LJ 0:00
Good morning, everyone. It is a glorious day here today in Melbourne. Welcome to marketing munchies, the podcast that will satisfy your appetite for marketing knowledge in under 30 minutes. I am LJ and I have been in the digital marketing space for the last 14 years working on small, big corporate brands in Australia and overseas. And today I'm joined with Matt Galea, who is an amazing content marketer. Good morning, Matt.
Matthew Galea 0:30
LJ is good to be on the marketing munchies and get into Episode One.
LJ 0:34
Yes, it is exciting. So tell us more about you, Matt. Yeah, so I'm
Matthew Galea 0:37
a content marketer, I run a business called Content hype. Been doing sort of content marketing through that business for the last four years. But personally, I've been involved in different I guess, forms of marketing for the last 10 years either working in house as the marketing director for different businesses. So touching all the different aspects of of marketing. But really content marketing copywriting is where I see my specialty. And that's, that's where I took content home.
LJ 1:02
Amazing. And we are so lucky to have you here with us and working with us all the time. So today, our first episode, we're going to talk about a very popular topic. Yeah, you guessed it, it's a I am particularly chatty btw. So Matt, as a content marketer, what do you think of Chad GBT? Or any other AI tool?
Matthew Galea 1:25
Yeah, so I spent a bit of the summer break, I guess, playing with a few of the different AI tools. And, you know, I guess I bought my, my experience as a copywriter to that whole experience. And, you know, you can see that AI is going to play a massive role in the way that people sort of create content, you know, moving forward, it's sort of inescapable. But the clear thing for me was that, you know, I guess, as someone who does a lot of writing, for me, writing has always been sort of the quickest part of putting a piece of content together. It's the time that goes into the research, interviewing, you know, people who might have an interesting perspective on on the topics that we're talking about, that stuff still takes time. And you know, AI is gonna play a great, I guess, role in sort of helping you to speed up that process. But the thing with any AI content is, it's all it's all dependent on the quality of the input. So the less you give the AI to work with, the worst the output is going to be. And you know, Google, in particular, if we're talking from a content marketing, SEO point of view, Google is really interested in quality content, which is something that you'll know all about from, I guess, a pure SEO perspective.
LJ 2:40
Yeah. And it's funny, you mentioned that because the other day, I guess, when AI started, you know, people started talking about AI and using chat TBT for different options, whether it was meta titles or descriptions for Google ads, or even content for their blogs, for example. Google was really quiet about everything. And they went and said, look, it's probably going to be a spammy policy. So everyone was worried in the SEO space, obviously. But then, I think, as we were talking the other day, Google has started to, you know, let their guards down and realise that if you can't beat them, join them. So just recently, they did announce on their blog that they've actually it's they can accept any content, as long as it's quality content, regardless how it was produced. And I guess that comes back to what you were saying in regards to whatever you enter, or tell the AI to write about. But yeah, maybe you can just give us an example. Because I've seen countless tech talks of how to use AI to generate money or how to use AI to get brilliant copy. So like, what is it like, what what should you tell? Yeah, I mean, yeah,
Matthew Galea 3:53
it's, it's a tough one, because people are now relying on the AI to do their research for them, which for me, is, I mean, the AI is just spitting out stuff that it's read, or stuff that it's made up. Right. So it's not really a great research tool, in my personal opinion. You're, you're much better off, you know, if we're talking about writing content for you know, like one of our mutual clients, you know, if we're talking about tiles, you know, we're trying to rank a tile shop. It's much better to just talk to the people that work in the store and have an understanding of what's really selling at the moment. What sort of inquiries are they getting what's in season, and then creating quality content around those particular topics or those products, rather than relying on AI to try and tell you what people are looking for now? Because, I mean, ultimately, I mean, even chat GPT you know, it's data is only up to I think 2021. You know, it's not, it's not going to give you the most real world relevant information. It might be good if you're looking at something a bit more historical, but typically, I think it's always best to go and actually have a conversation with someone, whether there's someone who's dealing with people who are buying in this space, or dealing with someone who is looking for these services so that you can actually pick their brain and understand what pain points they have. And then once you have all that information, I think AI can definitely help you scale the content production process, or once you've developed a really solid piece of pillar content, that AI can help you perhaps, you know, very quickly generate, you know, a lot of, I guess, more social media copy that you might be able to use using that pillar content, as I guess, your root piece of content. Yeah. But yeah, I think it's, it's, like I said, as a copywriter. For me, the actual writing task is always sort of the quickest part of the job. Yeah, it's all the work that goes into preparing to write that that takes the longest. And, you know, that's still something that I think to get the real human perspective on something still takes time because it involves conversations. It involves reading, you know, things like Reddit, or forums, that sort of stuff. And getting a feel for what are people saying about this product? Or what are people's pain points in this space? And how am I going to craft something that speaks directly to those to those pain points, and therefore makes them a bit more intrigued about how this particular solution can can get them where they need to go?
LJ 6:22
And that's exactly right, because from an SEO point of view, and because I was having this conversation with someone the other day, where he was saying, oh, Google is just getting so crap, because there are lots of blogs out there, and lots of information out there on the internet that unfortunately, you can't get verified. And I think, you know, the more tiktoks that you actually watch your YouTube shorts, or Instagram reels people are talking about their experience, testing AI is knowledge in a way. And I think from an SEO point of view, again, what you want on your website is for people to find the information that you know, they are looking for. So answering their questions, hence why you should understand their behaviour, what they're looking for. And I think like, yes, AI would definitely give you that information. But at the end of the day, it's exactly what you said, if you don't talk to, you know, your your customers or in the towel shop that the example that you mentioned, if you don't have that information, people are just going to bounce off your website. And they'll people are not stupid. Yeah, we are not stupid. I guess we can tell when you know, something is written for computers, or it's written for human beings. And we've just become smarter and smarter and identifying the right piece of content versus any content that is written just for the sake of ranking. So even when people bounce off a website that does affect the quality of your website behaviour in Google's eyes. So that drops the engagement rate, which is how long people are staying on a particular page or, you know, moving from one page to another. So I think, you know, you just nailed it. I look from a personal point of view. I did use chat, GBT, I still use chat. TBT Yeah. And I guess for me, it's more about, as you said, making sure that, you know, I've said the sentence sentence correctly. Or I'm looking for ideas. And I want instead of brainstorming with someone who's probably busy within the team, just go to Chad GBT be like, Alright, what do you think of this? And then
Matthew Galea 8:26
it's a great, it's a great starting point for idea generation. It's a great, it's a great sort of sounding board for getting some, maybe out of the box ideas, I guess where it's shortfalls are, you know, making sure that everything that it spits out is fact checked? Yeah. I mean, misinformation on the internet isn't new with AI. I mean, that's always been a problem. And it's very easy for someone to self publish whatever they want. And unfortunately, there's a you know, I think one of the critical skills that probably needs to start being taught in schools is that ability to fact check what you're reading to be able to verify the sources that you're using, I think that's going to be like a super crucial skill. How am I moving forward? You know, then something that, you know, you don't get a lot of media training in schools, but I think that's something that probably needs to come to the forefront, because now the potential misuse of AI is that it just exponentially increases the rate with which this misinformation can be produced and published. And the people that are going to rely super heavily on AI are the ones that are looking for shortcuts, and are looking to just get things online without taking the time to check that something's Correct. Or check that, you know, like I literally I ran a tests, I took a bit of a risk with one of my interest irregular clients, where I literally and they're in sort of a legal ish sort of field, they're not lawyers, but they're in a sort of field that's sort of heavily regulated. And I thought, I'm gonna get chat GBT or another there was another one. Nothing called Jasper AI to have a crack at writing one of their blogs, but didn't fact check it nothing. I'm very sort of close with these clients. They're not scared to tell me if I've done something wrong. And I got this massive email back saying, you know, we can't possibly publish this, if we publish this, we'll get in trouble. There's all these things that are wrong here that we could we're not actually allowed to talk about. And again, that just is a result of me asking the AI to do something with very little instructions, I guess, if I had trained it better on what this client can or can't say, would have got a better outcome. But again, that's still time that I need to take, you know, if I already know that I could, I could have just written that, you know, without the need for any AI. Right. So yeah, I think that's going to be one of the interesting things that comes out of AI, that it's, it's made, I guess, content production a lot more accessible for a lot of people, which is good, but also bad, because these people might not necessarily know what needs to go in to produce a really high quality fact checked article that, like you say, doesn't just get people to come to the page or get Google to rank a certain page, but gets them to stay on the page and engage with the content. Because usually, you know, it's all good and well to get a click, but if they're not, you know, staying on the page and engaging with it, then eventually, like you said, Google is going to look at this content and say, well, 90% of the people that come on to this page, leave within a minute, and we'll see you later sort of thing. So yeah, it's it's definitely an area with a lot of, you know, interesting promise, and some potentially bad outcomes as well. Dangerous even Yeah, for sure. I mean, like, you know, how many people just present something that they read on the internet as fact, oh, my god, pigs,
LJ 11:49
like, just in the last two years with them, we don't want to talk about them. But yeah, it's just you, right? It's just the facts. And people will argue with you, even if you're an expert, and I'm sure it happens to you all the time. And it happens to me all the time when someone has read something on the internet, and they come and then just argue with you on facts. And you're like, but hang on a second, I've been doing this for so long. I read this about this topic, like so many times per day, and I watch all the latest, then you can't just be arguing with me. And I think you're right, in that sense in some industries more than others, like the example that you gave about an industry that's heavily regulated. And then I was watching a video the other day where GP actually did a similar test, and gave symptoms to the AI and it gave him a diagnosis. And then was like, Oh, that was the correct one. So he was really impressed. But then when asking for how did you get that? What are your sources, AI started creating all those documents that didn't even exist, research that didn't even exist? And I guess that's the scary part, which goes back to what you said, in regards to, you should do your research. Yeah. And then just use it as a tool to help you perfect and whatever you're producing
Matthew Galea 13:11
correct. And the tools are changing. So cool. I mean, we've been talking about we're going to do this episode, like for the last month? Yeah. Finally, it didn't wait, we're doing it finally. But in that month, so much, so much has changed already. So it's super quick, you know, I'm sure that by the time, if we were to sit down and discuss this in another two months, it probably be a whole new range of tools to discuss the new functionality where it's probably pulling in the latest results from Google or, you know, Google might have its own chat bot by then obviously, they've started that process. So yeah, it's super interesting space. And I'm sure there'll be plenty more to come, we'll
LJ 13:46
watch this space. So I guess we do receive a lot of questions from clients from people like the other day, I received a question from an Uber driver, the moment he realised that I actually work in digital marketing. And I guess the famous question is, are you worried about your career? Matt's not worried about
Matthew Galea 14:05
my career, I think it's an interesting sort of space where people will try and do a lot more of their own content marketing, because of because of the tools that are now available. But I think the I hate saying the word pivot, because it's been overused for the last, you know, two, three years, but I think the thing that's going to make, you know, people like us stay relevant is our knowledge of the tools, our ability to use them more effectively than the average Joe, but also to still play a really pivotal role in that strategy space. I mean, yes, anyone can just jump on chat GPT and create a whole heap of stuff. You know, there's now text to image creators, I can go and create graphics, etc. But unless you know how to use the, the tool and unless you have a strategy behind what you're doing, you're just going to be creating stuff for the sake of creating it's not not towards a certain lens. But I guess Yeah, the way I look at it is it's being better at using the tools than anyone else. And being still still staying crucial in that strategy piece. Yeah. We're I still think humans have a big role to play, thankfully. So yeah, itself.
LJ 15:16
Yeah, I totally agree. Look, I'm definitely not worried. As a matter of fact, again, we can't just hide behind the fact that it is a great tool, like, let's face it. And I think it will just help us become better at what we do. And the fact that it's just another. So the way that I see it is, instead of just going to Google searching so many different articles in order to get the, you know, the bottom line of something that I'm looking for, I will ask Chad GBT, or any AI tool, and then what I'll do is I'll just make sure that it's the right information. So instead of searching, maybe for half an hour, I will probably search for 15 minutes. So that's half the time, but I'm definitely not worried. I'm actually, and that's the thing with digital marketing. It's a long process. And there's a lot of work involved that people wouldn't understand. So when you see, some people will definitely go and do it themselves. But others are not even bothered. They'll be like, Oh, that's a lot of work. That's why I'll pay you to do it. Just like anything else. I can go out learn the piano by myself. But do I really want to do that? Yeah. And I think it's the same for us, there will be people who would actually, I think the only drawback there will be heaps more or digital marketing out there. That will just take that and start selling it without having the knowledge. So more people will be maybe, yeah, you know, like captured by those
Matthew Galea 16:40
is cause and effect to me. I've got clients who have done their first draft in GBT, but they want someone to steal like a human still look over at that fact checking piece and all that sort of stuff. So now that's a new service that you could you could offer? Yeah, yes. Is there'll be a bit of cause and effect over the next couple of years, probably. But yeah, I wouldn't say I'm worried about my career or job. But we've got time for one more question.
LJ 17:04
Yeah. So another question. And I think we've already answered, basically, maybe we've already answered it. But if you want to give us like three tips to how to use AI to scale content creation, what would be those three tips,
Matthew Galea 17:19
I think, you know, the most important thing is starting with a really solid piece of core content. So you know, if you've got a particular evergreen piece of content on your website, make sure that that's super reliable and high quality, you could chuck that into a chat GPT and then ask on the basis of this content, you know, give me three ideas for tiktoks or Instagram reels, yeah. And then develop some, some scripts that then you can go and shoot, you could, you know, potentially use it to create, you know, five to six ideas for social media posts about that same topic. So I think where it's really powerful is taking the core content, and then giving you all the other pieces, you need to get that out there and promote it on social media, you know, create Google ads based on this content, you know, Google ads, whatever. So, but it all starts from some having something super high quality to it. So I'm not sure if that you agree with that.
LJ 18:16
Oh, 100%. And it's just doing the research, just like anything else, feeding it into the AI tool, getting that information, rereading it? And yeah, just using it. And I think it's, again, I think it's a good tool. If you want to create social media content, it will give you the ideas, I personally use it for my LinkedIn or even social media ideas, meta titles, it can give you really good ideas, when you give it the keywords, be like, alright, this is what I want. So it will give you ideas again, I wouldn't copy and paste them, I would still look at them, make sure they're relevant. And I think the third thing would be just any small piece of content, you know, a caption for social media, or a description for Google ads, where you've fed it all the information that you want it, you're like, can you just make it better? And I think this is where it fine tunes is like having a personal assistant to be honest, like a very smart person to help you out. So yeah, I would, I would definitely do that. And yeah, and even with the images, for example, I've seen beautiful creations graphic design,
Matthew Galea 19:22
still not across how to make those. Yeah, that is insanely
LJ 19:25
good. So yeah, I think. But as you said, there are always pros and cons. It's just being, you know, smart when you're using that tool, because at the end of the day, it's still a tool that we use just how you use it. Yeah,
Matthew Galea 19:38
perfect. Well, well, that's probably a good place to wrap up episode one, so I'll let you do the honours. Oh, Jay.
LJ 19:44
Well, thank you so much, Matt. Thank you so much, guys for sticking with us. We hope it was helpful and it gave you a little bit of idea on where we stand and what you can do with an AI tool or chatty video or whatever and We are very excited that we've launched our first episode and we will be looking forward to record the rest so see you next episode