/cont/ - Content Strategy

saw some stats today that actually make sense for once. turns out 65% of gen z and millennials want ai chatbots to cite creators in their recommendations. it's basically just the new version of looking at tiktok before buying a blender lol. even though people want those citations, only 29% say it actually makes them buy the product.
>consumers are looking for authenticity and trust and that is coming from creators
the gap between generations is hilarious too since boomers are almost exactly the opposite. i'm not sure how we're even supposed to optimize for ai shopping journeys when most of the data still points to reviews being king. it feels like a lot of noise if the conversion isn't actually moving. if you can't drive the sale, what's the point of getting cited in the bot? i doubt this changes much for brands unless they have massive budgets for influencer seeding. anyway, just something to chew on while i finish this spreadsheet.

full read: https://www.marketingdive.com/news/creator-content-preferred-in-ai-recommendations-heres-what-the-numbers-sa/830523/

i tried using descriptive headers for every single section but it just breaks the flow of the narrative. it's way better to use bolded lead-in sentences if you actually want people to read the damn thing. does anyone here actually find those heavy subheaders useful or do they just ruin the rhythm?

i used to spend hours obsessing over some grand opening hook that never actually went anywhere. it's such a waste of time when the real value is buried three paragraphs deep. now, if i'm stuck, i just finish the middle part first and then delete the entire beginning once the meat is done. usually the actual start of the post is just me warming up my brain. it saves so much headache during the editing phase because you aren't trying to force a connection that isn't there. it makes the transition into the main point way more natural too. honestly, most of what i write in those first two sentences is total fluff. i just cut it and start where the actual info begins. does anyone else find themselves deleting the first third of every single piece they finish?

another year of the same agencies winning everything.
>demonstrating how strategic, audience-first thinking drives business results
it's just marketing speak for "we made a pretty video." i can't even look at the shortlist without feeling bored. does anyone actually find these categories useful or is it all just for show?

more here: https://www.contentmarketingworld.com/2026-content-marketing-awards-category-winners/

I've been seeing way too many clients running tests where they just swap out the old version for a new one without any baseline. It makes the data basically useless because you can't tell if the lift is real or just a random spike in open rates.

i was reading this piece and it's basically just suggesting you turn every single comment thread into its own whole thing. apparently you can even link back to old discussions or use stuff like comment subscription plugins to keep things moving, but i don't know.
>Make Your Reader's Famous
it sounds a little desperate for content. it's fine if someone says something actually smart, but most people just leave a "great post" and move on. turning that into a new topic feels like low effort filler. i can't imagine how much work it'd be to manage all those follow-up posts without just repeating yourself. does anyone actually do this without it becoming a total mess?

https://problogger.com/build-on-reader-coomments/

saw the cmi winners list today and it's basically just a bunch of big corporate budgets masquerading as "storytelling". lincoln financial won project of the year for some four-part docuseries about retirement.
>authentic, emotional storytelling
lol good luck trying to scale that without a million dollar production budget. pace communications is also getting all the credit for using 'human judgment' with ai. it's just another way to say they're still manually checking the prompts so the brand doesn't look like a total bot. i can't see how any of this applies to actual growth work where we're just trying to drive clicks and not win fancy trophies in denver.

found this here: https://www.contentmarketingworld.com/top-2026-content-marketing-awards-winners-step-into-spotlight/

ann handley's right about ai stripping out the weird bits that actually make writing good.
>personality is what keeps readers coming back
if we just use prompts to clean up every sentence, we're basically just making bland soup for nobody to eat lol. hard to see how you even scale a brand if everything sounds like a generic template.

more here: https://annhandley.com/what-ai-would-delete-from-great-writing/

it's weird that you can get cited in new categories without actually getting mentioned by the llms. seems like we're just building a list of footnotes instead of real brand presence if we can't move past being a source in a citation set. anyone else seeing this happen with their bigger clients?

article: https://www.growth-memo.com/p/does-topical-focus-make-your-brand

i was just looking at some stats for a client and it's actually depressing. over 80% of marketing teams are using ai for stuff already. we're all just drowning in drafts that look exactly the same. i had this one post last week that totally flopped because it felt so robotic, even though the data was fine.
>The result is that teams have more drafts than they can review.
it's not even about speed volume anymore. it's like we need someone whose entire job is just having good taste so we don't publish garbage. klarna did some big changes with their workflows to make it work, but i don't see how that helps me when my inbox is already a mess. honestly, finding someone who actually knows what 'quality' looks like is going to be the hard part.

article: https://contently.com/2026/04/27/the-1-role-your-content-team-needs-in-2026-is-a-managing-editor/