“The question isn’t whether to use AI in your content strategy. It’s whether you’re using it in a way that builds your authority — or quietly erodes it.”
Continue reading “What Every Business Leader Needs to Know About AI and Content”
By Linda Pophal, MA, SPHR – Strategic Communications, LLC
Storytelling in content marketing is the practice of structuring marketing content around narrative—a relatable situation, a turning point grounded in real experience, and a clear takeaway—rather than around information or promotion alone. Research consistently shows that narrative content is more memorable, more persuasive, and more likely to build the kind of audience trust that drives long-term brand authority than factual or list-based content.
Let’s address the elephant in the room right out of the gate: AI. In the age of AI content creators are feeling stressed, questioning their worth, even questioning the likelihood that they will be able to continue to practice their craft.
But here’s the thing.
The brands that are succeeding in this new AI-fueled reality aren’t succeeding because they have better AI tools.
They’re succeeding because they’re telling better stories.
Storytelling is not a soft skill. It’s not a nice-to-have. It’s the engine of every piece of content that has ever actually moved an audience. And in 2026—with AI capable of producing technically competent, grammatically correct, utterly forgettable content at scale—the ability to tell a real, human story has never been more valuable.
Continue reading “Why Storytelling Still Wins in the Age of AI”
I was writing a trends piece for a client recently and, as I often do, I posted a call for input on sites like SOS (formerly HERO), Connectively, Qwoted, and Help a B2B Writer. I received close to 200 responses! To help me sort through the input and get a sense for what the top trends were based on this expert input, I did a simple tally.
And I started to notice something interesting. Continue reading “Why AI-Generated Content is Likely to Miss Emerging Trends”
You ask ChatGPT (or one of a growing number of similar automated content generators) to write copy for a blog post that you post to your company’s website. The app wrote the entire copy. Later, you find that another company has lifted the post, verbatim, for use on their own site. Can you sue them for copyright infringement? Continue reading “Understanding Copyright Issues in the Age of AI”
As content marketers have become more familiar with generative AI (GenAI) and the many tools available to leverage its power, they’ve come up with a wide range of business applications and efficiency- and effectiveness-gaining opportunities.
While some have decried the disruptive impacts of this technology, others are embracing it and finding increasingly creative ways to save time and gain efficiencies. Continue reading “Creative Ways Content Marketers Are Incorporating GenAI Into Their Practices”
I’m sure I’m not alone when I say it’s been a crazy year for content creators. The rapid introduction and advancement of tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and a host of others, have upended the content creation process for many offering both benefits and posing threats. Continue reading “Proud To Be Human: Promoting the Responsible Use of GenAI”
I found a recent news story interesting because I was just writing a piece on impending copyright issues related to GenAI for my “Let’s Get Strategic” column in Information Today.
The makers of Star Wars’ Rogue One: A Star Wars Story are being sued over the use of Peter Cushing’s image. The use of the image occurred back in 2016—long before generative AI, or GenAI, hit the scene—but I’m sure GenAI and its sudden popularity had something to do with the renewed interest. Continue reading “Navigating the Wild, Wild, West of GenAI and Copyright Issues”
Over the years marketers have come to rely on many different types of technology to perform a wide range of tasks, from collecting customer data to communicating with customers, from creating and distributing content to identifying and nurturing leads, tracking campaign success, and much more.
Now, with the introduction of generative artificial intelligence technologies like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Bard, IBM’s WatsonX, and Salesforce’s Einstein GPT, the use of technology is exploding even more rapidly in the marketing realm, having a ripple effect. Continue reading “Tips for Adding GenAI to Your Martech Stack”
A Conference Board survey, in collaboration with Ragan Communications, found that while almost 90% of marketing and communication professionals have used generative AI (GenAI) tools, their feelings about the usefulness of these tools are mixed—only about four out of ten expect GenAI to improve work quality and creativity—three in ten expect it to deteriorate outputs.
So I decided to do some further research and experimenting on my own. Continue reading “Fact Checking AI: A Must Do to Maintain Your Brand Value”
While generative AI (GenAI) tools like ChatGPT, Bard, and others, may have most marketers focused on the content creation potential of artificial intelligence (AI), AI actually has many, many, other applications that marketers can leverage to boost effectiveness and cut costs.
For instance, the ability to foresee and adapt to consumer behavior can provide a formidable competitive advantage for marketers. Enter AI!
Continue reading “AI-Powered Predictive Analytics in Marketing Decision-Making”
