Author: Franz Malten Buemann

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Question: Lately, I’ve been struggling to create content for all the platforms that I’m on and I found out about AI tools that help with writing. It seems like this would help me a lot with my marketing efforts, but I’m worried that it’ll come off as robotic and inauthentic. Should I consider using AI tools to create content?GPT-3 is one of the hottest buzzwords in machine learning and artificial intelligence (see: this WIRED article and the handy graph below).Google Trends data for the search term ‘GPT-3.’Picture this: what if you didn’t have to come up with copy for every single marketing asset you created? That’s one of the problems GPT-3 tries to solve. After all, as Olabinjo Adeniran, a digital and growth marketing manager, put it, “Computers have always assisted us in our jobs. It’s only reasonable that they continue to help us achieve business goals.”It is especially gaining popularity with the advent of tools that will provide you with an article, email, or social media caption after you answer a few questions.Despite the excitement around these tools in the tech industry, most people, especially marketers, tend to lean towards skepticism when it comes to adopting AI in creating copy.When I read AI generated copy…I remember why creativity will be one of the last human skills to be successfully automated— Katelyn Bourgoin ⚡️ (@KateBour) May 10, 2022

It’s also super controversial, with people divided on what circumstances warrant the use of GPT-3, which is essentially artificial intelligence, or whether it should be used at all.i would argue the opposite!AI models like GPT-3 are *phenomenally* creative – it’s their ability to conform to expected norms (format, structure, sequence) that struggles right now https://t.co/hW8UBk4lIz— Ryan Law (@thinking_slow) May 11, 2022

In this piece, we’ll be diving into the different opinions on the use of AI in marketing, its various applications, and whether you should be using it to create content for your business.What does “AI in Marketing” mean?Using GPT-3 tools like CopyAI to create content for your marketing assets. GPT-3 stands for “generative pre-trained transformer 3.” It is the 3rd iteration of the project, released by OpenAI in June 2020.The writer of this WIRED article pointed out that “GPT-3 can generate impressively fluid text, but it is often unmoored from reality.” However, ideas with a foundation in reality are essential for content development in marketing. In addition to philosophical concerns about how GPT-3 develops ideas, there are also practical dilemmas. Marketers tend to worry about the potential for GPT-3 to only ever be able to create black hat SEO content – low-quality content created purely for a search engine’s algorithm.Does AI writing actually work?I asked around with polls on Twitter and LinkedIn, and the consensus seemed to land on — it depends. A small caveat here is that these polls aren’t a definitive data source, but are important for adding context.Should AI (a la @copy_ai) and GPT-3 tools be used for marketing/content creation? Elaborate in the replies please🙂— tamilore (@tamioladipo) May 9, 2022

The poll on LinkedInMany factors go into creating content, and GPT-3 could become one of those factors. While it’s not a perfect system and cannot yet create long-form content indistinguishable from humans, there are situations where it may be helpful.One of the responses to the LinkedIn post was from Abdultawwab, a content marketer who said, “It depends. I’ve seen these tools as a way to escape writer’s block. You know those minutes you spend staring at a blinking cursor without knowing where to start? GPT-3 will give you the juice you need to get started. But when using it to develop a full-length article, the content will just not sound right nor will it flow well. But that’s just for writing. For other marketing use cases, they’ll be almost perfect as chatbot agents.”Even though AI can create content based on the facts and stats that it collects from the web, it can’t develop empathy, creativity, and emotions. It doesn’t have the capacity for storytelling that humans have. Rejoice Obike, a content marketing strategist, shares this sentiment. In her reply, she shared, “It depends. AI tools can’t understand your business the way you do. People are your target audience. So copy should be as human as possible. AI can’t reach that emotive you want to achieve with your niche market.”Essentially, whoever can figure out how to code that natural human creativity into AI might just take over the world – or at least the marketing industry.Should you be using AI tools for content creation?My gut instinct as a writer is to say no. However, part of my job is considering multiple perspectives when writing a piece — which changes my answer to “it depends.”Adopting GPT-3 in your writing could definitely yield some benefits, some of which we’ve touched on in this article, from helping you escape writer’s block to generating content ideas.Another scenario where it makes sense to adopt an AI tool in your marketing is if you’re a small business with a limited budget and team. If this is you, using GPT-3 for tasks like generating Instagram captions can allow you to focus your creative energy on other parts of your business.Also, if you’re a regular person trying to build a personal brand and publish consistently, a GPT-3 tool might be a good companion on your journey. However, it shouldn’t become the replacement for your own voice by any means, merely an assistant.On the flip side, if you’re working as an experienced marketer, AI tools should be left alone or used only for low-effort tasks. There’s no replacement for your innate creativity. As Tosin Onikosi, a content marketing specialist, aptly put it, “I personally think that great copy should be human in order for it to connect to the reader. If copy ideation/creation becomes fully automated, I would imagine that it takes the originality and creativity out of it. I just don’t believe that creativity is something that can ever be achieved by machine learning.”Examples of a GPT-3 tool in actionTo provide a relatively unbiased perspective, I used CopyAI to create content related to this article. The tool gives you several options to choose from, so I picked something that seemed relevant: a blog post intro.I started by entering the information I had on hand as I was outlining and drafting this piece to see what would be different from my intro to the AI’s. I was also given the option to choose what tone I wanted the introduction to be written in and ‘Witty’ won over options like ‘Professional’ or ‘Empathetic.’A few seconds after clicking ‘Create Copy,’ I was presented with several options for my new intro. Here are some of them in order from my favorite to least favorite.Intro #1Thoughts: I actually like this introduction – it’s pretty straightforward and sounds like what a human would write for a post like this. My article is opinionated, so I’m not using a Pros → Cons → Effectiveness structure.Intro #2Thoughts: This one started off pretty well – empathizing with the reader and mentioning things that the tool might be able to help with. However, it fails to connect the dots, and it feels like something is missing between the first bit and the thesis statement.Intro #3Thoughts: No, it’s not October 2018 – this intro gets a deduction for misinformation. Some good points are made, but the AI also fails to connect the dots that let the reader know the point of the article. It also comes off more as LinkedIn influencer-speak than a helpful blog post intro.Overall, I think this tool is a good jumping-off point for writing an article and can help spark some ideas if you’re stuck. Kenza Moller, a content marketer, pointed this out as well, saying, “They can be a great way to generate content ideas & speed up SEO content creation — but at their current stage, I think they’re just an early starting point.”Another snag with this tool is that it isn’t foolproof. The AI won’t have the full context that you do. You will also need to do a lot of editing to get it up to par with your other human-made work. So keep that in mind as you use these tools.Want to give AI a go? Use it at the preliminary stage of your marketing effortsIt’s natural to be curious — which is probably why you’re reading this article in the first place. If you’re interested in giving AI a go or adding a GPT-3 stage to your marketing process, then go for it — with a caveat. Keep it strictly as a tool for getting ideas or handling the small stuff, and let your team’s creativity turn the initial loose threads into a well-made content garment.If you’re curious about what AI can contribute to your marketing, consider CopyAI’s extensive options or Copysmith (the only tool to get a 4/5 star rating in this Writer article). The tool focuses on marketing for e-commerce teams and agencies but has several interesting use cases, including product descriptions, blog templates (not the whole thing), and ad copy. And when you have your copy ready, at least for social media, you can publish it through Buffer 😉.

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Do you know any bloomreach (formerly Exponea) alternatives? Something with access to raw data, where you can enrich, manipulate and analyze data? And also active contacts based on data. What about Twilio segment? submitted by /u/Sonny-Orkidea [link] [comments]

You may have already seen our salaries and our salary formula, but another part of our process is to annually review the benchmarks that we use in the formula. To do this, we look at the data source for our salaries and make sure that all of our team’s salaries are keeping up with current market rates. We’ve been doing this since 2018, and we never decrease salaries during a rebenchmarking. In the last two years, we’ve also ensured that rebenchmarking always results in an increase rather than no adjustment.Here’s an inside look from our most recent rebenchmarking in April 2022, followed by a deeper dive into how we approach salary rebenchmarking in general. The Numbers Behind Buffer’s 2022 Salary RebenchmarkingThis year, we adjusted with a minimum increase of 3 percent and a maximum increase of 6 percent to align with market trends and help with rising costs due to global inflation. This resulted in an additional increase of $42,000 per month or $504,000 per year to our overall operating expenses. With a minimum increase of 3 percent and a maximum increase of 6 percent, salaries were adjusted in total between $2,078 and $13,500 per person across the team. How Salary Rebenchmarking Works at BufferEvery year at Buffer, we do a salary rebenchmarking, where we look at all of our salaries at Buffer and adjust them upwards to keep up with the current market. This is not a merit increase or any indicator of an individual’s value or contribution to Buffer. These changes are strictly to keep up with the job market. There are no changes to any other benefit or grant as a result of rebenchmarking, and we never allow rebenchmarking to result in decreased pay.  To go about this, we compare all of our salaries to the market using our trusted compensation data source, Radford. Radford benchmarks thousands of tech jobs around the world and offers extensive training for our team to make sure that the way we match roles aligns with the way other companies are matching roles in the market. In our salary formula, we benchmark all roles to the San Francisco labor market based on tech survey data for the software industry.  For all positions (excluding the executive team), we use the data from companies of all sizes. For the executive team, we do add headcount filters to be sure we aren’t comparing to salaries of executives at much larger companies. From year to year, it’s not uncommon to see some variation in benchmarked numbers, either up or down. Ultimately, benchmarks are a reference point, and we apply them in a way that makes sense within Buffer. We have the ability to decide when we want to be influenced by the market and when we want to disrupt the market. For an area like customer advocacy, for example, we continue to lead the market in pay because supporting customers is at the core of what we do, and we believe our pay should reflect that. To smooth out the volatility of the data over time and to stay true to our overall strategy, the 6 percent cap during the re-benchmarking season ensures that future merit-based promotions and pay changes result in salary increases. This is a decision that we’ve made given the factors we see at play right now, but it is something we will evaluate as part of this process each year.We reassess every teammate’s salary at Buffer during the rebenchmarking, but there are a few cases where some teammates won’t have their salary adjusted either because they recently moved to a new job code that already accounts for inflation or because a greater change around their role is currently in the works.Over to youDo you have questions about how we do this at Buffer or want to share how your company approaches compensation? Send us a tweet!

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