Why Your Social Media Sounds Like Everyone Else (And How to Fix It)
Local business owners have been working with AI platforms for a while now, and, given the enquiries we’re receiving from them, they’re frustrated that their social media posts are generating no enquiries, no comments, no new work. In this blog we look at why generic AI social media content fails, and how to co-create AI social media in a way that succeeds.
The businesses we talk to saw a great opportunity to let AI do what they struggle to do. They made exactly the right business choice in signing up to an AI platform. What they got, though, was a feed made up of empty digital copy. This is characterised by posts that sound like a textbook that nobody’s asked for, and that don’t stand a chance of enticing scrolling customers; they simply sink into the AI mire and disappear.
At Outsource Your Marketing we want new technologies to work for businesses; so we’ve put together this blog to show how it’s done.
Why Feeds Punish Generic AI Social Media Posts
Meta, Instagram, and LinkedIn don’t care about how neat and correct your content is. The only thing they’re interested in is when a thumb stops scrolling at your post. This gets tested with a small group of past buyers or engaged scrollers – also known as a ‘seed audience’. If they scroll past in less than a second, the algorithm consigns the post to the dustbin – social media is a ‘dog eat dog’ world.
What you’re aiming for with social media, is a post that will stop that scrolling thumb for just for a couple of seconds, before it scrolls on. Achieve that, and you become visible. We’ve put what you need to avoid, and how to avoid it, in the table below.
Content | Generic AI Example | Co-Created Example | Algorithm Action |
SM Post Opener | Regular maintenance is essential for longevity. | We pulled 3 tonnes of soaked timber out of a floor in Kempston this morning. | Generic openings cause an immediate swipe; real-world hooks stop the thumb. |
Visual Evidence | Canva graphic or stock image of tools. | A good phone photo of your van, team, or the job halfway through. | Stock graphics are dismissed as ads. Genuine job photos get inspected and stop the thumb. |
Tone of Voice | Impersonal copy: High standards are maintained. | Direct, first-person copy: Here’s why we never fit cheap fittings. | Active copy keeps the sentence alive to the end; it signals quality to the algorithm. |
Call to Action | Contact us today for all your requirements! | Noticed your water pressure dropping? Tell us about it below. | Specific questions invite comments – which prompt the platform to extend the reach of the post. |
AI’s Blindspots That Signal a Human Behind the Post
Large language models are trained on billions of web pages; in the process they learn to say very little in a polished and neatly constructed way. What they can’t do as a result of their training, is reproduce the messiness of being a human trying to get a job done in the real world. AI has never experienced this, but for humans it’s an essential experience we all have.
Co-creating with AI is all about spotting the gaps and filling them in with your firsthand experience, because the messiness is what those scrollers will pause their thumb for.
Here are some examples of the gaps and the filler that’s needed to get your social media posts seen:
• ‘Quality Service’ – Fill this gap by describing a problem you spotted after a couple of other tradesmen had completely missed it.
• ‘AI Graphic’ – Use an unedited photo of your van outside a local property, or one of your team on site working.
• ‘Adds Value’ – What does that even mean? Tell your audience about how much a customer of yours almost paid because of poor advice instead – that’s adding value!
• ‘Local Identity’ – Don’t just say where you work, talk about your local town or area by referencing local council regulations, local working conditions, the traffic hotspots, the local football team – identify yourself with the place you work in.
How to Put AI to Work as a Co-Creator
There’s no need to abandon AI – you just need to change what you ask it to do. Don’t ask it to be your marketing director; it’ll completely fail at that job. Instead, treat it like a new marketing starter that’s learning your trade. Here’s how to work with it in a way that will get your posts seen.
1. Quickly Capture What You Do
When you finish a job, or a particularly tricky part of a job, take a couple of photos. Use your WhatsApp voice note (or equivalent) to quickly say what the job was, what the problem was that you fixed, how you went about it, and what the customer had tried to do themselves before they called you.
2. Use AI as Your Editor
Send the voice note to your AI tool with an instruction that’s something like this:
Turn these rough notes into three short paragraphs for a Facebook post. Keep my direct tone, use plain English, remove all corporate adjectives, and finish with a question about boiler servicing.
3. Watch Your Post For 60 Minutes
Social platforms evaluate posts during their first hour online. So, use that hour to improve its chance of getting seen. Check your phone after about 40 mins (use an alarm to remind you); if someone’s left a comment, respond with a helpful, chatty sentence, so the algorithm sees the interaction and extends the reach of the post.
Making AI Work for Your Business
How can Outsource Your Marketing help with your Social Media posts? You’re the expert; our job is to get your skills in front of prospective customers. We work with AI on your behalf; you provide the voice notes, photos, and local updates; we run the tech, make your posts eye-catching, optimise them for local SEO and provide human responses to comments.
We’ll keep your social media schedule humming along with posts that reliably capture the thumbs of local customers.
