The Future of AI in Marketing

Brett Johnson [: 00:00:13

Welcome to The Circle Sessions featuring The Circle of Experts. The Circle of Experts are Yasmine Robles from Robles Designs, Tonnisha English Amamoo of TJE Communications, and Don The Idea Guy. I'm Brett Johnson from Circle 270 Media Podcast Consultants. Each week, one of The Circle of Experts joins me to talk about some critical aspects of growing your Podcast will focus on marketing, social media, monetization, and website design, all with the idea of implementing these together To make your podcast even more popular. This week, Tanisha is here from the circle of experts. Tonnisha is on a mission to help small businesses level the playing field through digital marketing solutions. Thanks for joining me again today.

Tonnisha [: 00:00:56

Yes. Of course. Happy to be here.

Brett Johnson [: 00:00:59

Well, we can't not avoid AI. I you know? How many days a week do we, you know, hear about it, talk about it? It's it's ingrained in us now how quickly that happened.

Tonnisha [: 00:01:12

I honestly, admittedly been trying to avoid it because I think it's kinda weird. But, you know, to be honest, I mean, we do have some form of AI in, like, every industry now. So, I mean, it was only inevitable that it would show up in the marketing world eventually.

Brett Johnson [: 00:01:35

Well, all the add ons For software that you already own or, you know, have a subscription to and such, they're adding AI features. So it's really, really difficult to not Kinda go in and play a little bit because it's right there with a click away. You can change a title of a blog or something because it has an AI you know, it reads what you just read and kinda go, Here's other try this for other suggestions.

Tonnisha [: 00:01:57

Mhmm.

Brett Johnson [: 00:01:58

It's kinda hard not to go, okay. Let's see. What it and you may go with what you already have, But maybe something like, oh, that's a nice one. I like that too, you know, sort of thing. So but you said you saw, recently, a, an article from Sprout talking about the future of AI. Go over that a little bit.

Tonnisha [: 00:02:17

Yeah. So I kinda just skimmed through this, and it was talking about the Feature of AI and marketing. So according to Sprout's report, 9 out of 10 business leaders anticipate, an increased investment in artificial intelligence and machine learning tools within the next 3 years. A lot of that, therefore, seeing mostly using that to try to predict customer behaviors, which ultimately, you know, will lead to more revenue if you can predict what people will do. So I found that very interesting. I know that I my resistance with with AI is I was worried that you know, let's say you ask chat GPT or whatever to write something for you. I was worried about Copyright issues there. But I also attended an event recently that talked about, you know, the Proper way as of today, because we know things change all the time.

Tonnisha [: 00:03:19

The proper way as of today to utilize AI in your marketing. So find it interesting that a lot of business owners are thinking of investing in in this, you know, for their companies.

Brett Johnson [: 00:03:32

I was part of a webinar recently. I can't remember what it was either, but they said that and it probably falls in line with what you read that they are encouraging their staff to just go in and play. Mhmm. It's there. Let's play with it. Invest in it. See what it's all about. That way, maybe the The taboo of it's gone possibly in realizing the strengths and weaknesses.

Brett Johnson [: 00:03:54

And I'm sure there is a that they have a gauge of implementation, but let's go in and play. Just play with it, see what it's all about, and just kinda go, yeah. It's not for us or yes. It is. I I think they're looking at it For an experimentation for their businesses, is it something that they should continue to invest in, and the like? Now I do. It it funny you say about the the copyright or the The infringement of something that's already been written. One software that I implement to help me with SEO for blogging, does have an opportunity that you you click on each paragraph. It will search the web to make sure that what they created initially for you to kind of a template is not already on the web, and it will tell you that they they could it at least it couldn't find it.

Brett Johnson [: 00:04:37

So that's a help. That that that's a help because that's always been my concern too. Is it just copy and pasting enough that Google's gonna say, nope? You you're you're stealing it. And the ones that I did find that were copyright infringement or, you know, it's already been written with something I already wrote.

Tonnisha [: 00:04:53

So Oh, god.

Brett Johnson [: 00:04:54

You know? So it's it it yeah. You know? So at least it's found or a A client of mine is like, no. This is what this and it was the same thing, you know, or or rewritten from a a main page or something like that. So I'm like, okay. This is really working. That was a nice test.

Tonnisha [: 00:05:07

Right.

Brett Johnson [: 00:05:07

And the like. So, yeah, from that point, from what I heard about just letting your staff experiment, that makes sense. That That makes sense just to play.

Tonnisha [: 00:05:16

Yeah. And and I think that is, like, the 1st step. And it was the 1st step for me too just Just to get in there and see, you know, what it can do. And what I found is that, you know, AI, I would think of it today as more of, like, An assistant, or do you remember, like, back in school when you would do the diaphragms where it's, like, 2 circles, But then they kinda, like, overlap. I would think of AI as, like, your, like, your brain dump, really. So if you have a thought So you can't really figure out how to, like, form it together. That's a place you can go to say, hey. This is what I'm thinking, kinda like this.

Tonnisha [: 00:05:57

And then it'll it'll, you know, give you something, and it's like, well, kinda like that, but, like, maybe less formal, a little more relaxed in language, and you can kinda keep telling it, you know, to to reshape the the message or whatever it is that you're trying to do, which I wasn't anticipating, but I thought that was pretty cool.

Brett Johnson [: 00:06:18

Yeah. I think looking at it from that standpoint of helping to refine And look at it maybe a little bit differently and then and, again, it's a jumping off point.

Tonnisha [: 00:06:27

Right.

Brett Johnson [: 00:06:27

It's that, okay. This is a great start or they especially you hear a lot of people using it for outlines. Where to go with the blog? It's like, oh, yeah. That's a sometimes we just get stuck on the transitions. Where do we go from here? And it offers that suggestion going, that's a really good Ray, now I don't like that, but I can take put this in here or you switch it around. And boy, talk about saving maybe 30% of your time, Maybe up to 80% because it lays it out nicely, and you just fill in the blanks with your knowledge dump into it. Mhmm. Yeah.

Brett Johnson [: 00:06:57

Yeah. I think it's a it can be a very useful tool.

Tonnisha [: 00:07:00

I think so. I think so. And I think as marketers, I think we, at this point, You know, kinda have the edge where we can utilize AI to generate ideas and generate some thoughts. But because we have that marketing background, we can also craft it to where it makes sense. Because sometimes, you know, I was getting, You know, decent information, but it still needed that extra tweak where I think only a human, who has the experiment experience can go in and make that tweak. Because that that was a question that a lot of people have asked. You know? Will AI replaced a human, marketing expert. And, you know, I I will say as of today, no.

Tonnisha [: 00:07:50

But in the future, I'm not sure. I mean, we've seen it in other industries, you know, in the auto industry. We've seen it even with NASA. Like, that that was a whole thing. I don't know if you've seen the movie hidden figures. But I love that movie. Whole thing when they got That big machine thing, and it kinda you know, the it was supposed to replace this entire department, but People didn't know how to use it. So you still needed that department to come in and be able to get the machine up and running.

Tonnisha [: 00:08:21

So I would kinda think of AI as that. It's like this big grand machine that can make our lives easier, and maybe more when it comes to marketing, but you still need the humans to make sure that it's running properly. We were talking a little bit before you recorded about the rider strike. And that was 1 big pushback for them was to make sure that these huge production companies or, you know, like, the HBOs or Netflix Can't say, like, okay. Write me a series that is similar in tone that Shonda Rhimes would create. It's like, you know, like, that's not cool. That's not fair. And and they were able to win that to say, hey.

Tonnisha [: 00:09:09

Like, you cannot utilize AI to replace us as the writers. So I think even as marketers, You know, I foresee, some pushback where, you know, I have seen a couple tools that Can detect if something was written by AI. What I'm curious to see is when it comes to search. Well, Google put more emphasis on things that are not written by AI or that are written by AI. I feel like that will be, a huge determining factor of how people will use it.

Brett Johnson [: 00:09:48

I think as long as and this may be antiquated, but my mind, Google exists because we have questions. We ask Google for the answer, and it's supposed to give us the best answer possible to that question that we ask. And to your point, I think we still have to write the answer from a human perspective. An AI, Yes. Probably can do it. But, you know, if you you see these, blogs and and let's go into podcasting, show notes and such, You get a lot of furthermore, therefore, and we don't say those words. We don't say those words. So therefore, You know, I to me, I think Google would say, no.

Brett Johnson [: 00:10:30

No. That that's it's too eloquent. It's not conversational. It wants conversational. So I think I think you're right. I think the search may be dictating where this goes, for for its own survival, number 1, because I know Google's just shaking in their pants about AI Because now now people are going to AI to search and then and this, like, wait a minute. That wasn't supposed to happen, you know, that sort of thing. So I I hope that's that that continues to be that, that it's that you rely on Google to, you know, answer that.

Brett Johnson [: 00:11:01

So I think, you know, putting it in a in a podcaster vein too is, You know, when you create an episode, you wanna write a synopsis, show notes, everything that's Google searchable in a way that we speak. So you can't rely you can rely on AI to start you there, but you've got to fine tune it.

Tonnisha [: 00:11:22

Yes. And I'm I'm curious to see if as we progress I mean, machine learning It is a big, you know, factor into artificial intelligence. And I would imagine that As we are asking questions, as we are tweaking things, they're saving all of that data. Whether y'all believe it or not, they're gonna keep it. And they're gonna try to, you know, teach their machines how to get it right the first time or how to, you know, speak more in, like, a a human to human interaction versus, like, writing an Say paper or or a thesis or something. And I would imagine, you know, maybe that'll be a feature where you can select, like, Conversation or thesis or whatever, and it can adjust the tone. So, you know, in the future, you know, we'll see. But I think for now, it can be a great way to, like you said, build out an outline for you, Maybe help you think differently or generate ideas, but we still need need that human touch.

Tonnisha [: 00:12:35

But I think, you know, just getting started, Which took me a while to do. So if I can take the leap, so can you. And and this may be a great way to think about different podcast Topic ideas too.

Brett Johnson [: 00:12:49

Right. Exactly. I think I think it's that it really goes back to What marketing really is and marketing is understanding what who your audience is and what they want. And AI is not gonna do that. Even though you can prompt it saying, hey. I wanna write a I wanna create a podcast episode that's geared toward 25 to 35 year old male who lives in Kansas City, Missouri, I mean, you know, all this sort of thing, but that but you what does that mean, though?

Tonnisha [: 00:13:18

Right.

Brett Johnson [: 00:13:19

They the AI does not know what your interaction is with your audience at any marketing level. Well, what's worked as a social media post, what what's generated comments and such Mhmm. AI doesn't know. So you still need to understand who your audience is. AI does not know.

Tonnisha [: 00:13:38

Exactly. Exactly. So I think that's the the the good side to it all. Because when I hear AI, I think Irobot. Mhmm. Automatically. But I think, you know, it's not that extreme at this point, of course. So, you know, I would, encourage you to, like you said, just get in there and just play around.

Tonnisha [: 00:14:02

But keeping in mind that The things that you know about your business, about your podcast, about your audience, this thing Does not have that information. So you will still need to, tweak whatever it is that gets generated to make sure that it first of all, sounds like it's actually coming from a human, but also sounding like it's coming from you because your audience will be able to Tell, like, if it sounds weird.

Brett Johnson [: 00:14:35

Exactly. That that doesn't sound like the person that I just listened to. Right? That sort of thing. Exactly. Yeah. Well, if if, if a listener wants to, you know, talk to you a little bit more about that or maybe even get with you saying, hey. I tried a lot I tried AI a lot more, and let me I wanna talk to you about my experiences too. How they get

Tonnisha [: 00:14:51

ahold of you? Yes. Yes, please. Actually, that would be awesome. I would love to talk to people who are utilizing it and, you know, just to share your thoughts, So you can find me at tjecommunications.com. I'm always offering free consultations, so feel free to Grab 1 or you can follow me on social media at TJECOM. So it's tjecomm.

Brett Johnson [: 00:15:14

Great. And if you wanna get a hold of me, you know, we're doing some podcast Audits as well too. So really now is a good time to be taking a look at what you're doing as a podcast as we just talked about the evolution of AI. What are you doing right? What are you doing wrong with the podcast itself or looking at the marketing? Contact us at circle270media.com. We can take a look at that And, help you get your podcast in better shape, for whatever reason, whether it's monetized or just you just want more audience or you just know that It's not the best it can be, but you need another pair of ears, professional ears and eyes to take a look at what you're doing, whether it's from the content creation of the podcast itself or maybe it's the website or it's the social media. We got you covered here at circle270media.com where we can get you connected up with one of our circle of experts, of course, as well too. Thanks for listening.