{"course":{"slug":"ai-for-small-business","title":"AI for a Small Business","url":"https://addaly.com/learn/ai-for-small-business","level":"beginner","track":"work"},"lesson":{"slug":"marketing-that-sounds-like-you","title":"Posts That Do Not Sound Generated","url":"https://addaly.com/learn/ai-for-small-business/marketing-that-sounds-like-you","position":40,"of":88,"minutes":7,"answer":"Generated text reads generated because it is empty; fill it with what only you saw today.","keyIdea":"Generated text reads generated because it is empty; fill it with what only you saw today."},"body":{"format":"markdown","text":"## Why people can tell\n\nCustomers now spot generated text in about a second, and spotting it costs you more trust than a plain, clumsy post ever would.\n\nThe tells are consistent:\n\n- Nothing specific. Claims that could belong to any business in your trade.\n- Everything in threes. Three adjectives, three benefits, three-part sentences, over and over.\n- Vocabulary nobody uses out loud: elevate, seamless, curated, passionate about.\n- The hedge. \"Many customers find that...\"\n- A closing question nobody asked. \"What's your favourite way to start the morning?\"\n\nHere is the thing worth understanding: none of that is a style problem. It is what text looks like when it contains no information. The model wrote around a hole, because you gave it a topic instead of a fact.\n\n## Bring raw material, not a topic\n\n\"Write a post about our bakery\" produces a hole. This does not:\n\n```\nThis morning: started 4:40. Flour delivery was two hours late\nso we ran the sourdough behind everything. 22 loaves out at\n8:15 instead of 7. Sold out by 10:40 anyway. Regular customer\nAntoni waited 40 minutes and took two.\n\nTurn this into a 60-word Instagram caption. Plain, first\nperson, no hashtags, no closing question. Keep the times.\n```\n\nSame model, same account, completely different post, because the second one contains things only you could know.\n\nThe practical habit: talk into your phone for ninety seconds at the end of the day about what actually happened. Feed that in. Your job is the material; the model's job is compression and format.\n\n## Teach it your voice with examples\n\nAdjectives do not transfer voice. Examples do.\n\nPaste five things you wrote yourself (captions, emails, a WhatsApp broadcast) and say: match this. It will pick up your sentence length, whether you use contractions, that you always lead with the price, that you never use a question mark. None of which you could have described.\n\nThen edit, every time, with three cuts:\n\n1. Delete the last line. It is almost always a rhetorical question or a tidy summary.\n2. Remove one adjective per sentence.\n3. Put back the odd detail it smoothed away. The 40-minute wait. The name Antoni. That detail is the post.\n\n## Cheap to post is not a reason to post\n\nAI makes daily posting easy, which is a trap. Posting daily with nothing to say trains your audience to scroll past you. Weekly with something real beats daily with filler, and always did.\n\nThe cost of AI marketing is usually not money. It is paid in attention, and you cannot get it back.\n\n## The line you do not cross\n\nYou do not need to label a caption you wrote with help. Writing tools are writing tools.\n\nYou do need to never fabricate:\n\n- No invented customer reviews or testimonials. In most countries this is straightforwardly illegal advertising, and the fines are not small.\n- No AI-generated photo of a product you do not sell, or a shop interior that does not exist.\n- No fake before-and-after. In regulated trades (clinics, cosmetics, weight loss) this is the fastest route to a complaint that sticks.\n- No AI face presented as a real member of staff or a real customer.\n\nMajor platforms increasingly require synthetic media to be labelled, and the EU AI Act adds transparency duties for AI-generated content as it phases in. But the practical reason is simpler. Every one of these is discoverable, and being caught faking a review is a story that outlives the business.\n\n## The summary\n\nAI is good at the second draft of marketing and bad at the first. It cannot notice that the light was good this morning, that a customer said something funny, or that the new supplier is better. Those are the posts that work, and they still start with you paying attention."},"check":{"question":"A baker's caption reads generic. Which edit most removes the generated feel?","options":[{"text":"Replace the general claims with what actually happened: the 4:40 start, the late flour, the 22 loaves at 8:15","correct":true},{"text":"Ask for a \"casual, human tone\" and add a couple of emoji","correct":false,"tempting":"Register is not the problem: it reads generated because it contains nothing that only this bakery could say."},{"text":"Ask it to cut the caption to half the length","correct":false,"tempting":"Shorter generated text is still generated text; brevity removes words, not the emptiness underneath them."},{"text":"Run it through a second model with instructions to strip out AI-sounding phrases","correct":false,"tempting":"Paraphrasing swaps the vocabulary while leaving the missing specifics exactly as missing as they were."}]},"prev":{"slug":"listings-quotes-proposals","title":"Listings, Menus, Quotes and Proposals","url":"https://addaly.com/learn/ai-for-small-business/listings-quotes-proposals"},"next":{"slug":"product-photos-honestly","title":"Editing a product photo, and where editing becomes a lie","url":"https://addaly.com/learn/ai-for-small-business/product-photos-honestly"},"authorship":"Founder and series editor: Dr Mustafa Mun. Written by AI models to a written standard. Exam keys checked blind by a second model: 3,665 of 3,666 agreed. Academic review invited.","review":{"status":"Draft, open for academic review"},"cite":"Addaly (2026) 'Posts That Do Not Sound Generated', in AI for a Small Business. Edited by M. Mun. Addaly. Available at: https://addaly.com/learn/ai-for-small-business/marketing-that-sounds-like-you (Accessed: 31 October 2026).","licence":{"name":"CC BY-NC-SA 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/"},"reader":{"schema":1,"title":"Posts That Do Not Sound Generated","courseTitle":"AI for a Small Business","module":{"index":5,"slug":"selling-and-being-found","title":"Selling: listings, images, marketing and price"},"answer":null,"keyIdea":"Generated text reads generated because it is empty; fill it with what only you saw today.","hero":{"kind":"plate","image":null,"alt":null,"caption":null},"blocks":[{"t":"h2","id":"why-people-can-tell","runs":[{"text":"Why people can tell"}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"Customers now spot generated text in about a second, and spotting it costs you more trust than a plain, clumsy post ever would."}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"The tells are consistent:"}]},{"t":"ul","items":[[{"text":"Nothing specific. Claims that could belong to any business in your trade."}],[{"text":"Everything in threes. Three adjectives, three benefits, three-part sentences, over and over."}],[{"text":"Vocabulary nobody uses out loud: elevate, seamless, curated, passionate about."}],[{"text":"The hedge. “Many customers find that...”"}],[{"text":"A closing question nobody asked. “What’s your favourite way to start the morning?”"}]]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"Here is the thing worth understanding: none of that is a style problem. It is what text looks like when it contains no information. The model wrote around a hole, because you gave it a topic instead of a fact."}]},{"t":"h2","id":"bring-raw-material-not-a-topic","runs":[{"text":"Bring raw material, not a topic"}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"“Write a post about our bakery” produces a hole. This does not:"}]},{"t":"code","lang":"","label":"Text","text":"This morning: started 4:40. Flour delivery was two hours late\nso we ran the sourdough behind everything. 22 loaves out at\n8:15 instead of 7. Sold out by 10:40 anyway. Regular customer\nAntoni waited 40 minutes and took two.\n\nTurn this into a 60-word Instagram caption. Plain, first\nperson, no hashtags, no closing question. Keep the times."},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"Same model, same account, completely different post, because the second one contains things only you could know."}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"The practical habit: talk into your phone for ninety seconds at the end of the day about what actually happened. Feed that in. Your job is the material; the model’s job is compression and format."}]},{"t":"h2","id":"teach-it-your-voice-with-examples","runs":[{"text":"Teach it your voice with examples"}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"Adjectives do not transfer voice. Examples do."}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"Paste five things you wrote yourself (captions, emails, a WhatsApp broadcast) and say: match this. It will pick up your sentence length, whether you use contractions, that you always lead with the price, that you never use a question mark. None of which you could have described."}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"Then edit, every time, with three cuts:"}]},{"t":"ol","start":1,"items":[[{"text":"Delete the last line. It is almost always a rhetorical question or a tidy summary."}],[{"text":"Remove one adjective per sentence."}],[{"text":"Put back the odd detail it smoothed away. The 40-minute wait. The name Antoni. That detail is the post."}]]},{"t":"h2","id":"cheap-to-post-is-not-a-reason-to-post","runs":[{"text":"Cheap to post is not a reason to post"}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"AI makes daily posting easy, which is a trap. Posting daily with nothing to say trains your audience to scroll past you. Weekly with something real beats daily with filler, and always did."}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"The cost of AI marketing is usually not money. It is paid in attention, and you cannot get it back."}]},{"t":"h2","id":"the-line-you-do-not-cross","runs":[{"text":"The line you do not cross"}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"You do not need to label a caption you wrote with help. Writing tools are writing tools."}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"You do need to never fabricate:"}]},{"t":"ul","items":[[{"text":"No invented customer reviews or testimonials. In most countries this is straightforwardly illegal advertising, and the fines are not small."}],[{"text":"No AI-generated photo of a product you do not sell, or a shop interior that does not exist."}],[{"text":"No fake before-and-after. In regulated trades (clinics, cosmetics, weight loss) this is the fastest route to a complaint that sticks."}],[{"text":"No AI face presented as a real member of staff or a real customer."}]]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"Major platforms increasingly require synthetic media to be labelled, and the EU AI Act adds transparency duties for AI-generated content as it phases in. But the practical reason is simpler. Every one of these is discoverable, and being caught faking a review is a story that outlives the business."}]},{"t":"h2","id":"the-summary","runs":[{"text":"The summary"}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"AI is good at the second draft of marketing and bad at the first. It cannot notice that the light was good this morning, that a customer said something funny, or that the new supplier is better. Those are the posts that work, and they still start with you paying attention."}]}],"check":{"question":[{"text":"A baker’s caption reads generic. Which edit most removes the generated feel?"}],"options":[{"text":[{"text":"Replace the general claims with what actually happened: the 4:40 start, the late flour, the 22 loaves at 8:15"}],"correct":true,"tempting":null},{"text":[{"text":"Ask for a “casual, human tone” and add a couple of emoji"}],"correct":false,"tempting":[{"text":"Register is not the problem: it reads generated because it contains nothing that only this bakery could say."}]},{"text":[{"text":"Ask it to cut the caption to half the length"}],"correct":false,"tempting":[{"text":"Shorter generated text is still generated text; brevity removes words, not the emptiness underneath them."}]},{"text":[{"text":"Run it through a second model with instructions to strip out AI-sounding phrases"}],"correct":false,"tempting":[{"text":"Paraphrasing swaps the vocabulary while leaving the missing specifics exactly as missing as they were."}]}],"order":[1,0,3,2],"why":null},"prev":{"slug":"listings-quotes-proposals","title":"Listings, Menus, Quotes and Proposals","minutes":8},"next":{"slug":"product-photos-honestly","title":"Editing a product photo, and where editing becomes a lie","minutes":9}}}