distinctive work. But inside AI, your work isn’t a cake. It’s an ingredient put into a blender to make a new cake. What’s fair use in that environment?

I dabble in watercolor painting. Seeking credit in an AI model is similar to the maker of my paints wanting attribution credit for this painting:

Even if I used one unique type of paint patented by a supplier, would I give them credit for the painting? No. I actually sold this painting. Should I give part of the revenue to Arches, the company who supplied the paper? I literally could not have made this without the paper and paint yet it is my original work, period.

Attribution

“Originality is nothing but judicious imitation.” – Voltaire

I think most of the “protecting your content from AI” conversation would disappear if we were assured we get credit for our work, in the case where credit might be important — like a meaningful, original idea. After all, we’re OK with Google scraping our content if we get credit for it in search results, right?

Let’s go back to the current state of the internet for a reality check.

In 2014, I wrote one of the most famous blog posts in marketing history, “Content Shock.” This is not idle bragging. The numbers back it up. “Content Shock” — a phrase I coined — has shown up in books, speeches, conferences, college classes, and millions of pieces of content. If you Google the term, there are 610 million results, like these:

Writing a bold post like this did its job. It helped establish thought leadership and provided thousands of links to my original article.

However.

I assure you that I have not received 610 million links back to my site! Even if I received a million links, that would mean I have attribution on just .002% of all references to my original idea.

Clearly, people are using and abusing my work without attribution. Does this mean I should block Google from accessing my post? Of course not.

As Tim O’Reilly said, data is sand that is only valuable when aggregated into something bigger. My blog post is a grain of sand in the content economy. If you want to be part of that economy, you must put pride aside.

No matter how protective I might feel about my intellectual property, it’s sand. And even if I am credited, who reads the footnotes?

In any event, I think the problem of attribution will go away. It’s already happening. There are academic AI sites and writing assistants that allow you to search with references. I use an AI-powered tool through BuzzSumo that creates writing briefs with legitimate and relevant references. Very helpful, and it leads me to smart new content I can quote with attribution.

The option to learn original sources for attribution will be a more common option across all platforms eventually.

Conclusion

Comparing how content works on the web today versus content integrated into LLMs and AI search allows us to make a rational conclusion to allow AI bots to scrape content from our sites, at least for most businesses. AI will be a major component of search going forward.

This is a complex and evolving issue, but I believe that regulations and best practices will favor creators who allow their content to be used in LLMs over time. The attribution problem will likely be solved on many platforms and regulations will adjust to a new framing of “fair use.”

Having an effective presence within AI models and AI search utilities could result in business benefits that outweigh the risks of misusing your copyrighted content.

I’ll say once again that this is a complex issue but for most businesses, I think it makes sense to be part of the machine.

Mark Schaefer is the executive director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions. He is the author of some of the world’s bestselling marketing books and is an acclaimed keynote speaker, college educator, and business consultant. The Marketing Companion podcast is among the top business podcasts in the world. Contact Mark to have him speak at your company event or conference soon.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram.

Illustration courtesy MidJourney

The post Protecting Your Content From AI: A Contrarian View appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

My friend Amanda Russell and I had a vital discussion about the connection between strategy, AI-generated content, and the personal brand.

Obviously, these factors are interconnected. For many creators, entrepreneurs, and businesses, content drives the brand, and the brand drives the business.

We are in a period of incredible upheaval as AI-generated content swarms our lives like locusts on a grassy plain. When the cloud of uncertainty lifts, where might we see a stable place where human content might thrive?

There are always exceptions, but here is a view of where I think it will settle out:

• The cells in red represent content categories that will be dominated by AI-generated content.
• Yellow cells indicate there will be a mix.
• Green cells represent categories where humans can still have a dominant role.

The over-arching theme is that where consumers need only information, AI-generated content will overtake human roles. If consumers seek inspiration and insight, they will seek out human thought leaders and artists.

Let’s examine this on a more granular level.

AI-generated content and information

Column one is entirely red. We already see jobs displaced where emotional connection to a human insight is not important. When we read news or see a new logo, we usually have no idea the name of the human connected to that work. This type of content is ruled by patterns. Even a news story is formulaic, as Google recently demonstrated. I’m not saying there won’t be a human hand behind the overall strategy in this column, but any commodity content will probably move to AI.

Column two is the area where there will always be a mix of creators, depending on whether a consumer is looking for information or inspiration. Many corporate blogs will be overrun by AI-generated content, and we are already seeing the massive automation of social media posts. The scale could tip toward humans in this column if there is a meaningful connection between a creator or corporate leader and an audience.

The outlier here is podcasts. Generative AI podcasts are here, and some of them are interesting, pitting virtual historical figures against each other in debate. But overall, I can’t imagine a world where AI podcasts would be anything but a niche category. Most people will prefer insight and inspiration from a real person and a real voice.

Column three is almost entirely human. My thinking goes like this … While we might be entertained by a gallery of AI-generated art, we would probably want to buy fine art from a real artist (and the fine art market is booming right now!)

Similarly, AI-generated content has flooded the book industry, but most people will choose to buy a book from a beloved author who is expressing personal experiences and interpreting the world through their stories.

Many movies are already dominated by AI-generated images, and there is no reason scripts, scores, and even the actors cannot come from a bot. As I watch an intense battle scene in a Marvel movie, I wonder if any of it is filmed in a real place with real people. We already accept AI-generated content as a superior experience in many film genres. The recent Academy Award winner Everything Everywhere All at Once could not have been created without it!

I hope there will be more AI-based movies. I’d like to see the Marx Brothers, Charlie Chaplin, and Robin Williams in the same film.

When do you cross the line?

I realize you’re looking at where AI might be able to essentially replace humans at tasks here…

Obviously, there is going to be a layer of AI applied to everything we do, even novels and podcasts. I’m sure when I write my next book, I will be able to use it many imaginative ways to help me ideate, organize, and edit.

My friend Frank Prendergast comments: “What has been on my mind lately is how much we are still thinking of content and AI in a binary way — was this AI or human?

“I think AI will be so baked into tools and processes everything will be somewhat AI … Which raises even more complications for your axis.

“If I read a blog post from someone on the assumption it’s written by them, and I find out it was actually AI, I’ll feel cheated. Like I’ve been a victim of the old bait-and-switch.

“But where’s my line? Is 20% AI OK? 40%? 60? I have no idea. And how would it even be measured?

“Will that question be a thing of the past when AI is ubiquitous?

“And at that point, is it more likely more of your green turns red? Or reddish?”

Frank makes a great point. ChatGPT is to writing like the calculator is to math. We don’t feel compelled to declare that we used a calculator to do math. When does AI simply become … life?

Implications of AI-generated content and careers

I have been writing about the intersection of AI, strategy, and personal brands for some time, and there are three consistent themes that I elevate:

1. If you are in a career providing information, you’re vulnerable. If you provide insights and inspiration, you’ll probably be OK.
2. Going forward, the personal brand is everything. If you mean something to people, then your content will mean something too. I’m not worried about blog readers abandoning me for AI-generated content because I am known and trusted. For many, my posts, podcast, and books are part of the fabric of their lives.
3. Another theme of my practice has been “the most human company wins.” I’ve exhorted for years the importance of attaching real humans and real stories to the corporate content environment. Is there an opportunity for your company to inspire instead of just inform? Your “informing” is about to become overwhelmed by AI competition.

Join the discussion

In the latest Marketing Companion podcast episode, Amanda Russell explains that she probably would read a book generated by AI. There is no cut-and-dried guideline here! But I hope the chart I present today makes sense!

I hope you’ll choose to learn more about this topic by clicking here to listen to the full podcast episode exploring the intersection of strategy, AI-generated content, and the personal brand. Amanda is always full of energizing ideas and insights!

Click here to listen to Episode 278

Please support our wonderful sponsors who bring this content to your inbox.

Bravo for Brevo!

This episode is brought to you by Brevo (formerly Sendinblue). Brevo gives you the tools to attract, engage, and nurture customer relationships.

Now any business can build automated customer experiences, email marketing workflows, and landing pages that guide your customer to your main message. We are here to support businesses successfully navigating their digital presence in order to strengthen their customer relationships.

Go to https://www.brevo.com/marketingcompanion to sign up for Brevo for free and use the code COMPANION to save 50% on your first three months of Brevo’s Starter & Business plan!

Build Your Brand with the Architects!

Introducing a research-first podcast that builds revenue, not condos — The Marketing Architects!  Keep up with the biggest marketing trends and news through discussions based in marketing, psychology, and economics research. Along the way, learn about marketing accountability, category leadership, brand-building, and much more. Featuring a team of experienced marketers whose blueprints for success are marketing strategies that have actually been proven to work.

Today’s image courtesy MidJourney

The post The hierarchy of AI-generated content: Where humans thrive appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

It’s hard to believe, but it’s been nine years since I wrote a well-known blog post called Content Shock. For the uninitiated, this post predicted that when business niches overflow with useful, high-quality content, a never-ending content arms race results. For many businesses, competing would become increasingly expensive, and content marketing would not be a sustainable strategy.

Proposing that there were limits to content marketing was considered scandalous at the time, but undoubtedly, it was true, and “Content Shock” became a well-known term in the industry.

But look where we are today!

With the introduction of ChatGPT and other AI platforms, the cost of creating content has been reduced to almost nothing, the quality has matched or surpassed the abilities of many creators, and a tsunami of new content is rising.

Here are examples of the new wave of Content Shock:

• A science fiction magazine now receives so many AI-generated stories that it stopped taking submissions.
• Amazon is overwhelmed with new ChatGPT book submissions. One author “wrote” a 119-page novella in a day and claimed he would write 300 books in a year. Amazon Direct Publishing is so swamped it is increasing its costs for a self-published book for the first time in a decade.
• And it’s not just written content flooding the market. There are now AI-generated podcasts, movies, and music.

While the purists maintain that you’ll still need a human at the AI controls, I say pshaw. And that is so fun to say, I will say it again. Pshaw! Harvard’s Nieman Lab reports AI can create independent journalistic reports from public meetings, which requires an appreciation of human politics, history, and subtleties of language.

The world is changing so rapidly that AI content will soon be indistinguishable from human content in almost any category you can imagine.

So what do creators do about it? How do we beat ChatGPT so we can survive and thrive? Is there hope? The answer is yes, and it is straightforward.

Drinking from the ocean

When I wrote “Content Shock,” the world was a reservoir of content growing deeper month by month. As the number of blog posts, podcasts, videos, and other forms of content escalated, the reservoir turned into a sea, and the sea became an ocean extending as far as we could see.

The scale of this competition might seem intimidating or depressing, but it’s not, because the problem has always been the same. Whether you’re trying to drink from a lake or an ocean, there’s still too much water!

Whether the world has a million blog posts or a billion blog posts, there are still far too many blog posts.

By the way, this is not a modern problem. The Library of Alexandria, founded around 300 B.C., contained the equivalent of 100,000 books. That’s a lot, even for a fast reader.

Still, if you’re a creator just starting out today, the amount of content in the ChatGPT Era must seem like a major hurdle to success. It is. And there is only one solution: Focus on the 20% ChatGPT can’t touch.

The 20 percent solution

When ChatGPT arrived on the scene, I turned to my friend Shelly Palmer for his perspective. Shelly is one of the most famous tech analysts in the world. He has blogged nearly every day for 15 years.

“It’s terrifying,” he told me. “ChatGPT can basically do most of my blogging for me. I’m 80 percent replaced.”

I almost fell out of my chair with this proclamation. I mean, if Shelly Palmer was shaken, shouldn’t we all be concerned?

And yet, Shelly isn’t worried about AI and has enthusiastically embraced the technology. His popularity is as high as it has ever been. He has not been replaced. He won’t be replaced. He doesn’t have to beat ChatGPT. The solution to transcending the threat of AI lies in the “20 percent.”

Shelly said he is “80 percent” replaced.

But what is that 20 percent?

It’s his personal brand.

Over the past 30 years, Shelly has worked tirelessly to become “known.” He is a trusted and beloved resource in his profession.

Ironically, the personal brand will become even more powerful in the AI Era. We’re on the cusp of an age of massive disinformation that could pose an existential threat to our society. We need trusted resources more than ever to help us discern the truth.

And that points to the only solution I know of, the only option to beat ChatGPT and transcend the existential threat of AI. You MUST establish an effective personal brand. YOU must matter.

The personal brand

No matter the level of Content Shock in the world, your job as a creator or marketer has always been the same: earn the right to your own audience, just like Shelly. I hope this is comforting. Regardless of ChatGPT or whatever comes after ChatGPT, there is still a clear path to compete and thrive.

I’m not worried about my place in the changing world because I have an emotional connection with you. You read this blog because you know me, trust me, and like my ideas. Some of you have been reading this blog for many years and will continue to do so no matter what happens with AI.

Some time ago, I received a nice email from a reader: “I start my day with you,” she wrote. “I get a cup of coffee and open my email to see what you’ve written today.”

I have become part of the fabric of her life.

I won’t have to beat ChatGPT or any other content-creating threat to earn her support.

My personal brand will save me. It can save you too. In fact, it is the ONLY thing that can protect you in an environment where important life skills like writing, editing, and even consulting are commoditized.

If you have still not taken your personal brand seriously, you must. As far as I know, this is literally the only insurance policy we have, the only way we can beat ChatGPT and the AI platforms nipping at our heels.

Further Personal Branding Resources

• I’ve been studying and writing about the patterns of personal branding for many years. You can find a trove of free content here.
• I wrote the bestselling book on personal branding, a book called KNOWN. It also has an accompanying workbook that can be used with teams.
• Responding to popular demand, I offer a live, online course that includes 1:1 coaching from me. While the path to an effective personal brand isn’t complicated, it’s not easy, and I’ve found that people thrive with personal coaching.

Mark Schaefer is the executive director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions. He is the author of some of the world’s bestselling marketing books and is an acclaimed keynote speaker, college educator, and business consultant. The Marketing Companion podcast is among the top business podcasts in the world. Contact Mark to have him speak at your company event or conference soon.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram.

Illustration created with MidJourney

The post How to beat ChatGPT and the new wave of Content Shock appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

If anybody can comment on the AI threat to creativity, it would be Jay Acunzo. Jay is literally a student of creativity. He lives it, breathes it, and documents his thinking on creative processes in his newsletter and podcast.

And he’s not worried about the threat of AI. He recently wrote:

The problem isn’t that bots will replace marketers. The problem is that marketers are acting like bots.

A ton of people are worried AI will replace them, or at least replace their work. I’m not. A ton of people are scrambling to incorporate these tools into their work. I’m not.

AI does not pose a problem to me. AI also does not SOLVE a problem I have in my writing or other content.

Problem is … I disagree with him.

I think you’ll enjoy the latest episode of The Marketing Companion as we debate the true AI threat to creativity and the creative process.

Jay discusses three distinct aspects of the creative process and thinks AI might only chomp into one of them.

On the other side, I contend that the creative process doesn’t exist in a vacuum, and it is irrelevant if the resulting art doesn’t resonate with an audience … and AI could dominate that.

In fact, I depict a probable future where AI effectively responds to our deepest content desires with an endless stream of dopamine-inducing images and videos. If you think TikTok or YouTube is addictive, you ain’t seen nuthin’ yet.

I hope you’ll tap into this fascinating discussion and explore ideas about content, marketing, and the true AI threat to creativity.

Click on this link to hear Episode 267

This conversation is sponsored by The Creator Economy Expo (CEX)

CEX May 1-3, 2023 is the must-attend experience for content creators interested in building and growing their content-first businesses without relying on social platforms. Join 500+ bloggers, podcasters, authors, newsletter writers, speakers, coaches and consultants, freelancers, and YouTubers at THE learning and networking event for content creators. To get $100 off your ticket, please use the code SCHAEFER100.

Other ways to enjoy our podcast

• Try this! “Alexa, play the latest episode of The Marketing Companion.”
• Click here to download the latest episode or subscribe on iTunes
• Listen to us on iHeart Radio
• Find the podcast on Stitcher
• Complete Marketing Companion Episode Guide

Original illustration created by Mark Schaefer through MidJourney

The post A profound discussion on the AI threat to creativity appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

The other day a friend told me how she was planning to fight the encroachment of artificial intelligence tools replacing writing, graphic design, and other human creator skills. “It’s taking the heart and soul out of our work,” she proclaimed. “This is nothing less than an existential crisis presented by AI.”

It took me an hour to talk her off her cliff.

But perhaps you’re feeling some of this anxiety and sadness, too. I’ve thought about this a lot. HUMAN skills are being effortlessly replaced by AI. If you’re a creator, you’d have to be a sponge-like creature at the bottom of the Mariana Trench NOT to have an emotional reaction to what’s going in.

So let me share some calming thoughts with you today. Yes, there is an existential crisis presented by AI. Let’s deal with it in a rational and productive way and come out stronger on the other side. Today I will put our challenge in the context of three lessons … and provide a solution at the end.

Lesson one: The story of the calculator.

I’m old enough to remember the profound controversy that erupted when low-cost personal calculators became adopted in the 1980s. Suddenly, any person could solve complex math problems, even if they were terrible at math.

The educational system was the first battleground for this new threat. Teachers asked questions like:

• Is it fair to let students use this technology on homework? In the classroom? On tests?
• If we assign a project, how will we know if students are “cheating” by using the calculator?
• Do students still need to learn math?

Those questions probably sound familiar because they are the same questions posed about technologies like ChatGPT and DALL-E today.

So what happened with the calculators? They took over the math scene.

1. Everyone became a competent mathematician.
2. Calculating technology has become integrated into our daily lives. We don’t even need calculators. The math is done for us on websites and spreadsheets.
3. In a way, calculators became a second brain for us. Instead of math, we could spend that time doing something more productive. I haven’t done long-form math to solve a problem in more than 20 years. I am perfectly happy with that.

Lesson one: Content-generating AI is here to stay … and it’s going to become exponentially better. It’s incredibly useful. It’s already being integrated into everything. You have no choice but to embrace it and use it to your advantage.

Lesson two: An industry disrupted.

When ChatGPT was released, I immediately called my friend Shelly Palmer, an acclaimed tech analyst.

I published our discussion as a podcast episode and blog post, and he explained how this development paralleled disruption in the music industry. Before 1986, recording music required a band, singers, and perhaps an orchestra. Within a year of the advent of digital music production, half of all professional musicians lost their jobs.

“People claim this AI development isn’t like that,” he said. “No, it’s EXACTLY like that. This will replace a lot of content creator jobs.”

But there’s also a lesson about personal survival here.

In Shelly’s example, the “commodity” studio musicians lost their jobs. But the most-respected songwriters, producers, and technicians thrived. So did the elite musicians whose improvisational talent and technical acuity were always in demand.

If you’re providing “information” in your job, you will probably be replaced. If you’re providing valuable “insight” and improvisation like those star musicians, you’ll still have a bright future.

Information loses. Insights win.

Lesson three: Everybody writes. Literally.

I recently reviewed Ann Handley’s wonderful new edition of her book “Everybody Writes.” Ann launched this just days before ChatGPT took over the world (two million subscribers in 10 days!). She probably had no idea that with AI, literally everybody writes!

Just as the calculator made everybody competent at math, artificial intelligence makes everybody competent — perhaps even excellent — at writing, art, and video production. One friend posted online: “I don’t have a creative bone in my body. Now I’m creating fantastic art.” He is selling his art as an NFT collection.

Similarly, a busy friend who never had time to write now finds her thoughts are being expressed beautifully through ChatGPT in mere seconds. “I am going to write a blog post every day!” she said. “I’m going to write a book!”

Creativity has been unleashed everywhere. This is life-changing stuff.

And then … there is me. I worked for decades to become an excellent writer. I was a journalism major, a communications professional, a blogger since 2009, an author of 10 books. I put in the work to be an effective and respected writer.

Then came the shock of my career: I asked ChatGPT to write a specific essay that would have been appropriate for my new book Belonging to the Brand, complete with academic references. And, oh yeah, write it in the voice of Mark Schaefer.

The darn thing did it. It did it very well. In five seconds.

I felt depressed thinking about the months I spent writing that new book. While the bot could not have come up with the vision and insights that form the book’s thesis, and it can’t pepper the narrative with meaningful childhood stories, ChatGPT could have done much of the heavy lifting and saved me weeks of time — weeks of my life!

Sure, people will find dumb AI mistakes, create funny posts about it, and we’ll all have a laugh. They probably laughed about the first cars and telephones, too. But let’s not lose sight that ChatGPT is damn near miraculous in its ability to create effective content (and so much more!)

We need to be intellectually honest, swallow our pride, use this tool boldly, and then leverage the new time savings to build new greatness for our businesses.

While there is an existential crisis presented by AI to professional writers like me, I’m not too worried. There is hope for you and me …

This is what saves us.

As far as I can tell, there are three strategies to help us survive the existential crisis presented by AI.

1. The personal brand is everything.

For nearly a decade, I’ve been screaming from the rooftops that you need to be working on your personal brand.

I’m not worried about my place in the changing world because I have an emotional connection with you. You read this blog because you presumably know me, trust me, and like my ideas. Some of you have been reading this blog for more than a decade and will continue to do so no matter what happens with our robotic overlords.

My personal brand will save me. It will save you too. In fact, I think it is the ONLY thing that can protect you in an environment where important life skills are commoditized.

If you have not taken your personal brand seriously, you must. As you may know, I have a popular course that can get you started in the right direction. It’s the best course of its kind anywhere:

2. Pivot now.

I talked to a guy the other day trying to start a new career as a corporate blogger. In fact, he spent quite a bit of time and $10,000 on some course promising to teach him how to become a professional blogger (whatever that is). He is unknown in his profession and has no special expertise.

I gave him a demonstration of ChatGPT by creating a post on a topic of his choice — in five seconds. Of course he was amazed. I then had to explain to him that he was probably unemployable. That was really, really hard to do. I’ve never said those words to anybody before in my life.

His next question was, “but where can I get a job?”

He’s not accepting reality. He needs to pivot into something else. Maybe you do, too.

Even if this fellow is an excellent writer, most companies don’t need excellent writers. They need Google-sufficient writers. ChatGPT is Google-sufficient.

I know, I know. Corporate storytelling, epic content, and blah blah blah. Sure, we need some of that. But 95 percent of corporate content is simply Google-sufficient.

I urge you to have a clear-eyed view of what is happening. If you think the emerging AI tools will not impact your career (for better or worse), you’re wrong. Learn enough to know what you need to do next.

A resource to help you would be the book Cumulative Advantage, which discusses strategies to become newly relevant against all odds.

3. Own it.

I’m guessing there were thousands of people in calculator denial in the 1980s. They embarked on a Sisyphean struggle to hold the line on long-form math. Resistance was futile. Or, maybe it’s still happening on a Reddit thread somewhere!

The point is, the people and institutions that integrated mathematical automation into their business were so far ahead of the resisters.

For the first time, AI has poked its head out of secretive laboratories and made a home in our lives. It’s fun and easy. With a little practice and creativity, you can develop exciting new ideas. I talked a lot about writing in this post, but ChatGPT can help unclog marketing bottlenecks in customer service, research, data analysis, engagement, and planning, to name a few areas.

Resource that can help — This site catalogs unexpected and amazing uses of ChatGPT. You’ll learn something new here and maybe reimagine how you create content and tackle everyday marketing tasks!

And here is a very short and basic tutorial on Dall-E image generation.

BTW, the image at the top of the post today was created using the prompt: “friendly robot helping a smiling black woman who is working on a laptop computer, style of disney.”

I really like the image on this post and AI has helped me make this content more fun and interesting for you. In 10 seconds!

Final thoughts: The existential crisis presented by AI

I do not have all the answers to the existential crisis presented by AI. I have a feeling this is going to be a topic on this blog for a long time. As always, I may not be an expert, but I will take you along on my learning journey.

You might have noticed a new tag I used on the blog today that says “100% Human Content.” I’m trying it out as an assurance that everything on this blog was written by me. If I use AI, I will be transparent about it. I’ll eventually integrate AI content into my work (taking my own medicine!) once I get over the guilt of employing a machine to do my work.

Mark Schaefer is the executive director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions. He is the author of some of the world’s bestselling digital marketing books and is an acclaimed keynote speaker, college educator, and business consultant.  The Marketing Companion podcast is among the top business podcasts in the world. Contact Mark to have him speak at your company event or conference soon.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram.

Illustration generated by MidJourney

The post How to deal with the existential crisis presented by AI appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

Each year I have a tradition of posting the ten most impactful blog posts I wrote during the past year, based on your “votes” of page views. This allows me to:

• Reflect on what my audience likes
• Elevate some posts you might have missed

This year, I’m going to do something a little different. I’ll tell you the story behind each post, perhaps a lesson about why the post worked, or why I chose to write on that topic. Here we go:

10.  Five reasons why your marketing department needs to focus on personal branding

Two impactful blog posts on personal branding posts in at number 10 and 11 in our countdown (this is number eleven). This represents one of the most overlooked ideas in marketing — corporate marketing departments should redeploy budgets to surround key executives with the resources they need to have powerful personal brands.

Nobody believes your ads, but they will believe your people. Why not focus there? I am already doing corporate training in this area. I think this will explode in coming years.

9. How social media commitments can eat you alive

Creating content on social media can be intoxicating because it seems “free.” Most people try to drive engagement as a key metric. But engagement can make you go broke! This post hit a chord with many people because it spoke a difficult truth.

This is a characteristic of popular blog posts — articulating an issue everybody is talking about but afraid to write about — a spiky point of view!

8. 7 Reasons why this is the most challenging time to be in marketing

One unique characteristic of my “voice” is that I’ve been around awhile. I can connect the dots and look at the field of marketing as a progression through time. If marketing seems really hard to you, it’s because it is.

I’ve seen marketing become insanely more fragmented and complex. Sure, it’s hard. But it’s also the most fascinating career ever.

7. Is this the biggest marketing megatrend of the decade?

I collect trends. I’m always watching carefully to see what change in the world is percolating and then reaching a boiling point. Declines in mental health have been coming at us since the 1960s. Now it is a factor that will pervade our companies and our marketing for years to come.

I think we’re all seeing it but not necessarily thinking through what it means to our work in marketing. A recent McKinsey study showed that 51 percent of Americans aged 18 to 24 have sought medical treatment for a mental health issue. The average is 24 percent for all other age groups.

If you think it through, this is going to impact almost every aspect of life and business. This trend is something I address directly in my new book Belonging to the Brand: Why Community is the Last Great Marketing Strategy.

6. The most positive social media story in 10 years

The War in Ukraine is a monumental tragedy. Arguably, social media enabled the counter-attack against Russian forces. This post was written in the early days of the war when Ukraine’s response seemed miraculous.

5. Five things I would do differently if I were starting over

For some reason, 2022 was a year of a lot of reflecting for me. I also wrote a post about the five times I almost died!

Most of my blog posts originate from questions I receive in interviews. “What would you have done differently” is a common question but one I never addressed in a blog post before. This is an honest post that expresses some regrets.

4. How I made six-figures self-publishing my books

I never, ever talk about money. I abhor shilling and get-rich quick schemes as sales bros pose next to their rented Lamborghini.

But I broke my rule just this once, not as a way to brag, but to provide really helpful advice about what it takes to have success publishing books. It is extremely hard to make money on business books. My story is so unique that I needed to share it.

3.  I launched a creator crypto token on Rally.io. Here’s what happened next.

This was a weird year for me in many ways, but nothing was as bizarre as my experience launching (and eventually collapsing) a creator crypto token.

My career has been a series of experiments, and this blog has been a chronicle of those adventures. Launching a creator token was nerve-wracking, a huge distraction from my business, and one of the most interesting side projects I’ve ever had.

This was a very unusual topic, and I was one of the first to write about my experience, which contributed to the post’s success.

2. 10 Ideas about the future of content marketing

In May, I wrote a post focused primarily on the impact technology would have on content marketing.

One trick that may have contributed to this post’s popularity is that I used a number in the headline. Research shows that people view number posts as “snackable content,” and the most popular number to use is 10.

My number one prediction was that AI-generated content would become a game changer, and a few months later that prediction came true …

1. Why ChatGPT will profoundly transform every marketing career, starting now

I’ve been blogging since 2009, and this is the first time that the most popular post of the year was also nearly the last post of the year. Most of the popular posts naturally occur at the beginning of the year since they have had more time to accumulate views.

This is also a post where I made an incredibly bold claim: one technology is transforming marketing forever. I’ve never said anything like that before. Not even close.

But I’m also correct. The introduction of ChatGPT, a user-friendly access point to artificial intelligence, will impact almost every aspect of what we do — from research and analysis to strategy, planning, and content creation.

The popularity of this post is also a lesson in hustle.

In its first five days, ChatGPT attracted 1 million users. It was blowing up, and I knew there would be a ton of content published about it quickly. In about 18 hours, I scheduled an interview with acclaimed tech analyst Shelly Palmer, did a podcast interview, transcribed and edited the interview, and posted the blog, podcast, and video online.

This post was popular because it was a great interview, but it was also great because I worked my tail off to be one of the first people offering a thoughtful commentary on the technology and its impact on marketing. The tenth article on a topic is never the one that goes viral.

Thank you very much for supporting my blog for more than a decade. I’ll keep working hard so that you choose to spend time with my content, it will always be worth your time.

Mark Schaefer is the executive director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions. He is the author of some of the world’s bestselling digital marketing books and is an acclaimed keynote speaker, college educator, and business consultant.  The Marketing Companion podcast is among the top business podcasts in the world. Contact Mark to have him speak at your company event or conference soon.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram.

Illustration generated by MidJourney

The post The 10 most impactful blog posts of the year appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.