Content Used to Be King. Now ‘Proof of Humanity’ Reigns.
Recently, I started taking courses to sharpen my LinkedIn skills, which meant being on LinkedIn more often.
Because I’m a content manager, 99.9% of the time I’m logged into my clients’ accounts when I’m on LinkedIn. So I’m there to repurpose content, schedule it, and then log out.
I don’t spend a lot of time there because I’m a part of the vanguard of marketers who have used AI programs enough that I can pick out an LLM's (Large Language Model) cadence in the first sentence.
And it makes being on LinkedIn a bit boring.
Caption after caption written in the same cadence, the same structure, the same hollow intensifiers and filler words.
So I get logged in for the first time in ages, and I was feeling pretty disconnected from the available content, and then I came across this absolute gem, and inhaled my coffee.
My keyboard doesn’t thank her for the coffee I spit all over it, but I’m so grateful content like this exists. Alison Knott is a Marketing professional based out of Halifax and a master of the craft of being human online.
Alison Knott, who mentored me for the first several years of my marketing career, offered camaraderie and humour in a way that made me stop scrolling immediately.
The thing that makes it strong is that it was so unmistakably human. It made me want to stop and engage. Person to person. And that’s sort of the way things are shifting for social media.
Social Media has a new job. It’s a Verification Tool For ‘Proof Of Humanity’.
For a long time, social media had one main job: broadcast your business in a casual, accessible way. Content was king because it was the currency you used to prove to your audience that you were the right person for the job.
And it’s still a place where people verify your skills before deciding to work with you. But the job description has expanded as it absorbed a new role.
Verification for proof of humanity.
In an age where an LLM can whip up a caption in a few seconds, audiences are no longer just engaging with and consuming content on social media. They need to actively investigate multiple sources to make sure a business is real and, more importantly, aligned with their values before they make purchases with their hard-earned cash.
Where social media used to demand polish and perfection, I have a lot of hope for the changes we’re seeing. Because the posts that are being rewarded are the ones that prove, without a moment’s hesitation, your humanity.
What is ‘Proof of Humanity’?
‘Proof of Humanity’ is a concept I keep coming back to with my monthly retainer clients. While we do use AI to make the most of our time each month, we work together to limit its use on social media.
There is a risk in leaning too hard on AI for assistance with publishing content. Audiences are catching on to the cadence of AI language within weeks of each new model being released, and there is an inherent risk to outsourcing your communication channels to it.
Chatbots are making business owners the middlemen of their own expertise. Making audiences wonder, ‘Why should I pay for this knowledge when I could go directly to the chatbot and get it for free?’
Audiences can feel the distance, even if they cannot name it. It doesn’t sound like a person, so it doesn’t build trust. And in cases where the audience can name it, it can build suspicion instead.
When business owners are deciding how much of their time they devote to social media and how to use their platforms to support their business, they should be moving ‘proof of humanity’ to the forefront of their marketing goals. Adding ‘proof of humanity’ to your social media goals is a way to go against the grain and stand out with just a little more effort.
I think the ROI is worth the extra effort, so long as things keep going the way they are. (Just adding this photo here to remind everyone of the horrific way they’re going.)
Seriously. I’ve never stopped using an app so quickly. I’ve moved all of my projects to Claude in the meantime because this is dark.
Social Media Marketing Is Talking to People
I have this feeling that some people have forgotten that the whole point of marketing is to talk to people.
When you outsource the talking part to AI, either because you don't have time to write or you don't think you're a good enough writer, you make yourself the middleman of your own expertise.
How to Leverage Proof of Humanity:
Use your website to catalogue your ideas.
Your website is still the first place people look when they are vetting you. Use your website to share your ideas. Don't be too precious about the editing. Don't worry too much about whether the writing is good enough. If your ideas are there, that's all that matters.
You can use an LLM like Claude to clean up structure and fix errors, but tell it explicitly not to change your voice or writing style.
Use your social media to distribute them.
Take the best sections of what you have written and post them as standalone content. Record an unscripted video walking through your thinking. Share a selfie with a quote from your own writing in the caption. Host a meeting with yourself and hit record.
We’re free from the need to be polished and perfect online, thanks to all the AI content we’re constantly slogging through. The lack of polish is a quick indicator of humanity and takes the work of trying to figure out what’s real out of the equation.
Your ‘proof of humanity’ works well on social media when the content is less polished because it takes the extra mental load off your audience. And let’s them just enjoy the interaction instead!
So incredibly happy to have been a part of this group for International Women’s Day. It just takes one day to remind you how powerful it is to get into the room with people.
Hang out in person.
I just talked about this on LinkedIn when reflecting on the IWD breakfast event this year. To summarize what I wrote there:
In-person events are still the strongest way to make a connection in marketing.
There's something I've been noticing more and more on social media: People have been relying on LLMs to speak for them, and less on using their own voice.
Which means we not only lose the human-to-human experience of interacting with a business owner online, but we're also losing access to more and more women's voices as they dilute them into something a little more 'perfect' for their online presence.
When you're at an in-person event, you get unfiltered access to people's opinions. And that unique tapestry of different thoughts and experiences that is disappearing from our digital world is thankfully still available when you gather together, without the temptation to give things a quick edit before posting.
In person, there isn't time to doubt yourself, your voice and your expertise.
I find that the more widely available AI is, the less people trust their own voice and their own knowledge. When you run all your content past an artificial opinion, it tends to pull all the unique and wonderful things about you out of it in favour of making your voice fit in.
Having your thoughts on social media and on your website means you’ll be prepared for the online networking after those in-person events, too. Because the things you’ve said at those events will be reflected in your online content as well.
The Bar Is Low. That Is Good News.
When proof of humanity is the thing people are looking for, every constraint you thought existed around being professional online falls away.
I have had clients avoid posting because they didn’t have a perfect background or professional lighting. But now I have more clients switching to video than ever. We get together next to a window for natural light, hit record, and the most I’m editing out of the video are long pauses or restarts.
There is a huge opportunity in people looking for proof of humanity, to just show up exactly as you are. And know that people will love you for that. In a world of overly polished content written by artificial voices, the real human ones have an opportunity to stand out from the crowd.