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Diving for Pearls: A Guide to Long Tail Keywords – Next Level

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Diving for Pearls: A Guide to Long Tail Keywords - Next Level

Welcome to this refreshed installment of our educational Next Level series! Originally published in June 2016 this blog has been rewritten to include new tool screenshots and refreshed workflows. Together we’ll uncover keywords in the vastness of the long tail.

Looking for more Next Level posts? Previously we explored how to create relevant and engaging SEO reports.

One of the biggest obstacles to driving forward your business online is being able to rank well for keywords that people are searching for. Getting your lovely URLs to show up in those precious top positions — and gaining a good portion of the visitors behind the searches — can feel like an impossible dream. Particularly if you’re working on a newish site on a modest budget within a competitive niche.

Well, strap yourself in, because today we’re going to live that dream. I’ll take you through the bronze, silver, and gold levels of finding, assessing, and targeting long tail keywords so you can start getting visitors to your site that are primed and ready to convert.

Quick steps to building a long tail keyword list:

  1. Draw from your industry and customer knowledge

  2. Add suggestions from Google Autocomplete

  3. Explore industry language on social media

  4. Pull relevant suggestions from a keyword tool

  5. Prioritize using popularity and difficulty metrics

  6. Understand the competitive landscape to pinpoint opportunities

What are long tail keywords?

The “long tail of search” refers to the many weird and wonderful ways the diverse people of the world search for any given niche.

People (yes, people! Shiny, happy, everyday, run-of-the-mill, muesli-eating, credit-card-swiping people!) rarely stop searching broad and generic ‘head’ keywords, like “web design” or “camera” or “sailor moon.”

They clarify their search with emotional triggers, technical terms they’ve learned from reading forums, and compare features and prices before mustering up the courage to commit and convert on your site.

The long tail is packed with searches like “best web designer in Nottingham” or “mirrorless camera 4k video 2016” or “sailor moon cat costume.”

This adaptation of the Search Demand Curve chart visualizes the long tail of search by using the tried and tested “Internet loves cats + animated gifs are the coolest = SUCCESS” formula.

Diving for Pearls A Guide to Long Tail Keywords

The Search Demand Curve illustrates that while “head” and “body” terms typically amass higher search volume, seeming appealing at first. The vastness of the “long tail” presents a more substantial opportunity and larger percentage of search traffic that shouldn’t be ignored. You can really see this illustrated when combined as a percentage of search traffic. While this graph contains no cats, it is still entirely illustrative. However the long tail of search isn’t slowing down anytime soon with voice search and AI integrations we can expect the vastness of the long tail to continue to grow.

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While search volume for any individual long tail keyword is typically less, user intent is much more specific and viewed as a group targeting the long tail often enables you to target a larger more engaged audience. Also beautifully illustrated in Dr. Pete’s infamous chunky thorax post.

The long tail of search is being constantly generated by people seeking answers from the Internet hive mind. There’s no end to what you’ll find if you have a good old rummage about, including: Questions, styles, colors, brands, concerns, peeves, desires, hopes, dreams… and everything in between.

Fresh, new, outrageous, often bizarre keywords. If you’ve done any keyword research you’ll know what I mean by bizarre. Things a person wouldn’t admit to their best friend, therapist, or doctor they’ll happily pump into Google and hit search. In this post we’re going to go diving for pearls: keywords with searcher intent, high demand, low competition, and a spot on the SERPs just for you.

Bronze medal: Build your own long tail keyword

It’s really easy to come up with a long tail keyword. You can use your brain, gather some thoughts, take a stab in the dark, and throw a few keyword modifiers around your ‘head’ keyword.

Have you ever played that magnetic fridge poetry game? It’s a bit like that. You can play online if (like me) you have an aversion to physical things.

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I’m no poet, but I think I deserve a medal for this attempt, and now I really want some “hot seasonal berry water.”

Magnetic poetry not doing it for you? Don’t worry — that’s only the beginning.

Use your industry knowledge

Time to draw on that valuable industry knowledge you’ve been storing up, jot down some ideas, and think about intent and common misconceptions. I’m going to use the example pearls or freshwater pearls in this post as the head term because that’s something I’m interested in.

Let’s go! Let’s say I run a jewelry business and I know that my customers regularly have questions, like:

How do I clean freshwater pearls

Using my knowledge I can rattle off and build a keyword list.

Search your keyword

Engage google suggested search tool to get some more ideas. Manually enter your keyword into Google and prompting it to populate popular suggestions, like I’ve done below:

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Awesome, I’m adding Freshwater pearls price to my list.

Explore the language of social media

Get amongst the over-sharers and have a look at what people are chatting about on social media by searching your keyword in Twitter, tiktok, Instagram, and Youtube. These are topics in your niche that people are talking about right now.

YouTube is also pulling up some interesting ideas around my keyword. This is simultaneously helping me gather keyword ideas and giving me a good sense about what content is already out there. Don’t worry, we’ll touch on content later on in this post. 🙂

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I’m adding understanding types of pearls and Difference between saltwater and freshwater pearls to my list.

Ask keyword questions…?

You’ll probably notice that I’ve added a question mark to a phrase that is not a question, just to mess with you all. Apologies for the confusing internal-reading-voice-upwards-inflection.

Questions are my favorite types of keywords. What!? You don’t have a fav keyword type? Well, you do now — trust me.

Answer the Public is packed with questions radiating out from your seed term

Pop freshwater pearls into the tool and grab some questions for our growing list.

To leave no rock unturned (or no mollusk unshucked), let’s pop over to Google Search Console to find keywords that are already sending you traffic (and discover any mismatches between your content and user intent.)

Pile these into a list, like I’ve done in this spreadsheet.

Now this is starting to look interesting: we’ve got some keyword modifiers, some clear buying signals, and a better idea of what people might be looking for around “freshwater pearls.”

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Should you stop there? I’m flabbergasted — how can you even suggest that?! This is only the beginning. 🙂

Silver medal: Assess demand and explore topics

So far, so rosy. But we’ve been focusing on finding keywords, picking them up, and stashing them in our collection like colored glass at the seaside.

To really dig into the endless tail of your niche, you’ll need a keyword tool like our very own Keyword Explorer. This is invaluable for finding topics within your niche that present a real opportunity for your site.

If you’re trying out Keyword Explorer for the first time, you’ll have 10 free searches/mo with a free Moz Community account and even more with a Moz Pro free trial or paid subscription.

Find search volume for your head keyword

To start, enter a broad industry keyword. In my case I’ll type in “pearls” into the Keyword Explorer search box. Now you can see Moz’s Monthly Volume displaying how often a term or phrase is searched for in Google:

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Now try “freshwater pearls.” As expected, the search volume goes down, but we’re getting more specific.

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We could keep going like this, but we’re going to burn up all our free searches. Just take it as read that, as you get more specific and enter all the phrases we found earlier, the search volume will decrease even more. There may not be any data at all. That’s why you need to explore the searches around this main keyword.

Find even more long tail keywords

Below the search volume, click on “Keyword Suggestions.”

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Well, hi there, ever-expanding long tail! We’ve gone from a handful of keywords pulled together manually from different sources to 1,000 suggestions right there on your screen. Positioned right next to that, search volume to give us an idea of demand.

The diversity of searches within your niche is just as important as that big number we saw at the beginning, because it shows you how much demand there is for this niche as a whole. We’re also learning more about searcher intent.

I’m scanning through those 1,000 suggestions and looking for other terms that pop up again and again. I’m also looking for signals and different ways the words are being used to pick out words to expand my list.

I like to toggle between sorting by Relevancy and search volume, and then scroll through all the results to cherry-pick those that catch my eye.

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1678336502 423 Diving for Pearls A Guide to Long Tail Keywords

Now reverse the volume filter so that it’s showing lower-volume search terms and scroll down through the end of the tail to explore the lower-volume chatter.

If we don’t have tracked data in our database you can always cross reference with another data set to validate their value.

This is where your industry knowledge comes into play again. Bots, formulas, spreadsheets, and algorithms are all well and good, but don’t discount your own instincts and knowledge.

Use the suggestion filters to your advantage and play around with broader or more specific suggestion types.

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Looking through the suggestions, I’ve noticed that the word “cultured” has popped up a few times.

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To see these all bundled together, I want to look at the grouping options in Keyword Explorer. I like the high lexicon groups so I can see how much discussion is going on within my topics.

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Scroll down and expand that group to get an idea of demand and assess intent.

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I’m also interested in the words around “price” and “value,” so I’m doing the same and saving those to my sheet, along with the search volume. A few attempts at researching the “cleaning” of pearls wasn’t very fruitful, so I’ve adjusted my search to “clean freshwater pearls.”

Because I’m a keyword questions fanatic, I’m also going to filter by questions (the bottom option from the drop-down menu):

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OK! How is our keyword list looking? Pretty darn hot, I reckon! We’ve gathered together a list of keywords and dug into the long tail of these sub-niches, and right alongside we’ve got search volume.

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You’ll notice that some of the keywords I discovered in the bronze stage don’t have any data showing up in Keyword Explorer (indicated by the hyphen in the screenshot above). That’s ok — they’re still topics I can research further. This is exactly why we have assessed demand; no wild goose chase for us!

Ok, we’re drawing some conclusions, we’re building our list, and we’re making educated decisions. Congrats on your silver-level keyword wizardry! 😀

Gold medal: Find out who you’re competing with

We’re not operating in a vacuum. There’s always someone out there trying to elbow their way onto the first page. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that just because it’s a long tail term with a nice chunk of search volume all those clicks will rain down on you. If the terms you’re looking to target already have big names headlining, this could very well alter your roadmap.

To reap the rewards of targeting the long tail, you’ll have to make sure you can outperform your competition.

Manually check the SERPs

Check out who’s showing up in the search engine results page (SERPs) by running a search for your head term. Make sure you’re signed out of Google and in an incognito tab.

We’re focusing on the organic results to find out if there are any weaker URLs you can pick off.

I’ll start with “freshwater pearls” for illustrative purposes.

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Whoooaaa, this is a noisy page. I’ve had to scroll a whole 2.5cm on my magic mouse (that’s very nearly a whole inch for the imperialists among us) just to see any organic results.

Let’s install the Mozbar to discover some metrics on the fly, like domain authority and back-linking data.

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Now, if seeing those big players in the SERPs doesn’t make it clear, looking at the Mozbar metrics certainly does. This is exclusive real estate. It’s dominated by retailers, although Wikipedia gets a place in the middle of the page.

Let’s get into the mind of Google for a second. It — or should I say “they” (I can’t decide if it’s more creepy for Google to be referred to as a singular or plural pronoun. Let’s go with “they”) — anyway, I digress. “They” are guessing that we’re looking to buy pearls, but they’re also offering results on what they are.

This sort of information is offered up by big retailers who have created content that targets the intention of searchers. Mikimoto drives us to their blog post all about where freshwater pearls come from.

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As you get deeper into the long tail of your niche, you’ll begin to come across sites you might not be so familiar with. So go and have a peek at their content.

With a little bit of snooping you can easily find out:

  • how relevant the article is

  • if it looks appealing, up to date, and sharable

  • be really judge-y: why not?

Now let’s find some more:

  • when the article was published

  • when their site was created

  • how often their blog is updated

  • how many other sites are linking to the page with Link Explorer

  • how many tweets, likes, etc.

Learn more about how to do a competitor analysis in our free guide, and don’t forget to download the handy worksheet.

Document all of your findings in our spreadsheet from earlier to keep track of the data. This information will now inform you of your chances of ranking for that term.

Manually checking out your competition is something that I would strongly recommend. But we don’t have all the time in the world to check each results page for each keyword we’re interested in.

Keyword Explorer leaps to our rescue again

Run your search and click on “SERP Analysis” to see what the first page looks like, along with authority metrics and social activity.

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All the metrics for the organic results, like Page Authority, goes into calculating the Difficulty score above (lower is better).

And all those other factors — the ads and suggestions taking up space on the SERPs — that’s what’s used to calculate Organic CTR (higher is better).

Priority is all the other metrics tallied up. You definitely want this to be higher.

So now we have 3 important numerical values we can use to gauge our competition. We can use these values to compare keywords.

After a few searches in Keyword Explorer, you’re going to start hankering for a keyword list or two. For this you’ll need a paid subscription, or a Moz Pro 30-day free trial.

It’s well worth the sign-up; not only do you get 5,000 keyword queries per month and 30 lists (on the Medium plan), but you also get to check out the super-magical-KWE-mega-list-funky-cool metric page. That’s what I call it, just rolls off the tongue, you know?

Okay, fellow list buddies, let’s go and add those terms we’re interested in to our lovely new list.

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Then head up to your lists on the top right and open up the one you just created.

Now we can see the spread of demand, competition and SERP features for our whole list.

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You can compare Volume, SERPS Features, Difficulty, Organic CTR, and Priority across multiple lists, topics, and niches.

How to compare apples with apples

Comparing keywords is something our support team gets questions about all the time.

Should I target this word or that word?

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1678336509 439 Diving for Pearls A Guide to Long Tail Keywords

For the long tail keyword, the Volume is a lot lower, Difficulty is also down, the Organic CTR is a bit up, and overall the Priority is down because of the drop in search volume.

But don’t discount it! By targeting these sorts of terms, you’re focusing more on the intent of the searcher. You’re also making your content relevant for all the other neighboring search terms.

Let’s compare the difference between freshwater and cultured pearls with how much are freshwater pearls worth.

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Search volume is the same, but for the keyword how much are freshwater pearls worth Difficulty is up, but so is the overall Priority because the Organic CTR is higher.

But just because you’re picking between two long tail keywords doesn’t mean you’ve fully understood the long tail of search.

You know all those keywords I grabbed for my list earlier in this post? Well, here they are sorted into topics.

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Look at all the different ways people search for the same thing. This is what drives the long tail of search — searcher diversity. If you tally all the volume up for the cultured topic, we’ve got a bigger group of keywords and overall more search volume. This is where you can use Keyword Explorer and the long tail to make informed decisions.

You’re laying out your virtual welcome mat for all the potential traffic these terms send.

Platinum level: I lied — there’s one more level!

For all you lovely overachievers out there who have reached the end of this post, I’m going to reward you with one final tip.

You’ve done all the snooping around on your competitors, so you know who you’re up against. You’ve done the research, so you know what keywords to target to begin driving intent-rich traffic.

Now you need to create strong, consistent, and outstanding content.

As Dr Pete confirmed:

We don’t have to work ourselves to death to target the long tail of search. It doesn’t take 10,000 pieces of content to rank for 10,000 variants of a phrase, and Google (and our visitors) would much prefer we not spin out that content. The new, post-NLP (Natural Language Processing) long tail of SEO requires us to understand how our keywords fit into semantic space, mapping their relationships and covering the core concepts. Study your SERPs diligently, and you can find the patterns to turn your own long tail of keywords into a chonky thorax of opportunity.

Here’s where you really have to tip your hat to long tail keywords, because by strategically targeting the long tail you can start to build enough authority in the industry to beat stronger competition and rank higher for more competitive keywords in your niche.

Wrapping up…

The various different keyword phrases that make up the long tail in your industry are vast, often easier to rank for, and indicate stronger intent from the searcher. By targeting them you’ll find you can start to rank for relevant phrases sooner than if you just targeted the head. And over time, if you get the right signals, you’ll be able to rank for keywords with tougher competition. Pretty sweet, huh? Give Moz’s Keyword Explorer tool a whirl and let me know how you get on 🙂

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How Does Success of Your Business Depend on Choosing Type of Native Advertising?

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How Does Success of Your Business Depend on Choosing Type of Native Advertising?

The very first commercial advertisement was shown on TV in 1941. It was only 10 seconds long and had an audience of 4,000 people. However, it became a strong trigger for rapid advertising development. The second half of the 20th century is known as the golden age of advertising until the Internet came to the forefront and entirely transformed the advertising landscape. The first commercial banner appeared in the mid-90s, then it was followed by pop-ups, pay-by-placement and paid-pay-click ads. Companies also started advertising their brands and adding their business logo designs, which contributes to consumer trust and trustworthiness.

The rise of social media in the mid-2000s opened a new dimension for advertising content to be integrated. The marketers were forced to make the ads less intrusive and more organic to attract younger users. This is how native advertising was born. This approach remains a perfect medium for goods and services promotion. Let’s see why and how native ads can become a win-win strategy for your business.

What is native advertising?

When it comes to digital marketing, every marketer talks about native advertising. What is the difference between traditional and native ones? You will not miss basic ads as they are typically promotional and gimmicky, while native advertising naturally blends into the content. The primary purpose of native ads is to create content that resonates with audience expectations and encourages users to perceive it seamlessly and harmoniously.

Simply put, native advertising is a paid media ad that organically aligns with the visual and operational features of the media format in which it appears. The concept is quite straightforward: while people just look through banner ads, they genuinely engage with native ads and read them. You may find a lot of native ads on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram – they appear in the form of “in-feed” posts that engage users in search for more stories, opinions, goods and services. This unobtrusive approach turns native ads into a powerful booster for any brand.

How does native advertising benefit your business?

An average Internet user comes across around 10,000 ads a day. But even physically, it is impossible to perceive this amount of information in 24 hours. So, most of them use adblockers, nullifying all efforts of markers. Native ads successfully overcome this digital challenge thanks to their authenticity. And this is not the only advantage of native advertising. How else does your business benefit? Here are just a few major benefits that prove the value of native ads:

Better brand awareness. Native ads contribute to the brand’s visibility. They seamlessly blend into educational, emotional, and visual types of content that can easily become viral. While promotional content typically receives limited shares, users readily share valuable or entertaining content. Consequently, while you incur expenses only for the display of native ads, your audience may go the extra mile by sharing your content and organically promoting your brand or SaaS product at no additional cost.

Increased click-through rates. Native ads can generate a thrilling click-through rate (CTR) primarily because they are meticulously content-adaptable. Thus, native ads become an integral part of the user’s journey without disrupting their browsing experience. Regardless of whether your native advertising campaign is designed to build an audience or drive specific actions, compelling content will always entice users to click through.

Cost-efficient campaign performance. Native advertising proves to be cheaper compared to a traditional ad format. It mainly stems from a higher CTR. Thanks to precise targeting and less customer resistance, native ads allow to bring down cost-per-click.

Native ads are continuously evolving, enabling marketers to experiment with different formats and use them for successful multi-channel campaigns and global reach.

Types of native advertising

Any content can become native advertising as there are no strict format restrictions. For example, it can be an article rating the best fitness applications, an equipment review, or a post by an influencer on a microblog. The same refers to the channels – native ads can be placed on regular websites and social media feeds. Still, some forms tend to be most frequently used.

  • In-feed ads. This type of ad appears within the content feed. You have definitely seen such posts on Facebook and Instagram or such videos on TikTok. They look like regular content but are tagged with an advertising label. The user sees these native ads when scrolling the feed on social media platforms.
  • Paid search ads. These are native ads that are displayed on the top and bottom of the search engine results page. They always match user’s queries and aim to capture their attention at the moment of a particular search and generate leads and conversions. This type of ad is effective for big search platforms with substantial traffic.
  • Recommendation widgets. These come in the form of either texts or images and can be found at the end of the page or on a website’s sidebar. Widgets offer related or intriguing content from either the same publisher or similar sources. This type of native ads is great for retargeting campaigns.
  • Sponsored content. This is one of the most popular types of native advertising. Within this format, an advertiser sponsors the creation of an article or content that aligns with the interests and values of the platform’s audience. They can be marked as “sponsored” or “recommended” to help users differentiate them from organic content.
  • Influencer Advertising. In this case, advertisers partner with popular bloggers or celebrities to gain the attention and trust of the audience. Influencers integrate a product, service, or event into their content or create custom content that matches their style and topic.

Each of these formats can bring stunning results if your native ads are relevant and provide value to users. Use a creative automation platform like Creatopy to design effective ads for your business.

How to create a workable native ad?

Consider these 5 steps for creating a successful native advertising campaign:

  • Define your target audienceUsers will always ignore all ads that are not relevant to them. Unwanted ads are frustrating and can even harm your brand. If you run a store for pets, make sure your ads show content that will be interesting for pet owners. Otherwise, the whole campaign will be undermined. Regular market research and data analysis will help you refine your audience and its demographics.
  • Set your goals. Each advertising campaign should have a clear-cut objective. Without well-defined goals, it is a waste of money. It is a must to know what you want to achieve – introduce your brand, boost sales or increase your audience.
  • Select the proper channels. Now, you need to determine how you will reach out to your customers. Consider displaying ads on social media platforms, targeting search engine result pages (SERPs), distributing paid articles, or utilizing in-ad units on different websites. You may even be able to get creative and use email or SMS in a less salesy and more “native”-feeling way—you can find samples of texts online to help give you ideas. Exploring demand side platforms (DSP) can also bring good results.
  • Offer compelling content. Do not underestimate the quality of the content for your native ads. Besides being expertly written, it must ideally match the style and language of the chosen channel,whether you’re promoting professional headshots, pet products, or anything else. The main distinctive feature of native advertising is that it should fit naturally within the natural content.
  • Track your campaign. After the launch of native ads, it is crucial to monitor the progress, evaluating the costs spent and results. Use tools that help you gain insights beyond standard KPIs like CTR and CPC. You should get engagement metrics, customer data, campaign data, and third-party activity data for further campaign management.

Key takeaway

Summing up the above, it is time to embrace native advertising if you haven’t done it yet. Native ads seamlessly blend with organic content across various platforms, yielding superior engagement and conversion rates compared to traditional display ads. Marketers are allocating higher budgets to native ads because this format proves to be more and more effective – content that adds value can successfully deal with ad fatigue. Native advertising is experiencing a surge in popularity, and it is to reach its peak. So, do not miss a chance to grow your business with the power of native ads.or you can do digital marketing course from Digital Vidya.

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OpenAI’s Drama Should Teach Marketers These 2 Lessons

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OpenAI’s Drama Should Teach Marketers These 2 Lessons

A week or so ago, the extraordinary drama happening at OpenAI filled news feeds.

No need to get into all the saga’s details, as every publication seems to have covered it. We’re just waiting for someone to put together a video montage scored to the Game of Thrones music.

But as Sam Altman takes back the reigns of the company he helped to found, the existing board begins to disintegrate before your very eyes, and everyone agrees something spooked everybody, a question arises: Should you care?

Does OpenAI’s drama have any demonstrable implications for marketers integrating generative AI into their marketing strategies?

Watch CMI’s chief strategy advisor Robert Rose explain (and give a shoutout to Sutton’s pants rage on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills), or keep reading his thoughts:

For those who spent last week figuring out what to put on your holiday table and missed every AI headline, here’s a brief version of what happened. OpenAI – the huge startup and creator of ChatGPT – went through dramatic events. Its board fired the mercurial CEO Sam Altman. Then, the 38-year-old entrepreneur accepted a job at Microsoft but returned to OpenAI a day later.

We won’t give a hot take on what it means for the startup world, board governance, or the tension between AI safety and Silicon Valley capitalism. Rather, we see some interesting things for marketers to put into perspective about how AI should fit into your overall content and marketing plans in the new year.

Robert highlights two takeaways from the OpenAI debacle – a drama that has yet to reach its final chapter: 1. The right structure and governance matters, and 2. Big platforms don’t become antifragile just because they’re big.

Let’s have Robert explain.

The right structure and governance matters

OpenAI’s structure may be key to the drama. OpenAI has a bizarre corporate governance framework. The board of directors controls a nonprofit called OpenAI. That nonprofit created a capped for-profit subsidiary – OpenAI GP LLC. The majority owner of that for-profit is OpenAI Global LLC, another for-profit company. The nonprofit works for the benefit of the world with a for-profit arm.

That seems like an earnest approach, given AI tech’s big and disruptive power. But it provides so many weird governance issues, including that the nonprofit board, which controls everything, has no duty to maximize profit. What could go wrong?

That’s why marketers should know more about the organizations behind the generative AI tools they use or are considering.

First, know your providers of generative AI software and services are all exploring the topics of governance and safety. Microsoft, Google, Anthropic, and others won’t have their internal debates erupt in public fireworks. Still, governance and management of safety over profits remains a big topic for them. You should be aware of how they approach those topics as you license solutions from them.

Second, recognize the productive use of generative AI is a content strategy and governance challenge, not a technology challenge. If you don’t solve the governance and cross-functional uses of the generative AI platforms you buy, you will run into big problems with its cross-functional, cross-siloed use. 

Big platforms do not become antifragile just because they’re big

Nicholas Taleb wrote a wonderful book, Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder. It explores how an antifragile structure doesn’t just withstand a shock; it actually improves because of a disruption or shock. It doesn’t just survive a big disruptive event; it gets stronger because of it.

It’s hard to imagine a company the size and scale of OpenAI could self-correct or even disappear tomorrow. But it can and does happen. And unfortunately, too many businesses build their strategies on that rented land.

In OpenAI’s recent case, the for-profit software won the day. But make no bones about that victory; the event wasn’t good for the company. If it bounces back, it won’t be stronger because of the debacle.

With that win on the for-profit side, hundreds, if not thousands, of generative AI startups breathed an audible sigh of relief. But a few moments later, they screamed “pivot” (in their best imitation of Ross from Friends instructing Chandler and Rachel to move a couch.)

They now realize the fragility of their software because it relies on OpenAI’s existence or willingness to provide the software. Imagine what could have happened if the OpenAI board had won their fight and, in the name of safety, simply killed any paid access to the API or the ability to build business models on top of it.

The last two weeks have done nothing to clear the already muddy waters encountered by companies and their plans to integrate generative AI solutions. Going forward, though, think about the issues when acquiring new generative AI software. Ask about how the vendor’s infrastructure is housed and identify the risks involved. And, if OpenAI expands its enterprise capabilities, consider the implications. What extra features will the off-the-shelf solutions provide? Do you need them? Will OpenAI become the Microsoft Office of your AI infrastructure?

Why you should care

With the voluminous media coverage of Open AI’s drama, you likely will see pushback on generative AI. In my social feeds, many marketers say they’re tired of the corporate soap opera that is irrelevant to their work.

They are half right. What Sam said and how Ilya responded, heart emojis, and how much the Twitch guy got for three days of work are fodder for the Netflix series sure to emerge. (Robert’s money is on Michael Cera starring.)

They’re wrong about its relevance to marketing. They must be experiencing attentional bias – paying more attention to some elements of the big event and ignoring others. OpenAI’s struggle is entertaining, no doubt. You’re glued to the drama. But understanding what happened with the events directly relates to your ability to manage similar ones successfully. That’s the part you need to get right.

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Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

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The Complete Guide to Becoming an Authentic Thought Leader

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The Complete Guide to Becoming an Authentic Thought Leader

Introduce your processes: If you’ve streamlined a particular process, share it. It could be the solution someone else is looking for.

Jump on trends and news: If there’s a hot topic or emerging trend, offer your unique perspective.

Share industry insights: Attended a webinar or podcast that offered valuable insights. Summarize the key takeaways and how they can be applied.

Share your successes: Write about strategies that have worked exceptionally well for you. Your audience will appreciate the proven advice. For example, I shared the process I used to help a former client rank for a keyword with over 2.2 million monthly searches.

Question outdated strategies: If you see a strategy that’s losing steam, suggest alternatives based on your experience and data.

5. Establish communication channels (How)

Once you know who your audience is and what they want to hear, the next step is figuring out how to reach them. Here’s how:

Choose the right platforms: You don’t need to have a presence on every social media platform. Pick two platforms where your audience hangs out and create content for that platform. For example, I’m active on LinkedIn and X because my target audience (SEOs, B2B SaaS, and marketers) is active on these platforms.

Repurpose content: Don’t limit yourself to just one type of content. Consider repurposing your content on Quora, Reddit, or even in webinars and podcasts. This increases your reach and reinforces your message.

Follow Your audience: Go where your audience goes. If they’re active on X, that’s where you should be posting. If they frequent industry webinars, consider becoming a guest on these webinars.

Daily vs. In-depth content: Balance is key. Use social media for daily tips and insights, and reserve your blog for more comprehensive guides and articles.

Network with influencers: Your audience is likely following other experts in the field. Engaging with these influencers puts your content in front of a like-minded audience. I try to spend 30 minutes to an hour daily engaging with content on X and LinkedIn. This is the best way to build a relationship so you’re not a complete stranger when you DM privately.

6. Think of thought leadership as part of your content marketing efforts

As with other content efforts, thought leadership doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It thrives when woven into a cohesive content marketing strategy. By aligning individual authority with your brand, you amplify the credibility of both.

Think of it as top-of-the-funnel content to:

  • Build awareness about your brand

  • Highlight the problems you solve

  • Demonstrate expertise by platforming experts within the company who deliver solutions

Consider the user journey. An individual enters at the top through a social media post, podcast, or blog post. Intrigued, they want to learn more about you and either search your name on Google or social media. If they like what they see, they might visit your website, and if the information fits their needs, they move from passive readers to active prospects in your sales pipeline.

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