(00:02) Welcome to the Syncast I'm Madeleine the host and Synup content and Community manager today I'm talking with Amy Aitman about all things content all things authenticity how should businesses or individuals be deciding what kind of content to devote their resources to that's a really good question and I mean I think like anything else if this is if having like short form video or videos is new to you you can always like test it you can always go and you know do a test but it's like what are your like wear your
(00:42) audience like where are they living where are they breathing what are they doing and what kind of content are they already consuming I always like to start with that because if your audience is on Tick Tock and they love video and they need that they need that those that video to you know that touch point then video is really powerful I think I think the I don't I mean I think most brands now have to do video like I don't think there's an if and or but like you can't just produce written content
(01:10) anymore um but moving into new types of content or working with influencers like those are big decisions for Brands like I think that it's not um an easy or but I do think it's a matter of like where our customers live and where our people live and digitally like there's a lot of places where you can have content touch points so I guess it depends on your brand and what you want to do right right yeah I feel like larger Brands tend to suffer when it comes to like this fast moving type of environment
(01:44) that we're in now like where you have to be producing this content or like even choosing to Branch into new content forms or new Styles is like these big Brands really suffer because yeah you have to get approval you might not have like it's not just like one person and their small team deciding we're gonna do this like you have to go through all these hoops and it's it's really yeah it sucks I mean that's kind of like I was in corporate for a long time and I remember like even doing one page of one
(02:15) guide took several meetings several things and by the time you're done you're like have I even created this like there's like so many things that I always think about that when I think about how like fast we create content and and we like we really try to just get things out there when we get things out there and uh yeah that approval process is like you know I think brands have a disadvantage with that I think that there's so many Scrappy content producers out there it's never been easier to create content and
(02:47) get it out there and have distribution it's like the easiest time in history I think um you can build an audience on name your platform Google um you know Tick Tock YouTube uh Twitter Twitter's Twitter is really great still uh that might be controversial Twitter audience in a year you can build a new audience and and it you don't even you don't need the power of you know a huge content creation team and marketing team and digital team behind you there's a lot of Scrappy content producers out there that
(03:24) are making like doing really well right yeah yeah I love I love how accessible it is just to build content either on your own or I see a lot of people building like these small content creation company is it's so it's so cool like there's so many different people who are just like making all this cool content and yeah so it's really exciting like in media there's a lot of people there's still a lot of big big players in media um and there's a lot of like those small Scrappy solo media there's not a lot of
(03:57) people in between um but there's but the the barrier to entry is so easy like anyone can create content like I follow somebody on um like Facebook and Instagram and she does appliance repair and she's got like green hair and she's really fun to watch and she makes appliance repair really really interesting and she just started creating like her passion was not creating content her passion was appliance repair like focusing appliances and now she's a content creator and that's like that keeps happening that's
(04:32) going to keep happening um and it's really exciting as a controversy it's better it's fun it's better content her talk about how to fix a dryer than um some dryer company that's gonna that's gonna use that right right yeah yeah I think there's a lot of like demonization of like content creation is so new especially from like the kind of influencer perspective like that's such a new thing and that's such a new job to just kind of be a person who gets paid to tell your audience
(05:06) about different products or different brands and I feel like I feel like people are still so skeptical about it like oh like why should this person be paid to tell me to buy this dress like that's so silly but yeah if if the content creator to start with is actually this person who's so passionate about this one thing whether it's like gardening or whether it's appliance repair or what have you like like down the road like I would I would trust this green haired appliance repair lady to tell me what dryer what to buy you know
(05:41) like I don't know what you're trying to buy she probably knows like I think that's it I think that like all science point to Google highlighting authors and who the content comes from I think audiences are demanding to know like to see real people that are really passionate I think we're the influencer thing goes wrong is when people are just doing it to sell Brands that's just like another way of you know another branding exercise um it's where it's where can you back up your expertise with real you know real
(06:15) experiences and stories and like really show that you are in this world I think that's what audiences are demanding and that's what we really try to hire when we hire writers build content teams from all levels an editorial we try to hire those people in for writers for video creators anyone that's got their pulse on content I want them to be a niche expert I want them to be obsessed and live in this world right right I think that's something that Google has done a great job at as we've seen
(06:47) um especially if you've seen like these a AI generated content platforms kind of coming to the surface and people are like uh oh like now you don't need a Content writer anymore you have this robot to write for you like I've seen a lot of people on Twitter testing it out and Google almost always knows like Google knows like this is not a person like this stuff is not ranking like oh yeah and Google really like took a stand on AI like they are you know if your site is an AI generated site like disclaimer you should not be getting
(07:19) ranked in Google and if you are you will get hit one day um but I like to say like AI is like the big topic I mean I have experimented with AI like the chat GPT is amazing it's fun you can tell it to write you know Twitter threads and meta descriptions and ask them questions and the the outputs are really interesting and I think obviously the in what you input into it does make a difference um but the outputs can sound really convinced fencing can be very very convincing like I am working on a Content marketing article right now and
(07:55) for you know shits and giggles let's say I'm like what is like Define like give me 10 examples of content marketing for SAS or why is content marketing important for Ecom and it sounds like it's right but it's not right and there's just like a little off yeah it's a little off and it's still like and it I mean it's not like it's wrong but I like I'm an expert and I can tell like you know like yeah people say that all the time and they're pulling from they're pulling from the resources that
(08:25) we have they're pulling from the information that we have it's not something that you know lives and breathes where it's like if I have a writer that's creating a piece of content even if they're even if they're I wouldn't say I wouldn't we don't want our writers to use AI but even if they were saying use AI for the outline for example right the my expert is going to say that doesn't belong in this like that doesn't make any sense so there's a lot of like SEO tools that are like this and I've
(08:52) really said this for a long time everyone has the same SEO tools I know there's new ones that come out all the time that promise new things and AI is such it's going to get better it is getting better there are in between content production stages where Automation and AI makes a lot of sense and it's really great and but I think for originality and experience I don't think you can AI that like you can't really cheat it like you can't on Ai No matter how great it is and how I mean because I know AI can like read tone and
(09:25) and change tone and all that kind of stuff and um I think that's exciting I think there's use cases for it for sure but I think I think we're still going to need that you know Hands-On right you know and you can't find stories and anecdotes with AI they live in people's heads they live in people's lives they live in people's experiences um it's funny because I think AI could mimic that um because even with like plagiarism we've had issues with plagiarism and people that are like use content
(09:58) Spinners before and our writers there was a couple of really clever writers that were like borrowing people's experiences to write about it in their articles like stealing there and even then it was like like yeah there was like a writer for one of our Auto sites and he was like yeah I load up my VIN and and put fishing gear in my editor was like he doesn't go fishing like he's totally borrowing this experience oh my God and even then it's like I think humans I think we're really good at being able to judge like AI
(10:32) generated versus like real human so like in our with our sites we really do lean into the experts we lean into the um the real life experiences like using products and all that stuff I do think AI has a place in content which I which is crazy like I I'm not even against like programmatic SEO I think for quick answers for definitions but I also like really really encourage people to know that it's not it's still not expert driven like it might sound really good it might even might look good smell good but like
(11:07) I mean look good but it something's off and an expert will be able to tell you so I think without having that expert level editorial and and writing and you know actually doing the things it's just AI content is going to be what it is no matter how good it is no matter how much it can mimic someone's voice and tone right or I agree with that cool data so we'll see but I think it has a place and it's it's all the rage now like on Twitter I've seen so many screenshots so many and I am one of
(11:41) those people that have been in it in the tool and asking like tell my tell me my life goals for 2023 create a business plan like you know um and it's fun it's really fun I think it's getting better uh like we even with AI image like image creation like that is getting way better um so it's interesting but yeah I don't think it's gonna replace human humans quite yet definitely does it frustrate you that people have been saying that I've seen a few people oh that AI is going to take over
(12:16) um you know I have friends that are in content that use AI yeah and either as a part of their I have friends that have like created an entire AI websites to see you know to see if they rank and I know that there's still sites that are you know AI generated I know that um a lot of times they have that human touch um but I just kind of think like I can't like we I love the debates I love thinking about it but I kind of think is like is the juice worth the squeeze like is it that much easier to create an AI
(12:49) created website is it that much more cost effective than is to find people that are really passionate you know and and there's so many in-betweens when it comes to um content creation scaling content like we produce between like 600 a thousand articles a month none of them are AI generated yeah and so it's for me it's like yeah could I produce a thousand pieces of AAA generated content way faster than human content sure but is it like what's the end point like what's that gonna help you know right
(13:23) right yeah I I feel I feel like doing stuff like cutting Corners like that is never it's just not gonna end well like there's so many other places to cut to automate in content operations that when it comes to the actual like content itself which is our product that's our entire product is content like we that's what we that's our thing like there's so many other ways to automate you know there's so many other things to say to cut Corners I just right I'm really passionate about this and I'm
(13:53) really passionate about like a lot of people that get into content or start buying content sites or start getting into it they want the shortcuts they they you know they're like well if if a hundred articles can get me this many this much traffic 10 000 articles could give me this much traffic and how am I going to get there and I just don't think that it's that easy and I think that people make that mistake a lot and if you're not getting hit with Google this year you will get hit um because even good sites are getting
(14:22) you know getting hit with the updates so it's just like if you want to take short it's like what kind of company do you want if you want to take shortcuts and try the easy way like AI can probably help a lot of things um but if you want to build a lasting brand a lasting company content that survives and that you are proud to share and present from your you know from your brand then there's not a lot of shortcuts when it comes to actual content creation right right um and then one less oh sorry oh yeah no
(14:53) I can keep talking about all this stuff but yeah no we're like getting up to time now too so yeah so much fun I could ramble on all day I know yeah it's so fun to talk about there's just it's such a deep subject like so much there's so much like development going on and so much so many new creators and so many new updates and so many ways to do it it's like such such a fascinating thing I totally agree oh yeah the last I would say the last 18 months even the last three six months have been some of the
(15:26) toughest most exciting months in content especially when it comes to Google updates um and it's really made me like really think about our processes how we hire who we hire how we write how we create content if I even want to be in content like it's right it can be it's the the goal poster quality has changed so much in the past six months even um you know a quality content two years ago is no longer a quality content it's like C content and when you have hundreds we have 135 content websites we
(16:03) have hundreds of websites you have to make this tough decisions about like do we go back and refurbish and polish and and fix the content we created five six years ago um or do we you know create new content or what do we do like these kind of decisions are tough because the content quality so on that side of things on the business side of things it's really really tough because even people that are trying to the right thing create quality content my best class content two years ago is no longer best in class right you know
(16:38) so moving forward it's like but as a content you know as someone who loves reading content and my entire world of content this is really exciting because it's like finally I think the best content is going to surface in Google Google's really trying and they're taking down entire websites for you know for thin content for Content that's not authoritative for Content that's like fake and um the the helpful content update is an ongoing you know thing it's not just something that starts and stops it's
(17:12) something that is ongoing I've seen it on some of our site on some of our sites where um we're hit when it's not even an update and that's the helpful content update it's like and also there's layer and layer and layer what Google's doing it excites me as a as someone in content but it's also very challenging to actually do the things you know you want to do exactly exactly yeah it's it's tough to navigate like how do I still keep producing great content like where like how do how do
(17:45) you decide like whether you should go back and refurbish versus write something new sometimes it's strictly like a budgeting decision and I mean I really am a big believer in like focusing on your strengths and we really do like to say okay put you know when we start a new site we put it out into the world we give it up we give it our best shot we put 100 or so 150 pieces of content out there um and then kind of like like let Google and our readers to tell us what we're Authority in and then that like that's
(18:14) like not only is it the sites that are we that we have authority but it's also like the silos of the sites the clusters of the sites I really like to build into that um but as somebody who also like you fall in love with these sites you fall in love with the content you're creating and there's some sites that have been hit that I like personally would love to go back and just be like we know so much more now like I have better experts now I have better content creators now we have better process this now I would
(18:43) love to spend time fixing it but it's also like a budgeting thing it's like is what do I need to fix you know this site and if you have one site or you're you know a huge e-commerce brand or a huge company and your company content like that's all that you have you don't have a choice you have to find a way to improve it you have to find a way to optimize your content you have to go back and you know and really look at the the search intent and really look at the you know the quality of the writing and
(19:13) who's presenting it and you know have that you have to do that with a portfolio of websites we are fortunate to say like we get if we can say we're going to focus on this side because it's growing like gangbusters I'm going to leave this site alone because it's been hit and we don't have the resources to go back and fix it but yeah so it's kind of it is kind of a double-edged sword but if I in a perfect world and if I had unlimited budgets I would fix everything I would be optimizing
(19:42) um we would have we would optimize and refurbish and update content 10 all the live long day like ideally that's what you need to do someone give Amy more budget please [Laughter] she wants to yeah I mean it's exciting and like that that can work and I mean it would be really fun to be in a bigger larger organization with a huge um content you know budget and also like where you don't have a chance you don't have you have to win with content right we you know we we can do smaller tests and it's not it doesn't end the company
(20:23) when one of our sites gets hit whereas if you have a larger brand and you or you have one website that brings in your entire company thing you don't have a choice you have to update so that's kind of exciting it's you know it's it's for me that's exciting because I'm like oh there's so many things I would fix and you know uh pull sites back from Life Strategies or really fun um but often we just focus on our strengths and double down our strengths and that actually takes a lot of
(20:52) discipline too right right yeah I and we I don't want to take off too much of your time so I'll just ask one final question which is like what's what's the most frustrating part for you of being in this space most frustrating part is when I can't like when I when I feel like I'm doing everything right with content with a site with technical SEO um with all of the ingredients and something doesn't work that's really frustrating and I know that um like I've seen sites recover and we
(21:28) haven't even touched I know that the algorithm this year has been Rocky um but those downturns are really can be really soul-crushing when you feel like you put your heart and soul into something uh and you know the ups and downs are really can be really exciting but they can be really really soul-crushing as well and I think those of us in content um it's like you you just have to you have to live the process you have to love the process of it um you have to look you have to love every single thing about it because if
(22:03) not like it it will crush you and you'll be like there's got to be easier ways to make a living [Laughter] but yeah like this year has just been a really up and down year and I think Google's trying to figure things out and I think um there's just so many factors like there's more there's more creators there's more competition and that's not going to stop so you can either really get excited about it which I try to or you can let It Crush you and be like there's other things and I mean we all
(22:37) have those days where you look at you're in your favorite coffee shop and you're looking to Barista and you're like I would just love to be working here and talking to people every day and not having the ups and downs and um yeah I'm not gonna lie I have those days as well but then I have days where I get to talk to you and I get reminded about all the things that I love about content and what it's really given in my life and what it's really brought to me and getting to work with the most creative
(23:02) interesting people that will ramble on and on and on about whatever passionate Niche they're in um that's really what motivates me and I try to focus on that and try not to let the ups and downs of Google algorithms or Trends or search volume or ad Revenue try not to let that affect my day-to-day motivation to keep going so right yeah yeah well obviously it's there's been enough excitement to keep you in this space for yeah a long time okay so hopefully the the call of the Barista lifestyle does not clay nutrition
(23:42) I've been there too yeah yeah they're so great talking to you thank you so much for coming on the Syncast it was so much fun talking to you about all things content all things authenticity um thanks yeah this is so much fun and reach out anytime like I love nerding out about this like this is my thing to nerd out about so it really is fun for me and um yeah thank you so much for having me it's been a blast thank you yeah thank you we'll see everybody next time on the Syncast.
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