2023 was a weird, transitional year for content creation – to put it lightly.
I think I speak for many copywriters when I say the copywriting industry experienced somewhat of an existential crisis – thanks to the meteoric rise of ChatGPT.
The big takeaway from 2024 is that the need for A-level content isn’t going anywhere – and it never will.
But the nature of creating A-level content is now very different. At Razorcopy – a white-label content creation agency – we’ve made it our mantra to always embrace change with a student mindset.
As we dive into 2024, we’ve altered our processes and digital marketing offerings to continue providing value to our agency partners – and here’s a glimpse of what it will look like in 2024.
AI Prompting Is a Marketable Skill
ChatGPT exploded onto the scene in late November of 2022 – and it changed how many people write content. In fact, many of the people who didn’t change how they wrote likely lost a hefty amount of work.
We adopted ChatGPT immediately. In the beginning, it looked like the grim reaper of our jobs as copywriters. But after some use, the reality is it’s just a tool. It’s an amazing tool for content creation companies, but it will only take you so far.
Ultimately, ChatGPT is as good as the information you give it – or the prompts.
A good prompt is the difference between writing a killer piece of content in an hour, versus all day.
The content creation agencies that understand the science of AI prompting will thrive in a world powered by ChatGPT. The ones that don’t will slowly fade away.
I’ve personally spent the last year building out, experimenting, and refining our ChatGPT prompting engine to produce high quality content. It’s been the catalyst to cut our time spent on SEO blogs in half – which is a value we pass on to our clients in our content creation services.
Understand the Strengths and Weaknesses of ChatGPT
ChatGPT was the industry’s golden boy in 2023.
It was built up as this magical digital marketing tool that will solve every problem for a content marketing agency. In many ways, it lived up to the hype.
But as someone who has used it religiously every day for over a year, I can tell you first hand it’s got its own set of strengths and weaknesses. Here were my biggest findings:
ChatGPT is great at:
- Topic ideation
- Outline creation
- Fleshing out ideas/fighting writer’s block
- General blog post writing assistance
- Course writing assistance
- Social media writing assistance
- Email writing assistance
ChatGPT is NOT great at:
- Getting the brand voice right
- Writing compelling website copy
- Direct response copywriting
- Conveying human emotions
- Understanding cultural nuance
- Injecting humor
- Articulating real-world experiences
Here’s the thing about ChatGPT – and all AI writing tools: there’s a big difference between AI writing and AI-assisted writing.
ChatGPT is designed to regurgitate information that’s already in the public domain.
Simply regurgitating information is not a tactic you want to build your content marketing strategy around.
Do you want your content to blend into the crowd or stand above it?
AI can do a lot of heavy lifting, but standing out in a crowded industry requires you to take it a step further. To do this, you’ll always need a capable writer working the dials, feeding information to the AI tool, and combing through the content to make sure it adds something new.
There Are Now Two Categories of Blogging
Blogging is arguably the area where AI made the biggest impact.
Blog writing isn’t going away. But the landscape of it appears to be changing. The reality is some topics are great for AI writing assistance and others aren’t.
Most general knowledge, keyword-rich content is great for AI-assisted writing. On the other hand, if you want to use blogging to challenge status quos, provide your own hot takes, add unique commentary, etc., AI-assistance will be more of a background player.
That being said, we’re seeing two distinct categories of blogging: SEO blogging and thought leadership blogging.
SEO Blogging and AI
SEO blogging and AI-assisted writing is a match made in heaven. These blog topics primarily convey general information, which ChatGPT can gather, outline, and write – provided you give it a good, detailed prompt.
Speaking from personal experience, our prompting engine has evolved to a point where we can finalize a high-quality, unique SEO-focused article in one to two hours – cutting our pre-ChatGPT writing time in half. This involves:
- Filling in the ChatGPT prompt criteria
- Generating the outline
- Writing the content with ChatGPT assistance
- Expanding on sections as needed
- Preliminary editing
- Optimizing in Surfer SEO
- Interlinking
- Final text-to-voice read-through
Pre-ChatGPT, blogging with search engine optimization in mind was a cornerstone of most content marketing strategies. Now, they are just the table stakes.
Thought Leadership Blogging
Thought leadership blogging is – by and large – the type of content AI cannot produce. This is the content that comes directly from your expert brain. It’s the messaging that challenges convention, provides hot takes, and changes status quos within a digital marketing plan.
In other words, this is where you prove that you’re truly an expert in what you do.
For example, we wrote a piece of thought leadership content an agency partner that specializes in marketing for IT companies. The topic was “Why IT Companies Need to Ditch Google Analytics”. This is a topic that hasn’t been written about before – and certainly challenges convention.
Now, this isn’t to say that AI cannot be used for thought leadership content.
You can put your raw ideas on a page – and ChatGPT can help you turn it into a readable article. But it’s still going to take you a decent chunk of time to produce a high-level piece.
When we write thought leadership content for our agency clients, they normally record a brain dump video (2-3 minutes) with their opinion or provide some rough bullet points, then we turn it into a professional piece of content.
The best content marketing strategies will include a mix of both SEO and thought leadership blogging.
The Standard of Copywriting is MUCH Higher
This harsh reality sent the copywriting industry into an existential crisis.
Copywriters across the world had to take a long hard look in the mirror and ask themselves: “Can I write better content than ChatGPT?”
This quickly turned into: “How can I use ChatGPT to produce expert content more efficiently?”
We saw a couple big trends in the copywriting industry in 2023:
- Most of the lower-end copywriters got phased out.
- The best copywriters figured out how to use ChatGPT to work more efficiently – and expand their value.
The best copywriters understand that A-level content marketing resonates with humans on an emotional level. This ability – being human – is the one area where the bots have always struggled.
If you’ve used ChatGPT before, you probably know that it can give you B-level content. It’s well-written, provides decent information, and gets the point across. In other words, ChatGPT will only get you so far.
Today’s A-level copywriters are using a combination of ChatGPT and the skills they’ve developed throughout their careers to:
- Build hyper-focused prompts
- Creatively inject human emotion (“humanize” the content)
- Maintain the brand voice
- Convey the brand’s unique selling points
- Structure the content properly
- Add expert takes that challenge convention
- Optimize the content for SEO
- Make sure readability standards are met
If you want to take your content game from a “B” to an “A”, you need someone who understands the ins and outs of what it means to create high-quality content in 2024 – whether it’s part of a social media strategy, content marketing plan, or larger digital marketing initiative.
Enter an elite copywriter.
Quora and Reddit Could Become Heavy (er) Hitters
Reddit was the biggest winner of the August 2023 Google Core Algorithm Update.
The trends are pointing to a hefty boost in demand for user-generated content.
In my opinion, this trend tells me that people want to read content written by real people with expert takes. Depending on the search intent, this may be more desirable than branded content or AI-created content.
So what does this mean for companies in 2024?
Should leaders be answering relevant questions on Quora or chiming in on Reddit threads?
It’s certainly worth exploring.
What we know for sure is more and more people are visiting these platforms for tips, advice, and unfiltered information. If you’re looking to position yourself as a thought leader in 2024, Reddit and Quora marketing may be a great place to do it.
Invest in a Video Setup
Personal branding has been on the rise for a long time – and it may be even more important in 2024.
It’s no secret in social media management that video content tends to get the most love from algorithms.
But I believe the real value of producing video echoes the rise of user-generated content: people prefer direct answers from other humans – and the line between human-generated content and robot-generated content is becoming smaller.
The good news is using video for personal branding is easier than many people assume.
Think of it like answering a question on Quora or Reddit.
- Google some topics relevant to what you do.
- Look at “People Also Ask”
- Write down 10-15 of the most relevant questions.
- Take a video of yourself answeringthose questions.
- Chop the video up into short segments.
- Post these segments on your platforms.
Now, if you’re going to create content with video, you need to invest in a decent setup.
At a minimum, this must include a high-definition webcam, microphone, and lighting. An entry-level setup will probably cost you around $250 – $400. If you’re going to do video for personal branding, social media marketing, influencer marketing, or anything else, don’t cut corners.
Final Word
The truth is a lot of copywriters did not make it through 2023.
The writers that are still in high demand are the ones that can a) produce A-level content and b) figure out how to use ChatGPT to help them create A-level content more efficiently.
While the landscape of content creation and content marketing services has changed drastically over the past year, content marketing has been – and always will be – about creating human connections. The writers who can do this at a high level will be instrumental in planning, creating, and refining content strategies.
Are you an agency looking to take your content game to the next level in 2024?
Razorcopy is the white label content creation company that will get you there. Schedule a meeting today.
