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Quick wins for EEAT and new Al disclosure requirements from Youtube

April 4 - Edition #6

Author

Dia Creative
April 04, 2024

April 4, 2024 - Edition #6

This week you’ll learn:

  • 🥊 How YouTube is fighting against AI content

  • 🤝 The power of familiarity for brands

  • 🐈 How a pet-food company ditched stores and struck gold

  • 👨‍🔬 What EEAT can do for your website's credibility

  • ⚡️ Quick Hits: TikTok shopping, 3-minute reels, Sneaky Reddit ads.

YouTube Mandates AI Content Disclosure

YouTube is introducing a new policy that requires creators to disclose when their videos use AI-generated content.

Image Source: Euronews

Disclosure Requirements

YouTube will mandate disclosure labels for videos featuring AI-generated content that mimics real people, places, or events. Examples of what requires disclosure include:

  • Face Swapping: Digitally replacing one person's face with another's.

  • Synthetic Voiceovers: AI-generated narration mimicking human voices.

  • Altered Footage: Modifying real event footage to depict a different reality.

  • Fictional Scenes: Generating realistic scenes of fictional significant events.

Exceptions and Enforcement

Given that AI is often used for productivity, YouTube will not require disclosure for minor adjustments like color correction or beauty filters, nor will it be required for unrealistic content.

Creators will have time to adapt, but YouTube may enforce the policy for consistent non-compliance and even add labels themselves if necessary. YouTube is also updating its privacy process to allow removal requests for AI content simulating individuals without consent.

Implications for Brands

Brands that use AI-generated (or assisted) content on YouTube should:

  • Proactively Disclose: Disclose AI usage now to build trust with viewers.

  • Maintain Authenticity: Balance AI's capabilities with a human touch to preserve brand authenticity.

  • Respect Privacy: Avoid using AI to simulate identifiable individuals without consent.

  • Monitor Enforcement: Stay informed about YouTube's evolving AI policies to ensure compliance.

As AI becomes more prevalent in content creation, transparency is crucial. Marketers must balance AI capabilities with authenticity to remain in good standing on YouTube.

Familiarity will Future-Proof Your Brand

Most niches are oversaturated with dozens of brands vying for consumer attention. Often it’s not the best, but the most familiar brand that wins.

What is the Familiarity Bias?

The familiarity bias is the tendency to favor known options over new ones, acting as a cognitive shortcut for consumers overwhelmed by choices. It might not result in the best decision, but it does make choice easy.

The Power of Familiarity for Brands

Familiarity as a Gut Feeling

Our preference for the familiar is rooted in emotion. Neuropsychological research indicates that familiarity triggers a biological response similar to seeing a loved one.

Brands that fail to establish this emotional connection risk being viewed as "imposters," undermining that trust.

How to Build Familiarity

Building familiarity and trust should be a core goal of your overall marketing strategy. To gain all the benefits of friendly consumers:

  • Establish Consistent Branding: People need visual signals they can latch onto. Make sure you have a consistent identity across all platforms. Typography, icons, and copywriting all need to be consistent.

  • Visibility: Show off your brand! Put effort into your organic socials creating content built for your audience. Focus on brand-building marketing tactics like top-of-the-funnel ads rather than just ones that directly convert.

  • Quality Product: Customers need to be familiar with your product and its quality benefits, not just your brand. Without a quality product, familiarity is useless. Quality means meeting the consumer's needs, ideally uniquely and memorably.

  • Enable Word-Of-Mouth: With a consistent identity and a quality product, give customers easy paths to share your brand. Focus on interactive social media strategies that pull the customer in and make them part of the story. Take the best content they contribute and boost it through your channels, featuring it on your socials and website.

Pitfalls of Familiarity in Global Branding

Establishing familiarity as brands expand globally is a nuanced game that demands careful attention to cultural nuances. Attention to these details is crucial for creating consistent and engaging experiences across different markets.

Cultivating brand familiarity requires genuine connections based on cultural understanding, personalization, and consistency. In an era of AI, it's the human touch that will be the ultimate competitive advantage.

HAPPYBOND's 267% Growth with D2C Pivot

Shifting from retail to direct-to-consumer subscriptions, pet food company HAPPYBOND nearly tripled growth in just one month. Here's how they did it.

Image Source: HAPPYBOND

Overcoming Operational Challenges

Pivoting from retail to D2C required significant operational changes for HAPPYBOND. They had to ensure a reliable supply, build special shipping boxes, set up a frictionless e-commerce experience, and deliver to customers on a precise schedule.

Anja Skodda, HAPPYBOND's founder, relied on her network of other pet brands and advisors to navigate the shift. "I always encourage other business owners to recognize that they're not the first person to do this and to be unafraid of asking for help and advice."

Replacing the In-Person Experience

To replicate the benefits of in-store shopping online, HAPPYBOND focused on providing high-quality product content to help customers understand what they were purchasing. They also introduced variety packs allowing customers to test flavors before committing, which resulted in a 70% conversion rate. Additionally, they partnered with Cognetix AI to identify high-value customers, reducing acquisition costs by 50% in just 10 days.

Customers are the Best Advocates

HAPPYBOND celebrates its customers and uses their experiences in its marketing:

  • User-Generated Content: Relying on customer videos and testimonials in addition to in-house marketing materials. "People talking about why our brand is different and how their dog reacts to our food is a big hit."

  • Influencer Partnerships: Working with creators who believe in the brand and create content in exchange for products and a small fee.

  • Loyalty Program: Launching a rewards program alongside the D2C pivot to incentivize repeat purchases.

By focusing on streamlined operations, customer experiences, and a loyalty strategy, HAPPYBOND achieved remarkable growth with their D2C subscription model. While maintaining an omnichannel approach, the D2C side significantly boosted revenue and brand equity.

E-E-A-T Quick Wins for Credibility

Google's helpful content updates over the past 18 months emphasize the importance of demonstrating E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authority, Trust) to establish credibility in the eyes of users and search engines.

Understanding E-E-A-T

Let's break down what each letter in E-E-A-T represents:

  • Experience: Demonstrating first-hand involvement in your field. For example, photos of a doctor performing client diagnosis to show their experience within the industry.

  • Expertise: Showcasing high levels of skill, such as listing accreditations and degrees on your website to prove your knowledge and qualifications.

  • Authority: Being cited in authoritative publications, often in the form of relevant backlinks from credible industry sources.

  • Trust: Displaying credibility by providing original content in place of stock images.

Quick Wins for E-E-A-T

The best EEAT is an asset built slowly over time. But there are a few quick wins. Make sure you check these boxes and you’ll have a good foundation.

  • Use Real Authors: Convince users that the content writer knows their stuff by using identifiable authors.

  • Author Bios: Include author bios to showcase their credibility.

  • Author Pages: Create dedicated author pages linking to their content, social profiles, and credentials.

  • Schema Markup: Use schema to help Google understand the author's credibility.

  • Edit Timestamps: For rapidly changing niches like medicine, specify who wrote, edited, and revised the content.

  • Original Images: Use original, not stock, images to add authenticity.

  • Hire Experts: If you lack in-house expertise, hire experts to write or contribute to your content.

Get the basics down and then get back to business. Creating real content that demonstrates real expertise will always be the best way to build brand authority.

⚡️ Quick Hits

What we’re working on right now

Dinner Table Debates—or DTD for those in the know —is a board game that encourages critical thinking. They firmly believe, and we do, too, that debate can help bring about enriching and thoughtful conversation that leads to greater understanding between individuals of different standpoints. 🎲

Fun game, fun project!

For DTD, we worked through multiple generations of DTD branding including building the website and launching DTD’s Kickstarter that sold out in just 6 days! This portfolio sneak peek is one of the emails we created for them. 👀

Fun fact: DTD was created by Dia’s founder and CMO, Andreea Borcea, who participated in Speech & Debate in college and felt that the skills she learned during this time were indispensable! 💬

Looking for a more personalized marketing strategy?

We’re starting a new YouTube series where we take a deep dive into your business. If you’re looking for a free in-depth analysis, apply here to get started!