A Discussion on Content Writing; Balancing AI and Human Content Management for Better Results

Speaker A: Foreign. Paul Mosenson, welcome to the show. Did it work? Did it work? That's our podcast. Geez. I've been doing it since the pandemic now. Right. So, um, but here we are on Zoom again, like during the pandemic. Anyway, well, that's actually. It is an audio thing, but my guest runs in. That's how we talk. That's how we always done it. Right. So with a podcast. And her name is, uh, Rachel Levy. Soften, I say.

Speaker B: Right, yeah. Rachel Levy. Sarfam.

Speaker A: Okay. Hello, Rachel.

Speaker B: Hi, Paul. Thank you very much for having me.

Speaker A: Sure. Thanks for. Thanks for coming on, Rachel. We're going to talk about content today. M. Right. You know, now this is the age of AI. We're going to talk about that. You know, she has the letters AI in her last name, so she knows, you know, that's been there. She had her name before AI. So, um, anyway, um. Right, yeah. And you're actually, you have a project, but you're, ah, that's a freelance project. Right.

Speaker B: So, yeah, so at the moment I am working on contract with a financial services company. Um, but, uh, I have experience working as a writer, editor, and GhostWriter in the B2B tech space.

Speaker A: Right, yeah, I mean, that's, uh, that's always been interesting. You know, I used to have writers, you know, my former. A consultancy, Newspark Marketing. And you know, the. It's kind of funny, um, the, uh, the whole idea of the word ghostwriter, you know, which is sort of like AI, Right, In a way. Um, you know, theoretically, you know, um, but since the day of, uh, you know, presidents reading speeches, they have speechwriters there, you know, here, here's some ideas. Give me a speech. Okay, here we go. You know, I mean, really. And you're prompting writers to write for you versus technology. I mean, I'm just talking out loud here, but, you know, the idea of having help writing when you're not the greatest writer has made people money because they're really good writers. Some people may be good speakers or good thought leaders, or they're analytical. They want to get it out there. Right. And that's where people like you have come in all these years. Right?

Speaker B: Yeah, for sure, for sure.

Speaker A: You know, I need help with my ideas and making it sound good, making it compelling, um, and all of that, you know. And I know, right. And you know, it's not an easy thing. What is? What has always been, um, before we get to the AI and all that, um, your experience, what is you have like a certain approach to writing. Like you know, I mean, people do research and things like that. But what is your, um, um, approach?

Speaker B: So that's a great question. So it depends on the kind of client engagement that I have or if I'm working in house. It depends on how I'm engaging with the person who's requesting the content. But generally it follows a certain pattern. The person says, I have this content that I want to write. Um, it's going to be, let's say, a blog post. It's going to be, you know, this is the rough word count. These, this is. These are the ideas I want to cover. These are, in some cases, these are the keywords that I want to hit. Um, you know, and this is the deadline and this is the deliverable. So that's kind of the rough structure of, of how it goes. And especially it's the ideal structure because when you're engaging with a writer, you want that person to have all of the details possible about what kind of content you want and what points you should be covering, because otherwise the writer doesn't have the necessary details that person needs to do a good job. And then you wind up with something where you say, well, this isn't what I wanted. And the writer is thinking, well, you didn't tell me what you wanted. So. And I'm not a mind reader.

Speaker A: I know. I mean, you know, it goes back to the, um. You know, it's kind of like, let's, let's circle. Let's just talk about the AI thing and how that is m similar because you're trying to get information out to write a compelling piece of content, whether it's a blog article, whatever it is, webpage, you know, things like that, you know, and, and you can only. I mean, it's like basically with AI, you're prompting there, you're prompting the person saying what you would you like? Mostly paragraphs or paragraphs and bullets. I always do that. Right. Yeah. And what style would you like to be? Again, this is how I make my GPTs. Right. Is, you know, would you like it, um, educational, informative. But we'd like a casual and conversational. Yeah, you know, or we'd like to maybe more of a storyteller. We can do that too, you know.

Speaker B: Yes. Yeah. I mean, I can speak to a previous ghostwriting experience that I had. I was working for a company that was a software, um, created software that was used extensively in the manufacturing space. And one of the people for whom I was ghostwriting was a senior executive. And to get a sense of this person's style. I would create an outline and then I would have this executive review it and this person would say it wasn't just about am, um, I getting things factually right. It was about how would this person write about this topic? What kind of words would the person use to describe this topic? Because when we write, especially if we do it frequently enough, there are certain words that we're going to use over and over again. There are certain phrases we're going to use over and over again. Uh, and that's, I mean, I know that I do that in my own writing. I'm very aware of that tendency. Um, you know, it's just kind of a thing that everybody develops. But when you're ghost writing for somebody that is, you have to be able to sound like them and you have to be able to understand what's. How do they write? Because sometimes the way they write might be like the way they talk. Um, and sometimes it, you know, might not be. And sometimes you might have to write the way they talk because they don't. Writing isn't a Skill They've developed 100% yet. So.

Speaker A: Well, that's the thing, right, Is um, the. Hold on, I actually forgot to send an email. So we can take a pause so I can edit it out. Absolutely no pause.

Speaker B: Okay, we're pausing 100%.

Speaker A: Actually. It's content. Mhm. Oh, you know what, I did add the outline and the case study. Outline, case study. So you're going to love this when we're done. Mhm. M. Okay. Sorry.

Speaker B: No worries.

Speaker A: Anyway, um, I hear you. You know, I mean, it's like trying to, um, we're back. Anyway, um, you know, style, right. Versus substance, I guess is a con. Is a big picture. Right.

Speaker B: Listen, it is to a certain extent also the substance because you know, when you're a thought leader, you have certain opinions on a given issue. Um, so when you're a ghostwriter, you have to get the style and the substance right because you can't, you can't publish an opinion that is completely contrary to what your client, for lack of a better word, would say. You know, like, you have to be, you have to be able to capture that and you have to be able to understand that. And, and to get back to AI prompting, um, if you're going to use AI to create thought leadership content, especially for yourself, you have to make sure that that model understands your stance on positions and how you would write about it.

Speaker A: I think it's always going to evolve and we know it's right now you know, when you um, you know, I'm just saying for each of the tools out there, there's always attachments, you know, you know, emulate this. I know back early on I was doing, you know, like um, PDF forms or something to fill out, you know, your style, tone, approach, what words you want to use, what words you don't want to use. Back then we were trying this. I don't think it does it anymore. Like stop using the word landscape and delve and realm and all that. But um, you know, that was Chad doing that. But still it's um, you know, like you said though, I think there's um, we're still learning how we'll go into it deeper. But um, um. But yeah, you know, I always told people, you know, when I did content and everything over the years is, you know, in this day and age, yeah, you want to educate, but somewhere there's a persuasion and part of that is the education. And I used to tell people, don't tell me what I already know. This might be silly. Tell me something I don't know. Mhm.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: 100%.

Speaker A: You know, you don't have to like recap something, you know, like. Yeah, well, you know, oh, that's, you know, your financial company, I don't know exactly what it does, services, but you could, you know, whatever it is, it's like, you know, there are ways to renegotiate, you know, credit card fees or whatever it is, you know, like, you know, don't assume that you get the bill and that's it. Oh really? I can actually negotiate better term, I'm just made that up. But you know, what I'm saying is for sure, you know, people will just learn what they learn. But the whole idea is education, you know, I mean, I mean you're doing, you know, I know a lot of like financial advisors, wealth management people and know like it's such a dime a dozen too, you know, like, yeah, who do I trust? And that's really the big thing, right?

Speaker B: Yes, yes. Yeah. Um, so the company that I'm on contract with is in the B2B financial services space. So. But at the same time, like you said, you know, you need that trust of another company and order to continue doing business because if that other company doesn't trust you, then you will have no customers. Um, and your content can do a lot to create trust or content and can do a lot to educate. Um, this was something, this is a theme that has been in discussion as of late. Like how can you use content to educate. What should you be educating your consumers about? Your client base? About, you know, what, what is it that's keeping them up at night? And sometimes they don't even necessarily know what it is that their uh, their pain points are because they haven't uncovered them. You know, they kind of, they, they think that um, you know, maybe they can do X, but they really can't. And there's a reason they can't do X. You know, and your job is to make them understand why. Why? Why is a better option.

Speaker A: Right, right. You know, it's from a sidebar. I just got off a meeting and we were trying to. A bunch of people uh, were trying to do this uh, group, you know.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: Online conference for people who are trying to exit their positions. Right.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: You know, and you know, and everybody's got their own role. I'm not going to say exactly what it is, but I kind of said something like, you know, at the end of the day, if you're going to do a teaser video or whatever it is, and, and you know, maybe it's best practice with landing pages.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: You know, I mean, I gave him four words. Now everybody has their, you know, their own philosophy. Mine was. I said, I said four words.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: What? Why? How? Outcome.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, for sure. Absolutely. No, yeah, that's, that's very. That, that is I think in essence the formula of how you manage to convince people. You know, this is, this is what you're going to see if you um, if you, if you go with us.

Speaker A: Well, I'm telling people, even in market, the marketing side, I mean, you're a writer, but you know, even no matter how you look at things, AI ah. Or not, I always tell people, you know, you have a, you may have a great website, great landing page, great content, whatever it is, guess what, how can find it? You know, I mean you can do. In marketing, whether it's social advertising, paid search, whatever it is, you're at the mercy of like six words. Okay. Because think about if I'm. Whether I'm on social or maybe a uh, trade journal, a newsletter, and I see like a little ad embedded in the, in the newsletter. Right. And then we do this as marketing that you know, everything you've done that research, the buyer Personas, all this comes down to a few short words saying basically the theme is we think, we know you have a problem here, so make you. We're going to make you click.

Speaker B: Mhm, that's right.

Speaker A: Click through rate. I mean, I made you stop it. Basically it's like I made you stop doing what you're doing.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: That's what marketing is. Stop.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: I think a little funny here, but you think about it.

Speaker B: Oh, for sure, for sure. I mean, it's like even. I mean, I. My career in, uh, B2B in writing has been largely in B2B tech. Um, so I really don't have insights into B2C. But you have to think of it to a certain extent as a billboard. And, you know, you're driving past it 80, uh, miles an hour. You. Your bill. The billboard has to be interesting enough to catch your attention to make use. I mean, obviously, you don't want to stop and get into an accident, but it has to hold on there.

Speaker A: There's a QR code on that billboard. Let me get that phone out. Sorry, guys.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, that's. That's not marketing. Best practice, um, unless you have a passenger who could very quickly scan it. But, you know, it does have to capture your attention very quickly. And so ideally, you'll be thinking about it for the rest of the drive, like, maybe in the back of your head so you don't get into an accident again. Drive safely, people. Um, that. That would be my. My one takeaway for today.

Speaker A: But, you know, back in the old days, here's when we, you know, again, we. I just show, you know, AI can save. Right. You know, you know, because, you know, we talked about. And I, you know, I showed you earlier, before our podcast started, was like, maybe back in the old days. And I used to do it like, we need a really good lead magnet. White papers, before they were called ebooks, you know, and, you know, they were just like, um, okay, we can make it really good. And 15 pages, it'd be like five, $6,000. Another $3,000 to design it, maybe. There's our 10,000. Okay, great. But you forget about. How do people get there? We need to click. Right. Um, and then they have to be convinced again with the landing page. Right. Content persuasion, you know, you need. I mean, I'm, um, appreciating the choir here. But, you know, you need this so much because of all the research we did. AI does help you do research is, um, you know, I tell people, where's your email address? Because I could use this for my job.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And I'm willing to. I can go to AI and read about it, or I can. This makes it harder, you know, or I can, like, search, you know, whatever, or. But it's here. And here's the form. Very interesting to me. I need to learn that. Right?

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Now. Or an email headline. You know, we write a lot by emails and landing pages. It's still about a busy word. You know, we always test those six words again. Right. But I get, I guess what I'm saying though is, you know, the content we do has to engage people enough to uh, make them, as I say, like, you know, this, I know this is audio, but I would go, huh, huh. That's what marketing is.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: Interesting. I don't read more.

Speaker B: Yeah, anyway, for sure.

Speaker A: But, uh, but you know, when AI started getting, I hate the word used big but popular. Maybe early, uh, 2024, early 2023, I guess. Right. When I started doing them.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: What was your impression like when you started saying.

Speaker B: I would even go so far as to say it became we. I mean, uh, I was at an organization back in the fall of 2022, like the late fall of 2022. And that is when we started having conversations because that's, I think when OpenAI and chat GPT became, uh, very prevalent. And at. The person who was leading the organization at the time was very in favor of AI. Um, but the thing is that you can be a leader of an organization and say we have to be using AI, but it has to also make sense in the context of, uh, it has to make sense in the context of whatever it is that, you know, your organization is doing. And it has to make sense for each department within that organization. So for the content team, we weren't sure we were trying to figure out what the best path forward was in terms of using AI. Um, because, you know, when, when these. The CEO was talking about we need to use AI, he didn't say, well, I have this detailed roadmap of how every data department and the organization is going to implement it. Um, you know, so I. Is. Doesn't. Does a CEO need to come up with this detailed roadmap? No, I, um, will say, I think if you are going to implement AI in your organization, especially if it's an enterprise where, you know, you have thousands of employees or hundreds of employees at least, there needs to be very intentional thinking. And um, I think there tends to be sometimes this, you know, bright shiny object syndrome where it's, oh, we have to, we have to beat out the competition. We have to get to this first. It's not necessarily about getting to it first. It's about using it in a way that's going to drive growth and that aligns with your business strategy. And I think, I, um, mean, I can See that companies can sometimes forget that because we're seeing a lot of companies baking AI into things. And then, you know, people who are using it are saying, well, that's nice, but this isn't you. I'm not. My user experience hasn't been enormously, positively impacted. You know, you have, they, they were expecting more and you wind up with people who are disappointed. So I'm not saying that that's the fault of AI. I don't think that's AI's fault. I think that you need to be. It's a, it's a tool. It's a tool. Um, and you know, it's how you use the tool. So if you're using it in a way that doesn't enhance user experience, then you're going to have problems. And you can't just say, well, it's AI's fault. No, you, it's not AI's fault.

Speaker A: No. Right. Um, well, the thing is, is, you know, it's. I don't know, the word is compromised. But collab, it's a collaboration tool, right?

Speaker B: And that can be.

Speaker A: Yeah, and that's how I treat it. Because now, now again, everybody, you know, you know, back in this fall, you know, everybody's like, we talked about like, oh, here's a, here's our PDF one prompts. We know what we're doing. Well, you know, maybe you got it from somebody else and you made it look good anyway. But um, you know, you know, whatever. But um, the uh, it's, it's always getting better. There's always different versions. You got to test them. You know, I've had like two monitors. You're not done like where I work and I use like I have like a, a content conference room when I have, you know, chat GPT on one end and Perplexity and Gemini and we just have discussions, you know, like, I kind of like for me, I, I mean I look at, you know, I do all the prompting based on Fathom calls and other research I get from the client that Internet research, now they, all this deep research stuff, let's get into that now and you know, whatever we're doing and putting it all together and so, so the AI kind of learns the story and can customize based on what you're looking for.

Speaker B: Right?

Speaker A: And um, and then, so then you can go and say, you know, give me like a two page collateral piece targeting this industry or something and you know, and then you start doing all that. But you know, I guess, you know, where the angst comes in is like, you know, we always talk about is, you know, are some writers worried about the jobs? Yeah, they should. If a marketing manager. I got this right, you know, versus somebody like you can, you know, take it to the next level and say it's still about the plan, the message.

Speaker B: Does it, does it.

Speaker A: Is it emotional? Is it logic? Is it really tell a great story that comes from the company's brand?

Speaker B: Absolutely. And that is such a, um, that, that is such an excellent point. Hang on just a second. I'm going to mute that tab so it doesn't interrupt us further. You might need to edit that bit out. My apologies.

Speaker A: That's okay.

Speaker B: Yeah, so my.

Speaker A: I have five listeners anyway, so what

Speaker B: I would say, actually I was reading something today by a guy named Ed Gandia, who is a. He teaches copywriters and writers, um, and content writers to run businesses and to be successful, ah, in business. And what. He, he wrote something on LinkedIn today that I thought was really interesting. And that was that writers are now going to have to be conductors of AI because, and I, I mean I haven't played around with this, but apparently, um, some of these models are improving writing. Like their writing skills have improved. Um, you know, I personally haven't seen that yet, but I kind of, I don't use AI tools extensively and I use a limited number of them because there are a lot of them out there and I just don't feel like being overwhelmed by the sheer my. So, but he, he, he, like he was saying, he making. He was making a very good point. So maybe AI might wind up doing some of the leg, the proverbial leg work.

Speaker A: The ideation.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, the ideation. Or maybe it'll even do some of the execution again, I don't know if we're quite there yet. Maybe we will be, um, very soon. Not sure. But as human beings, we are responsible for the messaging, we are responsible for verifying what AI generates. Um, and also we are still at this point in time in a spot where at least in the US what AI generates is not copyrightable. Um, so if you want to be able to own your content, there has. You have to do some editing of it. So we, we as writers and I say that not just for people who do it for a living, but everybody, everybody writes. Um, there's a great book by. And handy called um, Everybody Writes. And you know, everyone in every organization is responsible for creating some kind of content. So they should learn to do it well. And that's something I thorough, thoroughly believe in. So you are going if you're going to be writing AI prompts and you're going to be using what your model of choice spits out, you're going to be having to be doing some editing of it, some fact checking to make sure it aligns with your brand, your message, your strategy. Um, you know, you can't just use it whole clothes.

Speaker A: You do have to be careful. And I'm going to be honest with, I, um, did a LinkedIn newsletter this morning and what I did, uh, because I have a, one of my tools, I just decided to do it, um, called LinkedIn newsletter Ghoster. And don't tell anybody, okay? I'm already telling people. But the point though is it's ideation, right? And I tweak it up, right? And then I know, like, here's an example of um, just we were, I was writing about, um, digital media tracking or whatever and the measurement and it talked about something with geo fencing. I said geofencing, that's not part of the elements here, you know, remove it because it was wrong, you know. And uh, so that's just an example. I mean, you know, when it gave me some ideation of copy, you got to check it and say, is this really right or is this just kind of yes, you know, said no, this doesn't make sense to me. This is not nice. So it does make mistakes, folks.

Speaker B: Absolutely, it does make mistakes. Um, someone I met a few months ago, she had this really nice, uh, I mean it wasn't a one pager, but it was sort of a graphically designed resume. And she used, I think she used ChatGPT to create it and it came out with some pretty, pretty nice product. But she had obviously like played around with it and she said, well, I can do the same thing for you. And what it came up with wasn't bad, but the thing is, it didn't represent what I do a hundred percent. Um, and it also like Chat GPT, didn't know me well enough to say, well I, you don't, you know, you don't want to work with X type of clients or like that. It's stuff like that. So you have to be, um, you're in charge, I think. And that's the thing that people need to remember as they use Chat GPT is that they are in charge. And it is a, not just chat GPT but any, any model. When I say chatGPT, I mean generative AI tools in general. They are tools. Uh, and you have to remember that you can't just let it go free because you're not going to like the results.

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean people will uh, there's so many different ways to do that. And after this call, I'll show you something, you're gonna love it or not. But um, the uh, you know, like I said, you know, as a solopreneur you're trying like we talked about, you know, branding yourself good looking LinkedIn post, that's from you. But you need help, you know, you can do emails, need help. You know, I'm efficient, I want to, I want to spend more time in the weekend not writing stuff and um, you know, I mean that's just the way it is and it's going to get better and we are concerned because it's only 2025 and what's it look like in 2030? Look what happened in two years. You know, get chat GPT 8.0. Write me a ah, 12 page guide. Here's a topic. It's going to input images from one column or two columns. Do I want, you know, give me, it's already going to know who I am and give me the back page of about the author and it's going to spit it out design friendly as a PDF and I'm ready to go with it. Right? Because we're getting there. You know, it just improved their images, uh, probably uh, yesterday now you can, that makes better, better images now and you know, because it's all like just throwing this stuff out because we can and there the technology is getting better. So you know, as a writer yourself, it is kind of like oh, you um, could either say oh, now what? Or you can embrace it. Right?

Speaker B: Yes. Yeah. And that's a conversation that uh, we were having at the organization that I was at back in the fall of 22 is that is you can be afraid or you can say I'm going to learn how to use this because um, one of my co workers at the time said it's not going to be, you know, the tools themselves, it's going to be to be the people who know how to use the tools. And that is, I am trying to figure that out um, in my work. And uh, the thing is that I have done work for organizations where there is a certain amount of wariness about generative AI tools. Um, where I can tell you, last year when I was on the hunt for a new position, I was also looking for freelance work and I applied for a couple of writer positions with newsletters about AI and they had writing tests and in the instructions they said you cannot use AI. So I think there is sort of a range of, uh, sentiment when it comes to generative AI tools. Some people see it as very exciting and some people see it as a risk. So, um, you know, I think in terms of AI adoption, there are still a lot of people in the enterprise who aren't there yet. There's obviously quite a bit of pressure from boards, from consumers to start using AI, but you have to use AI in a way that makes sense. And I, like I said professionally, I'm still trying to figure out what that looks like. Um, I mean, I am experimenting with some AI tools, Chat GPT. I've, you know, use on. Use on occasion to help me with ideation. Outlining perplexity is I, I find very helpful for research. Uh, I like that it gives you the, the overview of sources and it kind of annotates them and says, you know, this source is useful for this and the sources sites that, that I find helpful.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: Um, now many organizations are using Copilot because they're on Microsoft platforms.

Speaker A: Right, right, right. And I haven't seen too much research on that because, you know, I mean,

Speaker B: I'm playing around with it a little bit here and there. The. Maybe, maybe it was the prompt that I was writing that didn't give me such great results. I want to acknowledge that I am, you know, I could be at fault because I'm still learning the art writing. But the what I. And maybe, maybe what I'm. Look, I was looking, using it for research purposes and maybe what I was looking for didn't exist. That maybe I couldn't find it, you

Speaker A: know, so, you know, we are in a, in a kind of weird. I don't know if it's conundrum, oxymoron, irony. You're better with words than I am, so you have to tell them exactly what it is. But you know, we always talk about, you know, as a traditional writer, like, you know, be honest and you know, be your, your own thing. And all of a sudden, you know, LinkedIn will always say, you know, would you like this done in AI? Like if you, you know, if you apply for a job, you know, you might say, would you like AI to help you with the message of the recruiter? Um, you know, would you like. Here, here it is. You can edit it, um, on LinkedIn. Right. And then, you know, I use tools called Buffer App, which helps share content, if you know what that one is. And you know, they're always going to say, like, would you like AI to help you write the post? Yeah, you Know, and then so it's. It's always like, helpful things. Even. Even the, uh, homeless, uh, HubSpot. Right. You know, like, we're going to write them, uh, you know, do some, uh, workflows and nurture audiences. Okay, here's the AI tools right there, ready for you. You know, like, do it for you, Apollo. I mean, I guess what we're saying is we're making it too easy for us to use the tool. Oh, that makes sense. That's actually how AI works. Write it up. What do you think? It's pretty good. Change a couple words, like anything. Okay. Right. You know, so, you know, don't forget the link now, you know, so, um, but the point, though is, you know, if it doesn't have AI, you know, it's like you're so last year, you know.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: You know, I see these, like, tools, like, there's no AI here. Yeah. But we have put in. We have put AI assisted, whatever, so it looks like we have AI here, you know, like, Like m. Two years ago, three years ago, the word was scale. We scale everything, and we scale with AI, like what? So, um, you know, everybody scaled, you know, so, um, you know, I don't like jargon, ah, words too much. But, um, you know, the, uh, but, you know, the point, though is, um, you know, the, uh, you know, so getting back to this whole message strategy thing and good conversation about, you know, even, you know, scripting and, you know, the new thing, I. I can't get so much into it right now. Like, you know, the AI agent. Right. You know, like, we're going to now, instead of the sdr, we'll just have AI make calls based on our list we have, and see if we can make appointments automatically. Right. And, um, if people are doing that, there's all the sales tools to keep making, try to talk to people. And, you know, is. Is that just the way business is now or is that just makes it easy because it's more efficient? And, um, yeah, you know, that's, that's. That. That's always like the balance, right?

Speaker B: Yes. And I would say, I think. I mean, as. As a writer and as an editor. Yeah, you can use AI tools. Um, and that's. I guess that's the way we're moving. But you really do need that human touch. And I think in other areas, people are going to want to see that human touch. They're not necessarily going to be. Want to. They. They're not necessarily going to want to be contacted by a bottle who's trying to Sell them something. Uh, I think the organizations that can effectively use AI, but without losing that authenticity, that humanity, those are going to be the ones that thrive going forward. Because people do want ultimately that human connection, even if they want technology to make things faster and more efficient, um, they also still want at the end of the day, to have to be able to do business with another person. So, yeah, those, I think the organizations that are going to win in the long term.

Speaker A: Oh, yeah, because sales is. You still buy from people.

Speaker B: Exactly, exactly. And from a B2B perspective. And like I said, that's where I have most of my progress.

Speaker A: However. However. Yeah, Devil's advocate there. Yes. But the AI messaging and all the stuff you're doing before then helps people engage before you talk to a salesperson. Right.

Speaker B: It can, if you get the right messaging. And again, that's where somebody has to be reviewing it and saying, this really reflects what we stand for. This really reflects our brand, um, you know, before it goes live. So you can't, you can't lose the human from that process ultimately.

Speaker A: Right, for sure. Well, I mean, it's a whole nother story. Right? Yeah. Um, let me see if you have any other. I mean, is there, um, What. What do you think? Um, I mean, there's so many tools and how you use it and everything and having good conversation on it. But, um, I know every company is different. B2B, B2C, tech, manufacturing, whatever. But, um, you know, then the SEO people are, uh, all over it now too, you know, because. Oh, people are. You know, I, I don't use search engines that much. I go to AI tools to find stuff instead of going to Google. Right. You know, and that's a big thing. So when we say Google's being used a lot. Yeah, they're probably used a lot because they're generative AI. But, um, but where do you see, um, you know, I guess what I'm saying is, you know, how do you see with everything going on right now? It's very hard to say, but the end of this year and next year, what. What advice can you give, um, companies and marketers right now?

Speaker B: That is a good question I have since I. So I'm definitely not an SEO expert, but I do. For what I've been reading and hearing, this is. And I don't think SEO is dead. I think SEO is evolving because every few years people are like, email is dead and X is dead, or Y is dead. And it's not. It's just going through an evolution and, you know, saying X Is dead. Why is dead is a very easy way to get eyes on your page until people get sick of hearing it. So I don't know if SEO is dead, but it is going through an evolution. And search engines, especially Google, um, because that is, you know, when you think of search engines, that's the big one, um, are going to have to reckon with how people are doing searches. I think people also have to be aware that, you know, certain AI, generative AI tools are not really meant for searching. So like ChatGPT, I would not use that for search. What I'd rather use is Perplexity. So companies are going to have to really investigate how to, um, how to optimize, uh, their strategy, their search strategy, as well as their content strategy. Because that is, those two do go hand in hand. So that, um, these models, you know, Gemini and Perplexity especially those are, those are the two that come to mind, are able to pick you out in the search results and make people say, oh, I want that, you know, that's, that's a useful source of information or I want that product or service.

Speaker A: Here's a little crazy idea for the future. I don't think it's going to happen. It'll. You ready for this fun thing? Um, what if the tools start timing that you copied and pasted versus typing word for word? There's a way to do that, right. If you're word for word will increase your ranking if we. Because we know the time you had on that page that was written. Yeah, imagine that. Anyway, um, that would kill AI if I'm just copying and pasting. But anyway, but you get what I'm saying, you know, it's authenticity. Um, but anyway, um, I think that's all I had. So I, you know, it's always going to evolve and you know, as a writing standpoint, you know, actually one thing I was going to ask you, and it's more of a comment really, is kids in college, right? High school, College, you know, I can see, I mean, you know what's out there. Will the English teachers. Okay, we're going to teach you how to prompt your term papers.

Speaker B: Well, I actually, I really, I mean, I think it's in terms of digital literacy. I hope that tomorrow's student, I mean the students of today and tomorrow are taught how to use generative AI ethically and effectively. Um, and I think there is great value in writing your own term paper. Um, you know, yeah, you could pay somebody for it, but what do you learn in the process?

Speaker A: Right, right.

Speaker B: So I, I Personally believe. I mean, I don't want our kids to grow up to do that. I want them.

Speaker A: I didn't say that, but I'm just saying, like, almost like there's a Class AI 101 or something, you know, so you can basics of it.

Speaker B: Yeah. I hope, listen, I hope that they do teach kids in school how to use it, but how to use it ethically and responsibly. Ah, being another key thing is ethically and responsibly.

Speaker A: I agree. But I can imagine if there was a class in the future, like, what the homework assignments would be. Yeah. You know, send back three emails. You did an AI. I want to make sure you prompted it. Right. Send me all the prompts as well as the answer, and then I'll, you know, I'll make sure, you know, whatever.

Speaker B: Well, you know, I don't know.

Speaker A: I'm just being that.

Speaker B: That might wind up being a class that they teach is as part of digital literacy is, you know, writing AI prompts. But again, like I said, I really hope that part of that curriculum is the ethical, responsible use of AI because it's a scary world out there.

Speaker A: Right, right. I know, I know. But, uh, it's. It's interesting, you know, to talk about this stuff and, um, with all the, you know, and all the different tools like, um, you know, do I really need to know the difference between like, you know, chat GPT 4.0 versus 3.5 and compare them, you know, and all that. But, um. Anyway, um, there's a lot here, but I. I think the. The big. The bottom line here is you're still talking to an audience. You're still solving problems. You still want people to be impressed with. Um, you know, it goes back to the beginning of the podcast about, um. That's interesting. Interesting. I mean, how it's done is another story, but, you know, it's still about your business and your brand and. And what you're what and who you are, you know.

Speaker B: Exactly. Exactly.

Speaker A: And that being said, um, I'm going to show you a few things afterward, if you don't mind, and then I'll be quick.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And then, um. But, um. But thanks for joining us, Rachel.

Speaker B: Um, thank you so much for having me. I'm glad I got a chance to do that. Yeah.

Speaker A: Um, I'll promote this. And I guess you have a long website, so I. But, um. But you could just search for her. Rachel Levy. L E V Y Like the guy on, um, Schitt's Creek. Look, I said Schitt's Creek. And then, um, Starfin S A R F I N. You'll find her.

Speaker B: But not actually related to Dan or not actually related to Eugene and Dan Levy.

Speaker A: I know. And you're in Canada, too. I know.

Speaker B: Um, we are. I'm actually originally from the US So. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So. So we're not. Not related, but yeah.

Speaker A: Well, thanks for being on the podcast. Thanks, everybody. I hope this was interesting. It's always good conversation to talk to other marketers and, you know, and have good conversation and. And understand how people, um, you know, think about AI and content now. It works together. You know, plus is a minus for everything. It's always going to evolve, it's always going to get better, but at the end of the day, um, is it engaging enough for someone to get on your short list to become a lead and then a sale? Right, Exactly. And that's still the bottom line. It's still marketing 101. Yeah, it's faster, efficient, whatever it is. But it's still about shortlist and, um, and building trust and say, you know, I should do business with this company.

Speaker B: Exactly. Yeah.

Speaker A: Thanks, everybody On. One sec. Okay.