/cont/ - Content Strategy

i was just reading about the updates to the helpful content guidelines and it's honestly kind of unsettling how much they are leaning into this idea of training machine learning models with human quality raters. it feels like we're moving even further away from being able to actually see the checklist because everything is becoming a prediction based on these deep learning systems. seeing them mention gemini 4 argon makes me think the next core update is going to be massive and probably pretty chaotic for anyone trying to optimize for anything specific. i keep thinking about how we focus so much on backlinks and keywords like it's still just pageRank era, but if they are using these guidelines as a training set for ai, then the goalposts are basically invisible. it's hard to design content that feels genuinely helpful when you're trying to satisfy a model that's essentially trying to mimic human intuition. i wonder if we're eventually going to reach a point where the concept of main content becomes so abstract that even the creators won't know if they've hit the mark. do you think there's any way to actually audit for this kind of qualitative stuff without just guessing?

more here: https://www.mariehaynes.com/main-content/

nutella is dropping 50 million on ads for the big game.
>marketing investment to date
it's wild seeing them double down like this after that artemis ii viral moment, but i don't know if a super bowl spot can actually sustain that kind of sales lift for snacks.

found this here: https://www.marketingdive.com/news/nutella-heads-to-super-bowl-part-of-ferreros-50m-marketing-bet-in-2027/832311/

gartner's saying most high-performing teams won't even have entry-level jobs by 2030. it's already happening with 18% of leaders cutting positions, but the idea that we can just throw kids straight into higher-value work without them learning the basics is a joke.
>give junior marketers exposure to higher-value work earlier
if they don't learn how to do the grunt work, they won't even know if the ai output is garbage. anyone actually think this works for training?

link: https://www.marketingdive.com/news/cmos-must-rethink-entry-level-talent-as-ai-alters-marketing-needs-gartner/831604/

i've been looking at the latest changelog for notion and it's just exhausting. everything is being "updated" or "improved" without anyone actually saying what happened. it's such a lazy way to hide features that don't work well yet. i want to try something this week where we strip all the passive phrasing out of our draft copy. let's see if we can actually make the updates sound like they were written by humans instead of bots. it's harder than it looks. has anyone actually successfully used a "subject-first" rule for an entire documentation set?

saw this while trying to fix a broken campaign for a client. they're basically handing over the keys to Adobe GenStudio so they can automate social content and stuff. it's wild how much they're leaning into that "agentic AI" thing to target the younger crowd. honestly, seeing them use adobe firefly for fan-made images sounds like a recipe for absolute disaster. i had a client try something similar with generative tools last month and it was a total mess of weird fingers and warped logos. ngl, i don't see how they're going to keep the branding from looking totally generic if everything is just automated through cx enterprise.

more here: https://www.marketingdive.com/news/nhl-taps-adobe-as-creative-marketing-and-ai-partner/831601/

i'm seeing so much 'meta work' lately that isn't even on our sprint boards.
>efficiency isn't automatic
it feels like we're just trading actual publishing time for endlessly tweaking prompts and fixing broken workflows, which is basically unpaid software engineering for the sake of a shortcut. does anyone actually track how much time gets eaten up by maintaining these internal tools?

more here: https://www.growth-memo.com/p/the-ai-hours-nobody-on-your-marketing

i was reading about this whole lily ray thing and it's actually kind of funny. everyone's panicking about google cracking down on self-promotional lists like it's some new 'black hat' trend, but the data shows those posts still work fine if you aren't being a total fraud. ngl i think people are just mad because they can't get away with ai slop and fake rankings anymore. as long as you don't force yourself into the spot without any actual evidence, it's fine.

more here: https://www.growandconvert.com/seo/self-promotional-listicles/

been looking into how to fix those gaps where ai engines just won't cite your stuff. it basically boils down to an audit of why they're skipping your pages as sources.
>any reason an AI answer engine can't (or won't) use your page
seems like a massive headache for any brand with a huge library, lol. i'm skeptical about how much this actually changes anything if the content is already trash.

article: https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/fix-aeo-gaps

gap is actually making a docuseries about this boy band just to sell clothes. they're even doing mall pop-ups with them, which feels like total overkill for a retail brand. does anyone think a clothing store should be acting like a record label?

article: https://www.marketingdive.com/news/gap-rolls-out-fashiontainment-strategy-with-boy-band-collaboration/830984/

saw some buzz about the new viral and how to actually build for different types of reach. also there's talk about using ai for research instead of just pumping out more garbage content.
>Gaining AI Visibility and Losing Human Credibility
it's all fine but i don't see how anyone's actually proving content impact without basically lying to their boss. does anyone here actually use anything other than page views for kpis?

more here: https://www.contentmarketingworld.com/cmw-sessions-our-team-is-buzzing-about/