01. Copperberg Podcast
Episode 02
Preach What You Practice: Crafting Content that Drives Thought Leadership in Manufacturing
Running a smart and agile manufacturing operation
In this second episode of Copperberg Conversations on Manufacturing Matters, we talk about the evolving role of thought leadership in manufacturing and its growing significance for industry differentiation.
02. CONTENT
With digital content saturating the market, crafting impactful thought leadership that resonates with a discerning and often skeptical audience is more challenging than ever.
Key Topics Covered in This Episode:
- The Evolution of Thought Leadership – How it has become a critical focus for manufacturers and what makes it distinct from other content marketing efforts.
- Crafting a Unique Perspective – How companies can develop a compelling point of view that truly connects with their target audience.
- Strategic Alignment and Credibility – The importance of integrating thought leadership into broader marketing strategies and balancing storytelling with data.
- The Value of Neutrality – Why being a neutral content provider boosts credibility and how this approach drives meaningful impact in the manufacturing sector.
- Future Outlook – How AI and digital tools are reshaping the content marketing space and what kind of mindset companies need to do to stay ahead.
Throughout the episode, Lisa and Malin provide real-world examples and actionable advice for marketing leaders seeking to differentiate their brands and build stronger industry influence through thought leadership.
03. Speakers
Copperberg Conversations on Manufacturing Matters is your go-to podcast for candid discussions with the industry’s top thinkers and innovators.
04. Listen now
Preach What You Practice: Crafting Content that Drives Thought Leadership in Manufacturing
Our guests, Lisa Hellqvist, Co-Founder and Managing Director of Copperberg, and Malin Mostofi, Marketing Director at Copperberg, offer practical insights on how to create content that not only captures attention but builds lasting credibility.
05. Transcript
Nina Roper Yearwood (02:06)
Hello, Lisa. Hello, Malin. It’s great to have you both here to share insights on this topic. So to kick things off, could you please paint with a broad brush how you’ve seen the role of thought leadership evolve in the manufacturing sector? Why do you think it’s becoming such a big focus for companies now?
Lisa Hellqvist (02:30)
Hi Nina, thank you for having us today. And thank you Nina for setting this up actually. It’s a great topic to discuss and I would like to start off from the broad perspective and then Malin, you know, with her marketing insight can probably chip in on what has been, let’s say, the biggest changes I would also, that I would like to recognize in this opening part. And I think the, in general, the digital transformation of the industry has kind of forced our clients and our customers and our community to look at their own ability to create content that is actually consumable in a digital world. You know we’re all driven by things like search engine optimization and all of these things from a marketing perspective, but it’s also, you know, where we go to find things are to go online. And, you know, I think this advertising space of the 90s or early zero hundreds is a little bit behind us. And now we want actual content that brings us some kind of value and is relevant to the readership and the audience. So we also seek content that is relevant for us as content consumers. And that, think, has raised the bar on what you can provide your audience with. It needs to be relevant for them, basically. So that has, I would say, shifted the gear on how good companies have to be in terms of being able to put their own value proposition into something that is actually relevant for the audience. So they get that out to in front of the audience basically.
Malin Mostofi (04:12)
Yeah, absolutely. completely agree with you, Lisa. I mean, this is something that is kind of grown with the digital space. can kind of we all know we have algorithms that work so we can kind of see what we are interested in and companies have to follow. So I think this is kind of an industry wide thing, maybe not just manufacturing, but you know, in terms of content marketing, I think we all know that instead of just showing what we have and you know this is our product and this is you know by our product we have to kind of show by doing right and this is a little bit I think hard for for marketeers to embrace because we might think it’s obvious that our product or solution is the best but of course why it’s the best or why it’s needed is it needs to be understood by the audience and that’s where content marketing comes in because this is where it’s explained in a very different way. So you can kind of, I mean, I’m a parent, right? So you can take the example of parenting instead of telling your children, you know, you have to eat your vegetables. You have to explain to them why they should eat vegetables and why it’s good for them. So this is, it might sound simple, but of course we know it’s very hard in practice.
Because even though we know our product is great, it needs to be explained in a very different way. And content marketing is difficult. I think when we take it to manufacturing, there are a lot of big companies out there who have probably survived for a long time with simple branding. People know who they are and what they do.
It’s definitely a misconception that’s all that’s needed. We still need to understand why their product is helpful. So it’s really starting to pick up, I would say, in the manufacturing industry as well.
Nina Roper Yearwood (06:22)
It’s quite interesting, Malin, because I have read some studies and reports that say that manufacturing is a little bit late when it comes to adapting to new stuff. And also, that includes content marketing. So I’m actually very curious to dig deeper with you. Just take us back to how it looked like before when you started, like 10 years ago, what the needs were like in terms of visibility and talking to a target audience versus these days. What are the requirements to essentially reach the people that you want to do business with?
Malin Mostofi (07:05)
Yeah, and I think it’s one of these things where, again, there are big companies out there and they have survived for a very long time just being, and we’re talking about very specific sectors here, industrial manufacturing, you have big companies and everyone who operates in that industry knows who they are. So maybe there hasn’t been such a need to kind of portray thought leadership in the same sense. But there are a lot of new smaller companies popping up here and there doing smaller niche things. And they have perhaps been a little bit more agile when it comes to the marketing strategies where they have needed to kind of explain what it is that they’re doing in a very different way than just branding. And I think the big companies have seen that and started to follow.
So that’s kind of the main trend I think we’ve seen in the last 10 or so years.
Lisa Hellqvist (08:05)
I would agree and say also that, you you started with that Nina saying that manufacturing industry often fall behind. It’s true in some context, of course. I would say I would also like to argue that it’s also some of the things that if you say that enough times, it becomes true. It’s also, you know, we use that as provocative statements sometimes. Is that something you can hide behind or is it actually true? But I do see that given this whole kind of consumerization, even of the industry where we bring our kind of consumer preferences into our B2B roles, that has definitely driven a different kind of communication style. And, you know, if you just look at the 15 years ago, the technology might’ve been the thing that you had to explain because the technology was new. So you got a lot of room to just, you know, explain specifics and kind of, you know, what it can do in terms of capabilities from the technology, very technical kind of content that came out of the industry or the ones talking to the industry. So bear in mind, Copperberg has kind of two main target audiences that we create content for. And one is obviously the community itself that is by manufacturers for manufacturers. But then we also have by… the service and solution providers for manufacturers because they are a huge part of the ecosystem. So we cater for both sides in terms of content creation and we help both sides establish their thought leadership when they do content. But I think nowadays it’s not so much the technicalities that are interesting, it’s more how these technologies sit within different processes, strategies and how you actually enable and perform better through your organization by implementing, for example, these kind of technologies that might be the backbone of the change or that you rely on during the change. But I think there’s a paradigm shift here. No one wants to hear about, you know, different levels of software anymore. Everyone wants to hear what’s in it for me. And that’s kind of the big difference, in my opinion, that has shifted where you have to kind of. Yeah, I think people are more used to advertising, so they want to see the actual context of where this can be used.
Nina Roper Yearwood (10:22)
So just to look back on the previous campaigns that Copperberg has done, how have you seen companies use it to really drive impact in the industry, just trying to imagine the two audiences that we create contents for?
Lisa Hellqvist (10:43)
I would say that one of the biggest things that we do at Copperberg is mainly we try, I always call it, know, we’re bridging that gap, that linguistic gap sometimes even where it is a company, for example, let’s say it’s a software provider, just to make it simple, has a field service management solution that has all these incredible features and, you know, they have all these great case studies, for example, on how they have done well with their existing customer base, for example. What sometimes is the issue is for the software provider themselves to create thought leadership around this content, because they don’t really speak to these manufacturing community members on a daily basis, right? What we do then is that we come in as like the liaison and we look at, okay, what is the community currently facing as their main challenge or one of the main challenges because there’s obviously plenty. And we contextualize what the software provider is actually being able to help the community with to something that is relevant for the community. And that is just actually by, you know, kind of connecting the dots. It’s already there, but we just have to translate it into content that is actually again relevant for the audience, right? And that brings value and it’s a valuable read.
And that is how I would say you create thought leadership, because you have to have someone, you know, being, you know, the bearer of these messages, and you also have to connect it to the audience, right? So this is where we think at least we package it in a way where it becomes digestible content of value. And that is what we normally do, because I mean, no one’s going to sit and read through an article that is blatant advertising in the end. We don’t have that time anymore. So it needs to be something that’s, you know, what’s in it for me, for the reader, right? So that’s how we connect the dots. And we do the same with manufacturers, right? They might have this great change transformation story where we can come in and say, okay, these specific parts, and it’s often about the humans, to be honest, because those are the most intangible elements.
So we try to break down those kinds of change management aspects because they are rare to find through Google, for example, those kinds of personal experiential things from a change management project, for example, or a transformation project. And we try to capture those because the sort of how-to guides and the technicalities and the technology, those can be found anywhere, right? And people are always, almost always already equipped with that kind of knowledge of what they don’t know, which is kind of what the pitfalls were, what the success stories were, and those kinds of things that can inspire, right? So that’s what we’re trying to do is to make these two sides meet.
Nina Roper Yearwood (13:33)
So Malin, I’m just thinking about what Lisa was saying earlier, because obviously this entails a level of expertise when it comes to executing seamless, impactful thought leadership. So can you just tell our listeners, how do you think… you can set thought leadership apart from the usual content marketing work that is done by companies.
Malin Mostofi (14:20)
I think it’s difficult for any company to have an outside perspective on themselves. If you work in a company and you work on a product and you think your product is great and you want everyone to buy it, you know it’s good but it’s hard for you to explain why it’s good. You know, to make people as Lisa mentioned before, to add the actual value to it. So this is why company come to a company like us who can have an outside perspective on the value it brings to people. And you know, as Lisa said, we’re kind of the bridging, you know, the two sides here where we are also understanding, you know, not just one company, but several companies challenges since we speak to them a lot, both with our contents and events, et cetera. we might have a very different perspective on what they’re actually offering. And we also know what the audience wants to hear and tying those two things together is a very effective method of marketing really.
And this is not to say that they are not the experts in the product. Of course they are. But they might not know how to put it together in a piece that brings value to the actual reader.
Nina Roper Yearwood (15:50)
That’s very interesting, Malin, because this brings to mind practical examples, like how we actually flesh this out, draw this out from the subject matter experts, essentially. Because I think one of the key reasons I imagine is that a unique and compelling perspective that truly connects with your audience is something that you need help with from an external point of view.
So let’s talk about how you help clients uncover and express a perspective that truly connects with their audience.
Lisa Hellqvist (16:27)
That’s mostly what I do. We have a, of course, but I think many other media companies or third party providers would probably do the same. But of course, we rely also a lot on our daily communication with the community. As I said, we have our ear to the ground. We know what’s going on, what’s creating commotion. Of course, being a publisher and an events organizer and all of that, we see what kind of trends that are driving traffic, what seems to be resonating with the audience. So we already have that at the tip of our fingers when we go into discussions. On top of that, then the first sort of meeting where I normally interview the company that wants to do this kind of thought leadership piece is about defining what it is they want to relate to the audience. So I’m not so interested about specific technologies.
People love to talk about that, the brilliance of their own solutions and all of that. And that is by all means absolutely fine. But I think the product marketing team of your own organization would do that better than any third party. What we can do is then to dig a little bit deeper. So my questions will always be around, and we can take an example like AI again. It’s one of those that everyone wants to talk about.
If we take some of the solution providers we work with that obviously provide software, this is of course the talk of the town for now. And that’s something we of course respect. It is going to revolutionize or is revolutionizing the industry and many other industries outside or the world even. But one thing we have to bear in mind is that AI without context for the readers doesn’t do much, right? It’s just a buzzword.
I always use like, let’s go beyond the buzzwords, right? So it’s a phrase I use. We need to sort of break this down into the actual knock-on effect. And let’s say it’s AI in a specific context, let’s say in e-commerce, then, you know, what I’m trying to do is to define, let’s say added value for that potential e-commerce customer or that sort of digital buyer journey, where does AI sit within that? Then the thought leader piece is probably going to be about the enhancement of the buyer journey and how AI plays a role within it. Because in the end of the day, what the solution provider in this instance would like to tell the audience is obviously the greatness that is accomplished around this technology by implementing it, right? It’s not the technology itself, that’s the solution, but it helps a lot of other benefits and takes a lot of other boxes. And those are the ones that we’re trying to capture in order to make it relevant. So that’s where the sort of investigation begins. And then we have to, as Malin was saying, we’re crossing that bridge then, right? That’s where we suggest a certain number of angles and we call it frameworks to position that thought leadership piece. Whatever it might be, it’s normally an asset, an article, a webinar, could be a keynote speech at one of our events or a workshop or similar, but we’re trying to then pair this with the current needs of our community. So we make sure that this is a seamless experience, right? So it resonates. That’s what it has to do, right? That’s what you want to achieve.
Nina Roper Yearwood (20:00)
It’s almost like a matchmaking exercise, right? When it’s being done.
Lisa Hellqvist (20:03)
It is a lot. It’s almost like, you know, yeah, and it’s almost like, you know, I have to sit there and ask them for them if they like, you know, early morning walks and what kind of interests they have to make sure I have candidates on the other side that actually are qualified for this, right? So that’s what we’re trying to do. And since this is what we do on a daily basis, we have a strong, would say strong mindset around it also, where we we know that we are grabbing these little nuances from our target audiences. And we also have processes for making sure that we capture this relevance in different interactions with the company that is doing the thought leadership piece. So there are multiple instances. And then Malin and her team, of course, comes in to profile the target audience as well, which is a vital part of this. Because who are their desired receiver of this information?
I mean, I can’t write something extremely technical for AI, about AI for a target audience that has no technical background. That makes no sense. Then it’s probably more about, you know, processes, for example, that’s going to be emphasized or, you know, who is the intended reader.
Malin Mostofi (21:17)
Yeah, that is a very important part.
Nina Roper Yearwood (21:17)
Very interesting. Yeah, because I was just gonna ask Malin about, you know, how all these thought leadership pieces like white papers, reports, webinars fit into the bigger marketing picture. I imagine if, correct me if I’m wrong, that Malin is in the execution part. So once the unique perspective is in place, then Malin will come in to… essentially wrap it into something consumable. So Malin, with that in mind, can you just walk us through how this all fits in a broader strategy?
Malin Mostofi (21:57)
Yeah, I mean, of course, mean, kind of going back to what Lisa just mentioned about the target audience, this is kind of like, you know, the most vital part here, because there are instances, and we’ve had this even recently where a topic might be super interesting. We can definitely put together something about the topic with our knowledge and with, you know, having spoken to people and, know, with our with our expertise.
However, we might not have people within our community or enough people within our community for it to be an effective marketing campaign. So that is also something that needs to be in consideration, right? I mean, it needs to be niche enough to fit the kind of, know, this is a value to me. But it also needs to be a value to enough people for it to be effective as a marketing campaign, unless you’re really looking at those five people that might be working with your very niche topic, right? So this is a very big consideration that we will ask all of our clients to take into account. Yes, you can be super broad and say, these are the awesome things that you can do with AI, and that’s going to be super broad and people might find it interesting, but it’s not going to bring much value to what you do in your role. And you can be super niche and target only five people, but those are the five people you want to reach.
We would suggest something in between. And this is kind of what we do. But then, yes, once you have created that brilliant content marketing or what we call an asset that you can use, then that’s pretty much your work done for that campaign, because there are multiple ways you can repurpose this. So…
You know, you can adapt it to different platforms, you know, and you Nina, obviously you work in the social media sector. So you know that you can take an asset and make it interesting in several different ways by using several different quotes or videos or other mediums just to draw attention to that piece. You can translate it to put it into different audiences if there’s, you know, specific regions that you want to hit, can take certain parts and adapt it to different industries, different markets. So that one piece could really be your main strategic components here in your marketing campaign. So that is kind of that main job done. And this happens quite often that people come to us and they want to create that paper or reports and then they go on and do multiple things with it and that becomes quite successful.
Nina Roper Yearwood (24:55)
Very interesting. Just wanted to just pick your brain a little bit on this one, because I find it very interesting how one thing can be repurposed into, you know, some, into so many things. Like, you can probably even make a whole universe out of that one impactful piece of content that you have. So they all, mean, thought leadership gets this bad reputation that it’s not measurable, it’s quite nebulous as a concept. So how do these all map out to the broader business goal and in terms of measuring the impact of what was put out there, what the asset has done for the client.
Malin Mostofi (25:43)
Yes, sorry Lisa, you looked like you wanted to go there.
Lisa Hellqvist (25:44)
Yeah, no, think it might be more for you actually, Malin. But one thing that comes to mind, and I think Malin started with this just now, obviously an asset is an asset. And if it’s never circulated nowhere, it’s just an asset. It’s just on the shelf. So there needs to be a strategic plan, either if it’s by us or if… by the customer themselves, right? To distribute this into relevant audiences. But one thing that I wanted to add on to Malin’s, so what’s about the target audience is also that this fine line between making it too generic and too niche, this is kind of also where experience, I would say a little bit like what Copperberg has now, can make that definition, right? Because we know also that when we have assets that we publish, they are specific enough to drive a certain audience and they are generic enough to reach the broader part of that specific audience, but they are not, because you know, it’s not the general public that’s going to read this.
So you still have, and I always say that our assets to some extent are self-fulfilling, they’re based on interest. If anyone downloads a paper on, let’s say, an aftermarket pricing mix, somewhere along the line, they have decided that this was relevant to them.
So it’s also a little bit of hen and the egg situation here where, you know, the leads are probably qualified on interest, even if they might have a slightly different persona than the one that the customer was expecting. But I would say that that’s one of the things that we see in our campaigns are also very beneficial for us because we have that narrative around all these verticals where we operate in that we get, you know, people we probably wouldn’t have had on our firsthand choice for the readership to download it and all of a sudden we’ve given the customer a new set of prospects that they didn’t really look after either. So there is this interesting synergy here between interest and who consumes what kind of content. But then to map out the campaign there, think Malin knows this better, but I always say people can choose, either to use companies like ours to get it done.
But of course, that would probably be my only thing where I sometimes want to push back to people who buy these things. Like, but what did you do with the asset afterwards? Because I mean, if you don’t do anything with it, then you can’t really measure anything either. So I think we have to take measurability out of the asset itself and then the measurability needs to be put into the campaign.
Malin Mostofi (28:34)
Exactly. I mean, completely, I would also say that in one sense, I think it’s very measurable. Instead of nothing. I mean, if you compare it to it depends what you compare it to. If you compare it to a billboard, it’s very measurable. But you just have to do something with it. Exactly what Lisa says.
Malin Mostofi (28:55)
I mean, if you get an asset and you don’t do anything with it, no, you’re not going to get measurable results. But if you put a decent campaign about it, then you can measure anything you do. And it all depends on what it is that you want. What is your end goal? And whenever we talk to clients, we always kind of almost start there. What do you want to get out of this? Maybe you want to just get in touch with those five people within these five different companies.
Or maybe you want as many people as possible to see this specific asset and for you to be portrayed as a thought leader in this specific market. Or maybe you want to establish yourself in Germany. I mean, I don’t know. I mean, there are many different goals with German content marketing. And depending on that goal, if you have that goal clear, then it is quite easy to measure if you have achieved that goal or not at the end of it. Because if you have that asset and you create a good lead generation campaign, then of course you can measure the amount of leads, can measure the amount of attention you get on your social media campaigns, you can measure the traffic that it receives. All of these things are very measurable, but you have to actually action your plan.
Lisa Hellqvist (30:13)
Yeah. And I think going back to the overall business goals, it’s like, you have to be there in that space, right? It’s like, what’s the alternative to not be found? So, you know, if you’re not there, someone else is going to be there instead of you. Yeah. Right. So you have to create some kind of content that is, you know, searchable and that people can actually find you. And that is the overall business, you know, goal, would say of thought leadership and the other secondary part of that is that when you create a leadership, maybe for the external parties, such as customers or partners or networks that you work with, you also establish a certain storytelling around your own brand. That also works internally. You teach your own members of staff your value proposition by manifesting it to the world. This is also something that comes as a knock on effect that I think we let’s not forget about it.
Because if people then, know, people will associate certain brands with certain communication styles and you know, so there’s a space you have to be in, I would say. And I think it’s even more important, you know, in anyone who’s dealing with, you know, needs to be found by customers, basically. So it could be, you know, where we… thrive, it’s obviously around, you know, maybe the service functions and the aftermarket function where the customer still has like an ongoing relation with that brand. Or if you take, example, the customers that are software providers of any way, or form, where they have to declare their value proposition and their differentiator and USPs and whatever in different contexts. And as I said today, I don’t think anyone has the bandwidth for like blunt advertising. I think we have enough of that.
So it needs to be contextualized and relevant. That’s where I think it fits the overall business goals.
Nina Roper Yearwood (32:16)
Very interesting, because I think I can see here that KPIs are very important. Establish first so that you can measure what is out there. An asset is just an asset unless you do something with it. So there has to be a campaign around it.
Lisa Hellqvist (32:32)
Yeah. But it’s interesting also quantity over quality. That is a big thing that has happened is that actually, it’s a little bit where I was going with my idea here on the, interest fulfilling or like if an interest is there, it’s kind of self-fulfilling that the lead is qualified, right? But we’ve moved over the last decade or so, at least, or 15 years from quantity and kind of web advertising where it’s a lot of, you know, impressions, click-through rates and these kinds of things to companies actually saying, here’s our target account list. Can you activate these and can they be qualified? And yes, we can. And then of course, that thought leadership is being quite niched by, it’s almost like by proxy. So it’s just how it’s going to be. So that’s also what has shifted. There’s a lot of assets out there that we create that is probably never going to be read by any general member of public, right? But they will be very known by the specific domain. They know it. They know what we do, right, it goes under the radar. But it ends up in front of the relevant people.
Nina Roper Yearwood (33:42)
So it’s about, it’s not about what you say, but how you say it to the people that matter. And so I think here we could really go back to credibility, playing a huge role, whether your audience will trust or engage with your message. And this brings us to the value of neutrality. How does Copperberg’s neutrality as an original content provider, help organizations enhance the credibility and impact of their thought leadership? And then in what ways does this impartiality add value and resonate with audiences in the manufacturing sector?
Lisa Hellqvist (34:31)
I can start from the content perspective. There’s obviously a neutrality in the circulation and the campaign as well. But what my team does is obviously we are not scared to showcase, let’s say that if we’re going to write a piece about a specific challenge, we have to be honest about all elements of that specific challenge.
So that includes even things that cannot be solved by what we’re discussing in the piece. So it needs to have all aspects covered within that specific area that we’re covering. And it might be that there is not one size fits all in types of solutions or what we’re talking about for the thought leadership. But we’re trying to capture one way of doing it.
And that is something that’s really important. So we have different aspects of these are pitfalls. You have to have this kind of service maturity level, for example, if we write something for the service market. So it really is for the reader, they understand that, okay, here are the sort of framework hypothesis on which this is built. And that is also, you know, showcasing both the good and the bad, and the risks of certain things within the same piece gives it a certain authority and a certain gravitas, as our colleague Kris always uses a word, because it does actually. We have to be able to understand that challenges are there for reason. So there will be objections to transformations. And if we don’t address those in these thought leadership pieces, for example, then we haven’t really done our due diligence on the challenge itself.
So we need to address it, whatever it might be, right? And then of course, our job is to then also make sure that that neutrality is something that the customer wishes to portray as well. But that’s where we come in because we are convinced that we lose our standpoint as this neutral partner if we don’t showcase that side. And that is often something that, to tie into what Malin said before, it’s very hard to do internally, right? It’s very hard to objectively look at your own value proposition and actually create that. But we can do that. And we always try to do to, you know, still have that roadmap on how to solve the challenge that we, but we have to also pinpoint potential risks. Otherwise we’re not doing it correctly.
Malin Mostofi (37:17)
Yeah, and to add to that from a marketing point of view, mean, course, endorsement in any kind of, within any kind of marketing is effective. And when it comes to content marketing, of course, it’s a very subtle endorsement, but it’s still a neutral company that writes about something that this company is currently working on. And then they can use that to their advantage.
It is essentially, you know, word of mouth, somebody tells you the value of something that that company actually happens to work with. But of course, as Lisa says, we obviously have to work, you know, write what we actually believe. We would never write something that we don’t think brings the industry forward, or is not within our interest.
If there is a company that really wants to write something that is not the case or want to twist it in a way that is not, you we believe is of interest to readers, then we will kind of adjust it accordingly or we would just not write it that way. We have to believe what we write ourselves.
Nina Roper Yearwood (38:39)
So to finish on a forward-looking note, I just want to hear your take on AI and the mindset around it from a thought leadership perspective. So looking ahead with AI and digital tools changing so fast, how should companies adapt their thought leadership strategies? What kind of mindset do you think will keep them ahead?
Malin Mostofi (38:41)
Yeah, I mean, from a marketing point of view, and when we talk about content marketing, I would say, don’t be afraid of them. Use them. They are here. So I think it’s very important to, understand how to use them as opposed to kind of being, you know, okay, now AI is, is writing everything. Embrace them. But I think we have to realize that they are not human and they will not replace human thinking or at least not yet, who knows what’s gonna happen. But right now, they are not human. So they can be very effective as a base. And this is kind of where anybody can use them. So if you use an AI tool for a base, just to kind of collect your thoughts, that can be very effective. But then there needs to be further fine tuning, right? There needs to be somebody coming in there and saying, okay, what direction do we actually want this to go? And this is kind of where we come in. So a company who would want to kind of speak to us about creating an asset, I would really advise them to first put their thoughts, put it into an AI tool, collect those thoughts, send them to us, and then we can actually fine tune that from there on. Because sometimes you don’t really know where to start, right? You just, okay, what do I want out of this? And you just have kind of keywords and passwords and technical aspects, I don’t know. And then if you put it into system and that kind of compiles it for you, that’s going to save you lot of time, really. So I would say embrace them and use them to become effective. But no, that’s not, they’re not going to… they’re not going to be able to add the kind of human thinking behind it. At least not yet.
Lisa Hellqvist (41:05)
And I mean, I think it’s, there’s a risk reward in AI and content marketing, I would like to say, or in thought leadership. The risk is where people, if we take Chat GPT as an example here, because I guess it’s AIs like that, that we’re predominantly maybe looking into when we say, you know, might replace article creations and content writers, et cetera, right? So when we… talk about that, the risk is that you get an AI that creates content from scratch, right? And then your own, if I would do that, my own thought leadership will go lost because Chat GPT will not bring in the nuances and the knowledge and whatever it is that I want to capture. So I would say stay a bit away from that.
That like starting from scratch, write my thesis kind of mindset. Because also Chat GPT does a lot of mistakes because it accumulates data. So if there’s many old data or whatever and data that’s not relevant to your specific vertical, you risk having a lot of fact check issues afterwards. So be a bit cautious with that. On the other hand, what we discussed, for example, with an asset that’s not getting repurposed correctly, this is a brilliant idea of using a Chat GPT function or similar AI, could be Gemini by Google or whatever, right? Is that you already have your original text. Now you can get help from AI to structure this for different channels. It’s very helpful to actually do that kind of thing for you. And then of course, as Malin said, you always have like, you need a human eye and someone with the accountability to go through it at the end, just like you proofread anything that goes to print. Basically, you should proofread anything that goes into publish, whatever platform you may use. But I always say that AI structures data. So if you have data, use AI for that. As long as you created the original data, it’s a highly valid high speed qualified secretary for you, so rely on that, your efficiency will go up. But by all means, don’t trust it to create your original content. It needs to come from some kind of brain if you want this vertical expertise that we’re operating within, because it won’t be able to do that. There’s not enough non-generic information on it to be truly relevant.
On the other hand, if you want to do generic blog posts to drive traffic, go ahead. I mean, it’s brilliant for that, but then I don’t think you write the blog to get readers. You write the blogs for traffic. It’s a totally different, what’s the reason behind it? So everyone has to ask, and obviously us operating in a content creation world and a publishing company, we use it for efficiency in our processes, but we never use it for content creation, if that makes sense.
Nina Roper Yearwood (44:16)
Very well said. So original, contextualized, relevant. That’s thought leadership that we’ve talked about.
Malin Mostofi (44:17)
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, it will not be able to be an effective tool from start to finish of a piece. It is just not going to… If you want it to be of value to the reader, mean, as Lisa says, collects information from all different sources. You do need somebody who knows what direction you want to go to be able to adjust that.
If you want something to start writing something for you so you know how to adjust it or as Lisa says if you want someone to take out parts of it and create I don’t know like a summary or you know whatever it may be it can be effective you know you can look at it and rewrite it but original content no.
Lisa Hellqvist (44:55)
Summary is a good thing.
Yeah, but at that instance, you also control the data, right? Because you’ve put the prompt with your original content into it. So you know that the summary is going to be based on your own content. That’s where I think it’s a moral ground there also, not only moral, but I’ve actually tried to write things from scratch to see what it can do more as like a pilot project. It goes, it’s not really spot on, right? But if I take a transcript, let’s say from this podcast and put it in, we will probably get a beautiful little summary that fits well into YouTube description, for example.
Malin Mostofi (45:38)
And some of it might not make any sense at all. But yeah, that’s our problem. But yeah, mean, of course, but what I’m saying is you, I think we can, it can be used for a lot of time-saving exercises. Of course, if you are scared of AI as a kind of data collecting thing, then maybe don’t put your company secrets in there, you know, because who knows where that data goes. You know, I personally wouldn’t use it like that. But if it’s just about, know, can you just formulate the sentence or rewrite the sentence for me because your mind is standing still can be very effective.
Lisa Hellqvist (46:25)
Yeah. And I mean, worth mentioning is also there’s so many tools. We speak about AI as one, right? But it’s so many different types of AI that does, you know, the ones that draws it on its own conclusions compared to just accumulating data. You have the differences of, for example, if, since we’re talking about content marketing.
So, you know, when it comes to content writing, and this is something maybe worth mentioning in this podcast also, there’s a lot of content writing.
AI check tools out there. I don’t know how many of them you’ve tried, Nina, but I’ve tried, did a day where I spent about two hours testing about 20 of them and they gave me somewhere between 0 % human to 100 % human. So it was not very reliable in terms of an average, but I think on average it picked up like, 75 % human or something, but it was actually something I’d written myself. And then I took another, the opposite, something that was written and, you know, spell checked by Grammarly and updated. And, you know, that was the same result, right? So it is a little bit tricky with those and that’s why I want to flag it. So don’t rely on that too much because there’s a lot of things, just if people use spell checkers, it might be flagged as AI created content.
So be aware of that and be aware that Chat GPT closed down their own one because it was too unreliable. So I just want to leave that because it’s one of the things where we sometimes get, but this is 85% and I’m like okay no but…
Nina Roper Yearwood (48:10)
Isn’t it weird asking a machine to verify your humanness?
Lisa Hellqvist (48:13)
Exactly. I mean, you know, I’ve always said that, you know, AI is also inevitable going to be a part of content writers every day. I just hope that there is, as I said, that you feel that the consciousness, as long as we have created our own original content and the source of that content with all that brain power it takes to do that.
Malin Mostofi (48:14)
Right?
Lisa Hellqvist (48:37)
And that whole process of matching these aspects, then I think we’re fine. We will always have to rely on smart tools to do spell checking and is it English grammar, American grammar, whoever it is, is on the other side, right? And then in that specific instance, when we click accept, it might be triggered, it might rewrite it in a way that is triggered as AI in an AI checker later on. So I think everyone has to just understand where it… is outperforming the human and where it’s not.
Nina Roper Yearwood (49:13)
Perfect, so with that, we end this episode on thought leadership in manufacturing. Thank you Lisa and Malin for sharing with us your expertise. You’ve given us so much to think about.
Lisa Hellqvist (49:24)
Thank you.
Malin Mostofi (49:24)
Thank you, Nina.
