Curating Your Unique Content Advantage
- Zevez Zalay
- Dec 6, 2025
- 6 min read
“Finding Your Niche” through an inbound model that centers around you rather than what you think the internet wants you to create
Zevez Zalay
Written on December 6th, 2025, 9:14 am ET
Related Topics:
business value proposition, BMC, business model canvas, finding your niche, social media content, content creation, storytelling, YouTube videos, content pillars, inbound marketing, proper AI usage, AI disadvantages, AI risks, using AI as a tool, social media strategy 2025, YouTube content strategy 2025
Finding your social media “niche” is more than just looking at your hobby or business and picking a subset of said topic. This strategy can actually put you into a box and stop you from creating the content you want to create.
Instead, we want to execute the opposite where we allow the “niche to find us”. We want to look at the interests that got us inspired to post on social media, and diving deeper into ourselves to find content pillars that fully represent us and the types of content that we want to create on said channel.
So, how do we dive deeper into this?
Using AI to dive deeper
The biggest takeaway that I want to get across here is that AI is a tool we can use, an assistant to help us do more and to expand upon what we are already working on. However, there is a very fine line between using AI as a tool, and using AI like an employee, and it's very important to understand this distinction as it can propel your business, or hinder it.
Using AI as an employee
This is a very common mistake I see many people making. From creators on social media, to small businesses I've mentored, to my peers at RIT, I catch people using AI like an employee, which not only has ethical implications as you can read in my case study on Skechers' AI campaigns, but it has serious impacts to your business.
As we see in Skechers' AI usage, we can get an idea of the effects of using AI as an employee rather than a tool for you and your employees to utilize. Skechers experienced huge losses in their brand attitudes, let alone actually seeing an improvement in the creative aspects of a brand. Their losses included, but are not limited to:
Generation Z boycotting their brand and products
Poor reception of the ads themselves
Lowering employer reputation
Losing the unique value that human marketing can bring
There is a lot of discussion around the controversial subject of the usage of AI, and while I don’t think AI is going anywhere in the next couple of years, I do think that the justification of overusing it is getting harder and harder to pull off. To fully understand this, we have to look at how AI actually works.
AI is essentially software that can learn patterns from information. Think language, images, audio, online behavior and more. Using patterns from existing and new data, AI makes predictions to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence – like finding products we’re likely to buy or finishing a sentence in an email. . . . . After you type a question, the chatbot uses an algorithm – or a set of rules – to recognize keywords and identify what kind of help you need. The machine learning model, based on the existing and new information it has, then generates an appropriate response. The chatbot improves over time as it interacts with new customers and receives more data. (Bravo, 2023)
Thus, AI is really only making educated predictions on creativity based on the previous inputs it has been fed. Therefore, AI is only going to be as good as the data and patterns it has to lean on. So, you are able to generate different sentences and images that the last, and maybe even the person next to you, but AI is only able to regurgitate information it already has rather than create new ones from scratch. Now, to put this more into perspective, everyone is using AI. So if you and your competitor are using the same AI platform and similar inputs, then the content you fully generate from that conversation is going to lose the opportunity to stand out from your competition -- your content can end up being very similar.
Content creation and idea generation are areas of your business that you should be utilizing to enhance your value proposition rather than to help you blend into your market. Despite this, we can have two things be true at the same time, as I’m not advising business owners to completely ditch the opportunity that AI has in store for them. Rather, I would like business owners to truly understand how to use AI to enhance rather than to hinder. In the latest age of the internet, most of us have experienced how fast-paced the expectations are. From algorithmic expectations of creators to the amount of creators pumping out content every second, it is important that we understand how to utilize AI to our advantage so that we aren’t simply having a conversation with your digital friend, but we are able to have effective digital marketing that provides quality, follow an inbound marketing model, and help you grow your brand perception.
Using AI as a tool
Business Owners who understand how to use AI as a tool stand out, and that differentiation shows in their analytics. Take the YouTuber, Vanessa Lau for example. If her video, which I highly recommend watching through titled, “If I Started a YouTube Channel in 2025, This is My EXACT Blueprint to Grow” she gives us an insight into what using AI as a tool can look like:
think about what is the unique perspective that you have to share and that you feel passionate about sharing. . . . take some time in my brainstorming stage to think about five to 10 things that I've gone through in my life. Now these things don't have to relate to each other. They don't have to be strategic. Don't even think about how you're going to package it. . . . . For example, could it be the time that you decided to start a business or the time that you made a really hard decision or the time that you learned something that truly changed your perspective on life? Or it could be a little trivial thing like the time you lost a ton of weight. . . . . then under each story, I would actually write down what happened. Now, if you're struggling with this exercise, specifically with writing out your stories, then let ChatGPT know what story you want to tell and ask it to pretend to be your storytelling or branding coach and ask you questions so that you can go deeper on that story. This is going to bring out some really high quality answers, allow you to think about your story in a whole different perspective, and you're going to be not only so amazed by the result, but it's going to allow ChatGPT to give you a better idea of who you are as a person and what your unique advantage is. (Lau, 2025)
To break that quote down:
Brain dump 10 things you have gone through in your life
Write out the string of events, and experiences you had in detail (this doesn’t have to be perfect, get the bare bones to start)
Ask AI (ChatGPT suggested for creative purposes) to be your storytelling coach and prompt with you with questions to dig deeper
Answer those questions
My suggested additional step!
Based on your findings, what do you feel your unique advantages are? For example, if you were to meet your younger self, how would the present version of yourself help them? (You may understand something here that better encompasses your unique experience that AI cannot figure out through preexisting data alone.)
Send your in depth answers and you take on your unique advantages to AI again
Ask for what it thinks of your conclusions
This seven step process will give you those insights that Vanessa Lau mentioned, which is getting a better understanding of yourself and your story–and more importantly how that can apply to your content’s value proposition. From this newfound unique value that you can offer to your customers, clients, or followers you will be able to create content that fulfills you while giving the quality that your prospects came to see, which should enhance your growth. Using your value proposition as your foundation, you’ll be better equipped to identify what your content pillars are for you and/or your business.
In my next blog post, I’ll be going over content pillars, what they are, how you can use them, and a free template for you to utilize to get started. You won’t want to miss these foundational business insights. To get notified when I post new content, be sure to sign up for my newsletters to get ahead of your business’s goals.
Resources
Bravo K. Mozilla. (2023, April 17). How does AI work? Blog. https://blog.mozilla.org/en/internet-culture/how-does-ai-work/
Embree, R. (2022, March 24). Using Social Media to Reach Niche Travelers. Travel Media Group. https://www.travelmediagroup.com/using-social-media-to-reach-niche-travelers/
Lau V. [Video]. (2023, November 17). How Does AI Work? YouTube. https://youtu.be/RagRPz6DI6U
Zevez Zalay. (2025, October 23). Can AI ads be sufficient replacements for human marketers and artists? Zevez Zalay Blog. https://zevezzalay.wixsite.com/zevez-zalay-1/post/can-ai-ads-be-sufficient-replacements-for-human-marketers-and-artists
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