PLEASE, Please Stop Sending Generic When Specific is Just as Easy

Monday, I asked if your content would survive an AI purge and I will guess most of you passed...since you are all following the Live Local marketing lifestyle. Today I'm not giving you the advice you've already heard a hundred times: no "post more" and no "be authentic," or other generic strategy. 

Here are four specific moves you can make today, whether you're a contractor, an insurance agent, or a real estate agent building a referral marketing business instead of a paid-ads business:

First, turn your next follow-up into a voice memo. Most people type "just checking in!" and call it personalization. BLAH. It's the same six words everyone else sends; instead, the next time you'd normally text or email a check-in, record a twenty-second voice memo instead. Say their name, reference something specific. It takes you ten extra seconds, and it does more work than a paragraph of text, because they hear your actual voice instead of reading a template. This is one of the most underused personalization tools you have, and it costs you nothing and takes the same amount of time.

Second, if you're going to use AI for an image, make it something only you would post, PLEASE. Generic AI stock photos are the fastest way to look like everyone else in your industry, instead, pick an actual style and commit to it or understand the theme of your content and customize it so your audience can relate. A watercolor version of your listing, a Monet-style impressionist rendering of your job site, a Norman Rockwell-style oil painting for a holiday post, even a cartoon style tied to something your audience already associates with you. The image is still AI-assisted, but the choice behind it is entirely yours, and that choice is what makes it recognizable as coming from you specifically instead of a content mill.

Third, send something real in the DMs, not AI slop. Everyone's inbox is full of generic, obviously automated messages right now. Stand out by sending something that could only exist because you actually know this person: a short video you made about a local business they'd probably like, a heads up about an event happening near them this weekend, a congrats on their kid's school award show you happened to hear about. This only works on the people you actually track, which is exactly why sorting your A-List matters. You can't send a personal DM to someone you have no personal information about. AND please, please don't say, I saw xyz in your profile and thought it would be a good idea to connect - that is auto-spam. 

Fourth, write your captions and descriptions stream of consciousness first, then let AI clean them up, never write them. Talk it out on the page however messy it comes, ramble if you need to. Then hand it to AI for one job only, fixing grammar and tightening sentences, not generating the thought. Your phrasing survives, your voice survives, and what gets cut is the typo, not the personality.

None of these take more time than what you're already doing. They just take attention, which is the one thing AI was never going to bring to your marketing for you.

If you want the full system behind sorting your A-List and building a referral pipeline that runs on real relationships instead of content volume, The Connector Blueprint walks you through the whole thing, and it's a free download at ReferralBlueprint.com.

Which of these four are you actually doing today? Tell me in the comments so I can hold you to it.