00:15:26 · Kieran Flanagan
[00:15:26] S0: Yeah. You can have a taste profile, and then you can also have... You could do this in different ways because I have a content OS that I use for this. And so I'll give you the example for my content OS and go back into the taste profile because I think the content is a good example of this. And I will just peak her to this with the best marketers and go to market people who work with AI use AI to do, like, first version ideation and drafts, but they themselves elevate that work. The worst people just copy and paste stuff. So everything I'm saying is never do this and just copy and paste. Like, you, the human, really matter. Like... And if you just outsource everything to AI, you're gonna just be the same as everyone else. But if I go back to the content system... So, you know, the the example I would have is I have a simplistic, what I call, like, a creative context OS, and that has, like, three core MD files for when I'm creating content. And I try to... I had a very complex one, and I simplified it recently recently because the models are just getting so much better. And it has this creator dot MD file, although I... I've swapped from MD file to HTML files. Maybe that's just, like, a bit of a dorky thing that people don't understand, but it's basically forever in the in the context people are using MDs and dot MD files, but actually HTML files are much better because you as a human can better read them, review them, and work with the AI to improve them. But it has a creator dot HTML file, an audience file, and then a taste file. And so the first one, the creator style, is basically will capture all of the content I've created on LinkedIn, YouTube, and Substack, and it'll extrapolate patterns to say these are the kind of patterns that work. And then I will actually finesse those. And then at the bottom of this, coming back to your original question, it will have rules of how we'll adapt those per platform. Because, actually, one of the things that... You know, I've created content for a long time, pretty big... We have a we have a YouTube channel, LinkedIn channels. I have a Substack. And it's kinda surprising how little things work... Like, how differently things work across platforms. So, the one piece of content does not work across platforms anymore. Every platform has its own set of rules.
00:17:25 · Kieran Flanagan, Guillaume Moubeche
X is another one I try to spend a little bit of time on. And so it has little lines of how we will adapt things based upon each platform. And so going back to the taste profile, it's the same thing that you have an overarching taste profile, which is like the, you know, overarching way that you would create things that would resonate for your audience, but it would have a set of rules of how you would adapt that per persona. And so HubSpot would market to marketers, salespeople, chief whatever officers, and so on and so on. But again, it would give you a a version that you could then elevate. And this is the whole thing is what it allows someone to do is spend 80% of their time on the last 20%, Whereas they used to spend 80% of their time probably on trying to get to the last part that really mattered. Now they can spend all of their time on the last part that really matters. [00:18:10] S1: And do you do that like on your own or do you do that with AI?
00:18:15 · Kieran Flanagan
[00:18:15] S0: The way I think AI is great on... And specifically in terms of content is two ways. It's great for ideation. So what I do is these are the things that generally have worked on my platform because it extrapolates patterns. This is my audience. Now I find ideas that will fit that audience that are patterns like this, and it will bring back a bunch of those things. And then I'll say, like, create a first draft on these three. Let me see how they look. And it will map to my writing style. I will apply my writing style and say, these are kinda like the ways that this look. Then I will actually take one of those and totally rework it like myself. But the next way I'll use AI is I won't ask it to, like... The kinda what you were saying is, like, I work with AI in terms of... I think of content in modular blocks. And so a hook is part of the content. The... Open in paragraph is part of the content. Stories are part of, like, great content. Examples are greater part of content. Lessons, quotes, they're all part of great content. So I have a a skill that will say, how would... I'll give it, like, my content that I'm working on, and I'll say, how would you enrich this? What would bring this to life? And it will suggest maybe a story, and my stories will be throughout time. And so it will provide a, you know, a story. Here's a great quote that could actually be added in here. Here's a great example. And I'll look at those and see if I like any of them. So basically, like, I write an assistant, you know, a researcher. Someone actually will go get me things, but I always create the content. I can never have someone create content for me. It just doesn't feel authentically me. Like, I could never have a ghostwriter. I could have never have anyone create content for me. It just isn't the way I'm able to work, but... So I think that's the best way to use AI, as like an incredible assistant.
00:19:50 · Guillaume Moubeche
[00:19:50] S1: Yeah. I agree. I'm doing like the same, and I and I think, like, I like to also tweak the content. I think it saves you like a lot of time not to start from a blank page. You can play a lot with AI, like to to change things, but in the end, like playing with words yourself, like decided what you want to write about, etcetera, etcetera, like more precisely is always I think the best way. Because I think the risk, especially for a junior marketer, is because they don't know what good looks like, sometimes, you know, like AI is very good at giving you something that from the outside will have like the perfect structure, you know, like a hook, context, etcetera, etcetera. So for someone from the outside, they believe like it's actually high quality. In the same way that if you ask AI to design you like floor plan for your flat, if you're not an architect, you're gonna say, I mean, that looks pretty accurate. You know? And you realize that everything's like out of shape, that, you know, like the volume are not the right one, etcetera, etcetera. So,
00:20:53 · Kieran Flanagan
[00:20:53] S0: yeah. This comes back to you need to have judgment. But I think one of the things you said there is really important, and that AI gives you a ton of polish. Because it's looking at all of the best writing that's ever been done and then gives you a perfectly crafted post. And I see that, you know, we can see that now. We call that AI slop. And it's not slop. It's just that these are writing patterns that are great writing patterns and have... Are now being done to such a scale, they just, like, look generic because you see them everywhere. And I think people are just misunderstanding that if you have a great idea, polish doesn't matter that much in writing. And so a lot of the times now, I just free flow. I don't think about my structure. I just don't... I have a thought, a good idea. I free flow it out, and I just post it now because it's so authentic compared to what you see. There's no polish. It's just like me free flowing, not thinking about structure, not really thinking about grammar or sentences. And I find that content is starting to do really well because everyone sees the polish. The, you know, the incredible hook. Everything's perfectly structured. It looks like a TED Talk. And unfortunately, this is the challenge with AI in that... Let's say that that version that I just said works... Starts to work really well, and a lot of people start to do it. What will happen is it will start to become a training set, and then AI will start to use that. And so you're always, like, three months from being saturated. This is, like, the Internet. This was not relevant pre Internet, but you're governed by the algorithms. Like, most of the things you do from marketing have some sort of algorithm that is dictated in how successful your things will be. All the way even from email, like your deliverability rates, your ability to stay out of the spam filters, but more and more so, we are governed by algorithms. And then the other one you're governed by is the law of saturation. And that all marketing will be saturated at some point because everything is external, can be viewed, and replicated. And so pre AI, you were still on that hamster wheel where algorithms would change. You would have to adapt to algorithms, and the things you're doing at some point will be replicated.
00:22:57 · Kieran Flanagan, Guillaume Moubeche
The problem with AI is those things are just happening at such an accelerated pace because the algorithms are changing all the time because they are trying to figure out how to adapt with all of this influx of content. I think the amount of content produced over the last year has four x ed. And so if you're in these companies, you are just getting overwhelmed by content. And they're like, how do we integrate that into the algorithms? Like, what are the new things we need to put into the algorithm to continue to keep the quality bar high? And at the same time, the things you're doing are so easily to... They can be replicated so easily. You blog post about something, and people can take that blog post and tell AI [00:23:37] S1: Rewrite it. [00:23:37] S0: Turn that into a skill. Yeah. And every... And now I just wanna do that on mass. Yeah. And so you're just on a you're just on a complete hamster wheel of trying to stay ahead of those two things. [00:23:47] S1: And and from your side, like, at HubSpot, have you, like, been automating the content creation process? Like, because obviously, like, if SEO has been going down heavily, like, on your sides, like, how exactly have you been replacing, like, the the volume part of it?