Content DNA: human versus AI summaries

I'm not impressed with AI at the moment, and you'll see why at the end of this episode.

One of the most popular features from my Content DNA book on personal branding is the "Get to the point" section at the start of each of the 32 chapters.

I wrote a few sentences to summarise my thinking and placed them at the start of each chapter, to give readers a flavour of what was to come and to jog their memory when they returned to the book.

I wondered how AI would do with trying to summarise each chapter, so, as I now have access to Perplexity Pro for a year, I decided to upload my book and ask it to imagine a new set of "Get to the point" sections.

See what you think works better: man or machine.

Key

🤖 = generated by the Perplexity Pro AI tool

👦🏻 = original text written by me

Chapter 1: Introduction

🤖 This book is for business owners who want better control over their brand identity and marketing to be noticed, remembered and preferred in their industry. The two big ideas in Content DNA are consistency and congruence: showing up regularly for a long time and being the same "shape" every time when you do.

👦🏻 Each chapter starts with the main takeaway. If you're busy or need something to jog your memory, this is where to look.

Chapter 2: What is Content DNA?

🤖 Content DNA is the set of building blocks that defines your business identity – what you're all about, distilled into a few simple messages. It exists to serve businesses that think and act with their long-term interests at heart.

👦🏻 Content DNA is the truth of your business identity. It sets you up for creating content that has its own memorable "shape". It exists to serve businesses that think and act with their long-term interests at heart.

Chapter 3: My relentlessly helpful story 

🤖 The author's "relentlessly helpful" brand identity came from a chance moment during a conference talk. This led to a transformative change in his business as people started echoing the phrase back to him.

👦🏻 Your brand identity is like the hook of a great song. Get it right and people will echo it back to you.

Chapter 4: What is congruence and why does it matter?

🤖 Create a recognisable shape for your business and stay true to it in all aspects. Beware of saying, supporting and doing things that give people reason to question your motives.

👦🏻 Create a recognisable shape for your business and stay true to it. Beware of saying, supporting and doing things that give people reason to question your motives. These days, people can sniff a fake from a mile off.

Chapter 5: Be known for one thing

🤖 Focus on one main product or service, one main content creation channel and one main social media channel. This helps create a clear, memorable identity.

👦🏻 Focus on one main product or service, one main content creation channel and one main social media channel.

Chapter 6: The 30-month mindset

🤖 It takes a long time, perhaps 30 months, to become known in your industry. Avoid thinking short-term and prepare for consistent effort over the long-term.

👦🏻 It takes a lot of time to be known in your industry, perhaps as long as 30 months. Avoid thinking in the short term and get ready to be consistent in the long term. You can win with focus, consistency and grit.

Chapter 7: My Content DNA

🤖 The author's Content DNA consists of four building blocks: teacher not preacher, cheeky geek, attitude of gratitude and relentlessly helpful. These are tied together with "relentlessly helpful" as the anchor value.

👦🏻 I use my four Content DNA building blocks in all my content. This is what defines my shape and helps to make my stuff memorable (I hope). The building blocks are tied together with an anchor value.

Chapter 8: Your Content DNA

🤖 Use various methods like self-inspection, personality tests and analysing your content consumption habits to find what you stand for. This will define the building blocks for your brand identity.

👦🏻 Use a variety of methods to find what you stand for. This will define the building blocks for your whole brand identity.

Chapter 9: Define your brand values

🤖 While your brand is ultimately decided by those who experience it, you can help direct their thinking. Define 4–5 values that will be the building blocks of your brand and shape your Content DNA.

👦🏻 While your brand is ultimately decided in the minds of those who experience you and what your business brings to the world, you have the control to help direct their thinking. Define the four or five values that will be the building blocks of your brand. These become the shape of your Content DNA.

Chapter 10: Your tagline: the memorable hook for your business

🤖 Your tagline should start with a stock cube of flavour, putting your most important message in the first 40 characters. It should be short, representative, memorable and non-cheesy.

👦🏻 Your headline should start with a stock cube of flavour. Put your most important message in the first 40 characters.

Chapter 11: Be the same shape everywhere

🤖 Don't assume a couple of glossy marketing brochures mean you've created a brand. Ensure your brand is represented consistently across all touch points where people might encounter your business.

👦🏻 Don't assume that a couple of glossy marketing brochures mean you've created a brand. There are lots of ways for your potential customers to experience your brand. Be the same shape every time and in every place.

Chapter 12: Social media bad practice

🤖 Shape your personal brand in a way that doesn't annoy people. Avoid social media behaviours that would put you off if you were the consumer.

👦🏻 Shape your personal brand in a way that doesn't annoy people. Don't engage in social media behaviour that would put you off if you were the consumer.

Chapter 13: Create a manifesto

🤖 Instead of me-centric mission statements, create a document that tells your audience what they'll get from you and your content. Publish it and hold true to those public affirmations.

👦🏻 Forget me-centric mission statements. Create a document that tells your audience what they'll get from you and your content. Publish it and hold true to those public affirmations.

Chapter 14: Pull up a CHAIR

🤖 Until you work out your Content DNA building blocks, the CHAIR framework (Challenging, Helpful, Amusing, Interesting, Relevant) is a useful safety net for creating engaging content.

👦🏻 Until you work out your Content DNA building blocks, the CHAIR framework is a useful safety net for creating content that engages your audience.

Chapter 15: Not everyone will like you

🤖 Our marketing should be magnetic: it should attract but also repel. If we have interesting opinions and stand for something, not everyone will buy into that – and that's perfectly fine.

👦🏻 Our marketing should be magnetic: it should attract but also repel. If we have interesting opinions and if we stand for something, not everyone will buy into that – and that's perfectly fine.

Chapter 16: Meeting people in person

🤖 Make your online persona match your offline one and vice versa. Be unapologetically yourself in all interactions.

👦🏻 Make your online persona match your offline one, and vice versa. Being a social chameleon may have given your ancestors an evolutionary advantage. That doesn't need to restrict who you are now. Be unapologetically you.

Chapter 17: Trust fractures

🤖 Make everything you do an act of reinforcing trust between you and your audience. If they trust you and you don't mess things up, you'll be unstoppable.

👦🏻 Make everything you do an act of reinforcing the trust between you and your audience. If they trust you and you don't mess things up, you'll be unstoppable.

Chapter 18: Pattern interrupts

🤖 Pattern interrupts are unexpected elements that grab attention and make content more memorable. Using techniques like unusual visuals, surprising statistics, or unconventional formats can help content stand out.

👦🏻 Consistency is good. We don't have enough of it in our businesses. But leave space for surprise and delight. A splash of pink goes well with all that white paint.

Chapter 19: Consume, contribute, create

🤖 Content creation follows a progression of first consuming others' content, then contributing to discussions, and finally creating original material. This process helps develop knowledge and voice before producing content.

👦🏻 First you watch. Then you chip in. Then you do. This is the pathway from lurking to leading. Be brave and take the steps to become a creator, because creators get all the glory.

Chapter 20: Referrals: The value of your network

🤖 Referrals from satisfied customers and contacts are extremely valuable for bringing in new business. Building a strong network and providing excellent service can lead to a steady stream of referrals.

👦🏻 An engaged audience has the power to get your content in front of people who will buy from you. Connect with those in the "contributor" category and your content will have the best chance of being seen far and wide.

Chapter 21: Pen portraits: Your ideal customer

🤖 Creating detailed profiles of ideal customers helps focus marketing efforts and content creation. Understanding the needs, challenges and preferences of target audiences allows for more effective messaging.

👦🏻 Write down a detailed summary of who your ideal client is. All of your content and everything your business does will be in service of this imagined person.

Chapter 22: Poison portraits: The salesy douche canoe

🤖 Just as important as knowing ideal customers is understanding who you don't want to work with. Identifying traits of problematic clients can help avoid taking on work that isn't a good fit.

👦🏻 Have a clear idea of who you don't want to serve. Make sure that your content and processes actively repel those people, so that you can focus on the clients who energise you.

Chapter 23: What to write about and how to find content ideas

🤖 Content ideas can come from customer questions, industry trends, personal experiences and more. Keeping an organised system to capture and develop ideas is key to consistent content creation.

👦🏻 You should never run out of content ideas if you know your customers well enough. Think about the real questions they ask and how you could answer them at scale.

Chapter 24: Be visually consistent 

🤖 Visual branding elements like colours, fonts and imagery should be consistent across all content and platforms. This visual cohesion reinforces brand identity and makes content instantly recognisable.

👦🏻 Beautifully crafted words sparkle less if they're surrounded by inconsistent visuals. Stand out in the social feed by ensuring that your static and moving images are recognisably you.

Chapter 25: Get your naming right

🤖 Choosing the right names for your business, products and content is crucial for memorability and findability. Names should be distinctive yet easy to spell, pronounce and remember.

👦🏻 Giving names to services and ideas gives those things more significance and makes them easier to refer to and remember. Create names that fit your brand and use them consistently. 

Chapter 26: How long does it take to create content?

🤖 Content creation timelines vary widely depending on format, complexity and creator experience. Setting realistic expectations and allowing adequate time for quality work is important.

👦🏻 The average blog post takes around four hours to write. Long content tends to outperform short content. People will stick around for engaging content.

Chapter 27: How to write good content

🤖 Good content is clear, helpful and engaging for the target audience. Following writing best practices like using active voice, short paragraphs and descriptive headers improves readability.

👦🏻 Your content is a conversation, not a lecture. Write the way you speak and stop trying to sound clever. If you'd never say it out loud, don't you dare write it.

Chapter 28: How to edit your own writing

🤖 Self-editing is an essential skill for content creators to refine and improve their work. Techniques like reading aloud, taking breaks between drafts, and using editing tools can enhance the editing process.

👦🏻 Errors in your text will ruin your credibility, especially when they occur in strategically important places such as in headlines. You never know who might not become a customer because of poor perceptions about your standards.

Chapter 29: Repurpose and republish

🤖 Content can be repurposed into multiple formats to reach wider audiences and get more mileage from ideas. Republishing updated versions of older content can also provide value.

👦🏻 Get the best out of the creative effort needed to produce each piece of content. Repurpose and republish your source material in different formats and locations to make that content work harder for you.

Chapter 30: Promote your content

🤖 Creating content is only half the battle – promotion is crucial for getting it seen. Leveraging social media, email lists and other channels helps amplify content reach.

👦🏻 If you make the effort to create content, you must promote it. Squeeze every last drop from each piece of content you put out into the world. Amplify or die.

Chapter 31: The Content DNA interviews

🤖 Interviews with other content creators and marketers provide insights on developing authentic brand voices. These conversations reinforce key concepts from the book.

👦🏻 There are too many goodies here to pick out just one. Spend some time soaking up the wisdom shared by these business owners, each of whom has carved a successful niche in their industry.

Chapter 32: Let's wrap up

🤖 The book concludes by emphasising the importance of consistency and authenticity in content creation. Readers are encouraged to define their own Content DNA and apply the concepts to their work.

👦🏻 Make consistency and congruence the foundation for everything you do. Start now.

About this little comparison project

Even though I asked Perplexity to ignore the existing "Get to the point" sections when analysing each chapter before it rewrote a new version of each section, my feeling from some of the results is that it didn't do that.

Reusing terms like "stock cube" and "me-centric" the same way I did in my own "Get to the point" sections felt a bit suspicious.

On more than one occasion, Perplexity thought that I hadn't supplied the whole of the Content DNA book in the PDF I uploaded. It told me that half of the chapters were missing!

I had to tell it a couple of times to check again, and then it came back saying that it had made a mistake and that all the content really was there.

I'm not sure whether this counts as an AI hallucination, but it's certainly weird and frustrating. I somehow resisted the urge to reply sarcastically with "can't you count?"

When I wanted a pure extraction of the existing text of the book, I told Perplexity more than once not to rewrite any part of the "Get to the point" sections, and simply to repeat the text in those sections so I could save it separately.

Instead, it rewrote some of it but told me it was giving me an exact copy.

Despite my telling the tool a couple of times that it had got the task wrong, it didn't fix its mistake, and ultimately came back to say that it could do the task if I supplied all chapters (as above, I did supply all chapters!).

I'm using Perplexity Pro for the next 12 months on a free deal thanks to my LinkedIn Premium Business subscription – annoyingly, only some Premium members get this deal.

Perplexity has been handy sometimes, but I've seen far too many mistakes from it for it to be anything I could rely on, and I'd certainly never pay for it.

A lot of people using AI tools like this will simply accept the results they're given rather than checking how accurate the results are. And, of course, some of the outputs of AI can't easily be checked for their accuracy anyway, in which case it's hard to see how anyone could place much trust in the outputs, at least for the time being.

So, I've just had a mini rant about Perplexity there but for all I know, you might prefer its versions of my "Get to the point" sections of the Content DNA book. Do let me know what you think!

It's free for anyone to DM me on LinkedIn even if we're not connected: I'm at John Espirian