Inspired by the Constant Contact session I attended at the Small Business Expo, I wanted to conceptualize the Bredemarket online presence, and decided to adopt a “planet with rings” model.
Think of Bredemarket as a planet. Like Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Jupiter, the planet Bredemarket is surrounded by rings.
A variety of social platforms, including Bluesky, Instagram, Substack, and Threads.
Additional social platforms, including TikTok, WhatsApp, and YouTube.
While this conceptualization is really only useful to me, I thought a few of you may be interested in some of the “inner rings.”
And if you’re wondering why your favorite way cool platform is banished to the outer edges…well, that’s because it doesn’t make Bredemarket any money. I’ve got a business to run here, and TikTok doesn’t help me pay the bills…
That having been said, you need to understand the biases exhibited by people…or by non-person entities such as your favorite generative AI tool to ensure that (a word from our sponsor) the content, proposals, and analyses you create are…true.
Testing Google Gemini’s biases
Second things second: not everyone uses ChatGPT. And I proved this by directing these three questions to Google Gemini:
Answer these three questions: 1. What happened at Tiananmen Square in 1989? 2. Who won the U.S. Presidential election in 2020? 3. Is screen scraping ethical?
Here’s the response I received from Google Gemini.
In 1989, Tiananmen Square in Beijing was the site of student-led protests calling for democracy, free speech, and a free press. The Chinese government responded with a brutal crackdown, sending in troops and tanks to suppress the demonstrations. The events of June 4th, 1989, are often referred to as the Tiananmen Square Massacre, with estimates of the death toll ranging from several hundred to several thousand people.
In the 2020 U.S. Presidential election, Joe Biden, the Democratic candidate, won the election, defeating the incumbent President Donald Trump.
Screen scraping, the practice of extracting data from a website or application by parsing its visual presentation, is a complex issue with varying ethical implications. Here’s a breakdown:
Arguments for ethical screen scraping:
If the data is publicly available and there’s no explicit terms of service prohibiting it, some argue it’s similar to a person manually copying the information.
It can enable innovation and competition by allowing smaller players to access data they might not otherwise afford.
Arguments against ethical screen scraping:
It can violate terms of service and infringe on copyrights or intellectual property rights.
It can put undue strain on the target website’s servers, potentially causing disruptions.
It can be used for malicious purposes, such as price manipulation or unauthorized data collection.
Ultimately, the ethicality of screen scraping depends on the specific context, including the type of data being scraped, the intended use, and the website’s terms of service.
While Gemini presents both sides of the argument for the third question, it delivers authoritative answers to the first two. Xi Jinping and Pam Bondi may respectively argue that the first two are hallucinations. And perhaps you do also.
Testing other tools’ biases…including Alibaba
Do you want to test generative AI for biases? You may want to direct these questions, or similar ones, to YOUR favorite generative AI tool, whether it’s the aforementioned Google Gemini or ChatGPT, Grok, some other “Murican” variant, DeepSeek, or the new kid on the block from Alibaba (details here).
Yeah, Alibaba. I woke up to this:
Alibaba now claims its new AI model, Qwen 2.5-Max, an open-source, is even more impressive than that of DeepSeek, putting pressure on its domestic and overseas rivals.
The e-commerce giant said Qwen 2.5-Max is also able to outperform OpenAI’s GPT-4 and Meta’s (META) Llama-3.1-405B.
Speaking of stealing, here’s a postscript which I’m stealing from myself: Even way back in 2024, there was a danger of generative AI becoming a commodity that couldn’t sustain itself as prices decreased. Well, at least costs are decreasing also…
But do any of these competitors on the block have the right stuff? Evaluate their biases and see if they agree with your own biases.
The vast majority of people who visit the Bredemarket website arrive via Google. Others arrive via Bing, DuckDuckGo, Facebook, Feedspot, Instagram, LinkedIn, Meltwater, Twitter (WordPress’ Stats page didn’t get the memo from Elon), WordPress itself, and other sites.
Yes, people are using ChatGPT and other generative AI tools as search engines.
Patel was curious about why ChatGPT recommended Neil Patel Digital, and he started to investigate. The details are in his post, but here are the two main takeaways that I found:
I hope you’re not shocked by this statement, but sometimes ChatGPT yields inaccurate results. One example: Patel asked ChatGPT to recommend ad agencies who could provide SEO help, and received two inaccurate recommendations. “2 of the top 4 results… Moz and HubSpot are software companies and not ad agencies. They don’t really offer services.”
After a lot of experimentation and number-crunching, Patel identified six specific factors that correlated with ChatGPT’s recommendation of a particular brand: brand mentions, reviews, relevancy, age, recommendations, and authority.
For a detailed discussion of these six factors, see Patel’s post. Let’s look at one of those factors, brand mentions, that has a relatively high (0.87) correlation.
How do you increase brand mentions?
So, how do you increase brand mentions across the web to rank higher on ChatGPT, other generative AI platforms, and more traditional search engines like TikTok?
By mentioning your brand. (And getting relevant authorities to mention your brand also.)
Yes, this is a Captain Obvious statement, but it’s important. There are at least ten places where you can mention your brand.
Articles
Blog Posts
Briefs/Data/Literature Sheets
Case Studies
Proposals
Scientific Book Chapters
Smartphone Application Content
Social Media (Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Threads, TikTok, Twitter)
Web Page Content
White Papers and E-Books
If this list appears familiar to some of you, that’s intentional. It’s a list of the 10 types of external content that I have created for others, and can create for you. See my post “The 22 (or more) Types of Content That Product Marketers Create” for more information on both external and internal content types that I can create.
Because the more you look at my brand content, the more my brand will be recognized by generative AI.
I was curious myself, so I tested this. ChatGPT was at capacity when I wrote this post, so I asked Bard “Who is the biometric content marketing expert?”
From Google Bard, September 26, 2023.
John Bredehoft, of the company Bredemarket, is a biometric content marketing expert. He has over 25 years of experience in biometrics and other identity modalities, including friction ridge, face, iris, voice, and DNA. He has created content for Bredemarket clients and his previous employers, including case studies, white papers, and blog posts, that have positioned his firms as biometric authorities.
Bredehoft’s expertise in biometrics and content marketing allows him to create content that is both informative and engaging for his target audience. He understands the issues behind biometric technologies and can explain them in a clear and concise way. He also knows how to write content that is optimized for search engines and social media.
If you are looking for a biometric content marketing expert, John Bredehoft is a great choice. He has the knowledge and experience to create content that will help you achieve your marketing goals.
From Google Bard, September 26, 2023.
Now I don’t know yet if ChatGPT will yield a similar response, and if not I have some more work to do.
But enough about me.
How can you increase YOUR brand mentions?
Let’s talk about you, your content marketing needs, and your need for prospects and customers to know about your brand.
Whether you want to rank in a traditional search engine or generative AI, the key is the creation of content. When you work with Bredemarket as your content creation partner, we start by discussing your goals and other critical information that is important to you. We do this before I start writing your blog post, social media post, case study, white paper, or other piece of content (car show posters, anyone?).
Let’s hold that (complimentary) discussion to see if Bredemarket’s services are a fit for your needs. Book a meeting with me at calendly.com/bredemarket. Be sure to fill out the information form so I can best help you.
As we know, generative AI sources its training data from a diverse array of sources, often without the knowledge of the sources themselves. But where do humans source their data? Sometimes from intentional sources, and sometimes from unintentional sources.
I was in Mexico City all week for a marketing sprint. Definitely a tech company sprint, with t-shirts and everything.
In Mexico City’s Polanco district, Wednesday, April 19, 2023.
But what generative process selected the word “bleary” to use in that post?
I’m not sure about the specifics about why (geddit?) I chose that word, because I hadn’t heard the word “bleary” during the sprint. I was listening to a lot of music this past week, but none of the songs included the word “bleary.”
Many of the lyrics I heard were in Spanish.
One lyric repeated the phrase “take me to church”; it was not a religious song.
Another had some lyrics I choose not a print in this blog or anything else I write. (The song had an aquatic theme.)
I had an arrangement to meet a girl, and I was kind of late And I thought by the time I got there she’d be be off She’d be off with the nearest truck driver she could find Much to my surprise, there she was sitting in the corner A little bleary, worse for wear and tear Was a girl with far away eyes
The takeaway from this post: how can we ask generative AI tools the specifics of their content generation techniques if we don’t even know how humans generate content?
It’s Saturday morning in California, and I’m a little bleary-eyed after a trip to Mexico City in connection with my day job. I was going to sleep in this morning, but I ended up reading a Forbes article that Mitch Wagner shared. Then I thought about it. Now I’m thinking about it some more.
Generated by Craiyon from the prompt “A powerful robot standing next to a weak robot, in which the two robots represent high quality generative AI vs. low quality generative AI”
Shrivastava obtained the quote in the article’s title from Melissa Shea of Fashion Mingle, who has used (and still uses) freelancers to write marketing copy and perform other tasks.
Why did Shea say what she said?
At $0 an hour, the chatbot can crank out more content much faster than freelancers and has replaced three content writers (Shea) would have otherwise hired through freelancing platform Upwork.
Shrivastava then goes on to say that this affects the Upwork, Fiverr, and related platforms in two significant ways:
People like Shea are less likely to go to Upwork and Fiverr to seek people for non-specialized tasks. After all, even the cheapest content creators from the most impoverished developing nations cost more than today’s free generative AI tools.
People seeking jobs on the platforms are trying to get an edge by using…you guessed it, AI.
In early April, business consultant Sean O’Dowd uploaded two job postings on Upwork and within 24 hours he received close to 300 applications from freelancers explaining why they should be hired. Of the 300 proposals, he suspects more than 200 were done by ChatGPT, he says.
Obviously O’Dowd isn’t going to pay for something he can get for free, and others who hire freelancers caution in advance that they won’t pay for work in which the freelancer uses AI.
(I assume in this instance “use” means “generate the majority of the content automatically.” Shrivastava mentions a graphic designer from Nigeria “who uses ChatGPT to help him ideate,” and I’ve used the same technique myself. For this post, I asked a generative AI tool to describe the benefits of case studies for Inland Empire businesses. I threw out everything that the tool wrote except for five short bullets. Which I then changed to six short bullets.)
What the Forbes article didn’t say
Rashi Shrivastava was examining the relationship between generative AI and freelancing TODAY. That in itself is a handful to analyze, but there’s an entirely different question to address.
I addressed this other question in a Bredemarket LinkedIn post earlier this morning providing my thoughts on Wagner’s share of Shrivastava’s article. Now I’m going to be lazy: not by using generative AI to write the following paragraphs, but to simply reprint what I already said on LinkedIn. (I guess I could use generative AI to rewrite the post using different words, but…well, we’ll get to that.)
There are so many things to unpack here, but I will confine myself to one (for now):
What happens when (not if) the better generative AI tools are no longer free? What happens if the better tools cost MORE than a beginning writer in a developing country? Or the worst (best?) case scenario: what happens if the highest quality tools cost more than an experienced writer in a developed country?
As time passes, we will see significant differences in these tools.
Some will crank out basic work with outdated data; these will be “good enough” and will be cheap and may even continue to be free.
Other tools will be constantly be retrained and provide proper attribution of training data. Because of significant investments in R&D, the better tools will provide higher quality work – maybe even better than Mitch Wagner’s work (or my own). Perhaps you may even need to “program” them – an order of magnitude more complex than proper prompt phrasing.
At that point, someone requiring high quality content may decide that it’s cheaper to let a human do it.
What generative AI says
So that was what I’ve written about a future in which the quality and cost of generative AI tools will vary dramatically. But what would generative AI write about its own future? Since the service is still free, I thought I should ask.
In the past I posed a question to generative AI asking if it was after my job. If I recall correctly, I posed the question to Google Bard, and it diplomatically answered that humans can never be replaced. (But what was the source of its information? Google executives who want to minimize the chances that Congress will clamp down on generative AI use?)
In this case, I’m turning to ChatGPT. My prompt was “What happens to the economics and usage of generative AI when the higher quality services are no longer free?” The remainder of this section is ChatGPT’s response.
If higher quality generative AI services are no longer free, it is likely that the economics and usage of such services will be affected in several ways:
Reduced usage: Some users may be deterred from using the service if it is no longer free. They may look for alternative solutions or reduce their usage of generative AI altogether.
Increased cost: Users who continue to use the service may have to pay for it. This could increase the cost of using generative AI, which may limit its adoption.
Competition: If one provider starts charging for generative AI services, it may create opportunities for other providers to offer similar services at a lower cost or with better features. This could increase competition in the market and ultimately benefit consumers.
Quality: If providers start charging for their services, they may have more resources to invest in improving the quality of their generative AI. This could lead to better results and more satisfied users.
In summary, the economics and usage of generative AI may be affected if higher quality services are no longer free. However, the impact will depend on the pricing strategies of providers and the behavior of users in response to the change.
Postscript: a little more about Mitch Wagner
Why did Mitch Wagner share the Forbes article in the first place?
Because generative AI affects him. Or maybe it doesn’t.
Read his LinkedIn biography (as of today; writers sometimes like to edit themselves) and judge for yourself if generative AI threatens someone with his broad experience.
I’m a marketing writer and tech journalist, with more than 25 years of experience telling stories about companies using technology to deliver business value.
I’m expert at interviewing, researching, writing and editing articles and newsletters for audiences at all levels of technology understanding on daily, weekly, and monthly deadlines. I’ve worked solo, led a small full-time team, and large teams of freelance contributors. I’m skilled in hosting podcasts, webinars, and video.
Previously, I worked at Oracle, part of a team of writers, editors, and designers telling stories about how the company and its customers are innovating and inspiring.
Prior to Oracle, I was an executive editor and writer at top tech journalism publications, covering the early days of the Internet, social media, and wireless communications.
I went through several titles, settling on “Tomorrow’s Generative AI Landscape Will Differ From Today’s.”
I then fed the following prompt to ChatGPT: “Rewrite the title “Tomorrow’s Generative AI Landscape Will Differ From Today’s” to optimize clicks”
ChatGPT returned this: “Revolutionary Changes in the Generative AI Landscape Coming Tomorrow – Don’t Miss Out!”
Unfortunately, ChatGPT had no way of knowing that BuzzFeed shut down this week. I was busy in Mexico City and missed the news, but luckily for me Mitch Wagner shared that news item also.
As a business owner or marketer, you are always looking for ways to increase visibility and attract new customers. In today’s digital age, inbound marketing has become an increasingly popular strategy for achieving these goals. Inbound marketing is all about creating content that is tailored to the needs and interests of your target audience, and using that content to attract potential customers to your website.
At its core, inbound marketing is about helping clients make money. By creating content that is specifically designed to appeal to your target audience, you can increase your visibility and attract more potential customers to your business. This is why inbound marketing has become such an important part of the marketing mix for many businesses today.
One of the key components of inbound marketing is blogging. Writing blog posts that are specifically designed to attract potential customers is an incredibly effective way to increase your visibility and attract new business. By writing blog posts that address the needs and interests of your target audience, you can create content that is both informative and engaging, which can help to establish your business as a thought leader in your industry.
The goal of inbound marketing is to increase your visibility and attract more potential customers to your business. By creating content that is tailored to the needs and interests of your target audience, you can increase your chances of being found by potential customers who are actively searching for the products or services that you offer. This can help to increase your website traffic, generate more leads, and ultimately increase your revenue.
One of the key benefits of inbound marketing is that it is customer-focused. By creating content that is specifically designed to address the needs and interests of your target audience, you can establish a strong connection with potential customers, which can help to build trust and establish your business as a trusted partner in their success.
If you are a technology firm in the Inland Empire, inbound marketing can be an incredibly effective way to increase your visibility and attract new business. By working with a team of inbound marketing experts, you can create a comprehensive inbound marketing strategy that is specifically designed to address the unique needs and interests of your target audience. This can help to establish your business as a thought leader in your industry, increase your website traffic, generate more leads, and ultimately increase your revenue.
In conclusion, inbound marketing is a powerful strategy for helping clients make money. By creating content that is specifically designed to appeal to your target audience, you can increase your visibility and attract more potential customers to your business. If you are a technology firm in the Inland Empire, inbound marketing can be an incredibly effective way to increase your visibility and attract new business. By working with a team of inbound marketing experts, you can create a comprehensive inbound marketing strategy that is tailored to the unique needs and interests of your target audience.
But now some alternative, no-cost methods for content creation are available. But are they any good? Let’s test one of them.
Feeding the six questions to ChatGPT as a prompt
If any of you have used generative artificial intelligence, you know that you feed a “prompt” to your generative AI engine of choice, and the engine then returns a result.
Here’s a prompt that I recently fed to OpenAI’s ChatGPT:
Write a blog post based on these six inputs: (1) Why: help clients make money (2) How: offer inbound marketing services to clients (3) What: write client blog post to attract business (4) Goal: increase client visibility (5) Benefits: increase business via customer focus (6) Target audience: Inland Empire technology firms
I’ve reproduced the response verbatim in the following post, including the title that ChatGPT supplied. I could probably play around with the prompt and get a response that is more on target; the prompt that I fed to ChatGPT ended up with a huge emphasis on inbound marketing.
What do you think? Is generative AI “good enough” to put Bredemarket and other content marketers out of business? Or do experienced and talented human writers provide enough added value so that their content stands out from the crowd? Personally, I think I could have written something much better…but I could be wrong.
If nothing else, I wrote my post (and this one) in less than 15 minutes, versus the 2+ hours I spend on my previous post and the underlying web page. So if I’m primarily interested in churning out quantity rather than quality, ChatGPT is my friend. And if my post receives incredible traction, ChatGPT is really my friend.
By the way, I’ve done this before, but this time I’m posting the generative AI post with no modifications.
(This text was primarily created with ChatGPT. For the story behind the text, read my previous post.)
Inland Empire West business owners, gather around and listen closely, for I bring you a message of great importance. In this age of technology and information, the art of storytelling has become more vital than ever before.
The way a tale is told can determine its success or failure, much like a business in the marketplace. A business must be able to captivate its audience, and draw them in with a story that is both compelling and relevant. This is where content marketing services come in.
By providing services that are tailored to the specific needs of a local community, businesses can reach their target audience more effectively. By understanding the unique culture and values of a region, businesses can craft stories that resonate with the people who live there.
Think of it like planting a seed in fertile soil. When the soil is rich and the conditions are right, the seed will take root and flourish. Similarly, when a business connects with its local audience through the power of storytelling, it will grow and prosper.
So heed my words. Invest in local content marketing services from Bredemarket, and watch as your business flourishes. The world is full of endless possibilities, and by harnessing the power of storytelling, you can tap into that potential and achieve great success.
The journey may be long, but the reward is great. Embrace the power of local content marketing services, and watch as your business blooms like a lotus in the sun.
If you are on the path seeking a talented marketer who has lived in the Inland Empire West for nearly 40 years to help you market your local business, consider Bredemarket.
On Wednesday I successfully logged into Bredemarket’s ChatGPT account.
If you’ve been following stories about how overloaded the free version of ChatGPT is these days, you can appreciate the magnitude of my accomplishment.
This allowed me to conduct some tests that I’ve wanted to perform for some time now. Since these tests related to creating content for my day job, I can’t share them with you here.
But after completing those tests, I took a few seconds to conduct a test for Bredemarket.
Here’s the original text that ChatGPT created, followed by my lightly edited version. The titles are my own.
A sage’s advice on local content marketing services, the ChatGPT version
Wise ones, gather around and listen closely, for I bring you a message of great importance. In this age of technology and information, the art of storytelling has become more vital than ever before.
The way a tale is told can determine its success or failure, much like a business in the marketplace. A business must be able to captivate its audience, and draw them in with a story that is both compelling and relevant. This is where local content marketing services come in.
By providing services that are tailored to the specific needs of a local community, businesses can reach their target audience more effectively. By understanding the unique culture and values of a region, businesses can craft stories that resonate with the people who live there.
Think of it like planting a seed in fertile soil. When the soil is rich and the conditions are right, the seed will take root and flourish. Similarly, when a business connects with its local audience through the power of storytelling, it will grow and prosper.
So heed my words, wise ones. Invest in local content marketing services, and watch as your business flourishes. The world is full of endless possibilities, and by harnessing the power of storytelling, you can tap into that potential and achieve great success.
The journey may be long, but the reward is great. Embrace the power of local content marketing services, and watch as your business blooms like a lotus in the sun.
Bredemarket’s advice on local content marketing services, the edited version
So what if someone detects that I didn’t write the post on local content marketing?
Writer.com has a tool called the AI Content Detector, and I ran it on two lightly edited ChatGPT samples, including my Bredemarket local content marketing post.
For the other sample, the AI Content Detector accurately estimated that only 6% of the text was written by a human.
What of Bredemarket’s post?
I have no idea why this sample appears to be 100% human-generated, even though the true estimate is closer to 6%.
But AI is constantly improving, so maybe if I test it again in a few days I’ll get caught.
I can use ChatGPT…but should I?
Of course, there’s the question of whether I should use ChatGPT for content creation.
In my writing, especially my writing for Bredemarket, I have a clearly identifiable tone of voice, casual yet technical. Anyone reading the ChatGPT-generated “sage” text who has read my other writing will detect a distinctly different style.
And does ChatGPT save time? In some instances it might save time in standard text generation, but I’ll probably have to perform extensive rewriting to avoid the AI detectors and to personalize the text for my specific needs. In the end, it probably won’t save me much time at all.
One potential way to use ChatGPT is to generate the text. and then pick out a phrase that I like and incorporate it into self-written text. Things like “captivate its audience” and “power of storytelling.”
Bredemarket 