The Role of AI in PR and Thought Leadership Content: Mistakes to Avoid
Generative AI (Gen AI) is giving the false impression that it’s easier than ever for brands to create thought leadership content. In fact, audiences are becoming more familiar with telltale AI-generated words and phrases, and increasingly frustrated with reading the same recycled articles.
If anything, businesses that want to build trust and engagement with their audience now need to make a greater effort to create content that gives an original opinion in an authentic voice. In this blog, learn how to create impactful B2B thought leadership that isn’t dictated by AI.
The Risks of AI-Generated Thought Leadership Content
AI is used to make all kinds of business processes more efficient. And although its role in PR and marketing has been met with some trepidation, Generative AI is gradually being adopted in smart ways to automate traditionally manual processes and speed up certain elements of content creation, like article research and planning.
That said – and you’ve heard it before – AI is not the magic bullet to your business’s content needs. In the case of thought leadership content in particular, a human must be at the helm.
Impactful thought leadership content needs to be original, engaging and insightful. If not, you run the risk that:
- Prospects won’t engage beyond the first line of your content marketing.
- Journalists will overlook your PR articles, deeming them un-newsworthy.
- SEO rankings and traffic will suffer due to generic rather than authoritative content.
Authentic, human-driven thought leadership can increase brand visibility and strengthen audience trust. However, the buzz around AI has led some businesses to overlook the basic principles of developing great content.
Why Businesses Turn to AI – and Why They Should be Cautious
Thought leadership content takes the form of blogs, webinars, presentations, media interviews, and more. It plays an important role in brand-building, ensuring your business stands out in the industry.
For thought leadership to be effective, it must:
- Resonate with your target audience at first touchpoints with your brand.
- Address real-world challenges and provide actionable insights.
- Position your business as an authority in solving industry-specific issues.
That said, it’s understandable why businesses lean on AI for content creation, as it gives the impression and illusion that effective marketing content can be rapidly created . SEO demands frequent updates to website content. Social media and marketing channels require a constant feed of content. Media partners need exclusive articles, and websites need to be a resource hub of white papers, videos, infographics and more.
With marketing budgets stretched, content takes time, and AI is a quick fix. However, despite AI’s efficiency, 73% of the UK public are already concerned about AI-generated content, and more than 25% of consumers would unfollow brands that publish AI-labelled content. Why? Because AI cannot generate original thought, nuance, and personal insights.
That’s not to say that AI doesn’t have its place – it can streamline content creation very effectively, for example, by suggesting a structure for your article, providing sentence improvements, or proofreading your drafts. But it can’t be relied upon to create and communicate original ideas and commentary. That’s something that only humans can do.
Read our tips on how to make storytelling your secret weapon.
How to Create Authentic Thought Leadership
Businesses need to focus on carefully crafted narratives that resonate with their audience and appeal to their challenges and goals. One of the biggest mistakes when creating content is overemphasising the features and functions of a product or solution. Thought leadership should answer the ‘why’ not the ‘what’:
- Why do you create the products you do?
- Why is this significant from the customer’s perspective?
- Why is your solution relevant to the future of the industry?
Whether it’s environmental, economic, legislative or HR-related, you need a narrative that talks about the issues experienced by your customers and how your solution can help solve them. Understanding your audience’s pain points and speaking to their experiences is an important place to start.
And, don’t forget, you are the expert. Your observations and opinions on the industry are original thinking and are forming the direction of travel. Prospects and industry professionals want to hear about them, but they want insights that go beyond AI-generated summaries – they want your real-world examples and anecdotes.
For more thought leadership tips, head to: How to Create Thought Leadership for Your B2B Tech Company: Tips for Engaging Your Target Audience.
Why PR Should Drive Thought Leadership
PR is often viewed as an isolated marketing channel, but it should be considered part of your brand’s overall marketing strategy.
First, ideas and content created for PR activity can be very useful to feed your other channels. Thought leadership ideas that originate from PR can seamlessly integrate into marketing campaigns, social media strategies and website content.
As we all know, it takes several touchpoints or more to turn a lead into a sale – and those touchpoints need to deliver a consistent message. That way, by the time you are in contact with a prospect, they understand clearly why they need your services, and your marketing activity has already qualified them as a strong sales lead.
The content you create in PR should also amplify your other direct channels. PR not only feeds them with content, it also expands the reach of that message beyond your own channels and onto those of influential publications and professionals in your industry.
Finally, from an SEO perspective, Google increasingly prioritises content it considers high-quality, authoritative, and human-written. Websites that aren’t flooded with AI-generated material should experience:
- Higher engagement rates due to original content.
- Increased search rankings – as Google penalises what it deems low-value content.
- Lower bounce rates from visitors frustrated with reading the same old articles.
Conclusion: Don’t Compromise on Content Quality
Original thought leadership is key to building your brand and your sales pipeline. To be a thought leader means talking to the market about the issues in the market, having an original perspective, and commanding a unique voice – your voice, not a voice dictated by AI. This should sit with your PR team to extract and communicate, but the output is multi-channel.
Create strategic thought leadership content that leaves a lasting impression on your target audience for all the right reasons. Contact us at prworks@neopr.co.uk to find out how we can help.
