5 Ways To Show Your Audience Your Content Is Original

Here are five strategic ways to signal to your audience that your content is genuinely original, drawing directly from Ann Gynn's insightful guide at Content Marketing Institute:

1. Talk to Real People

Authentic content starts with real voices. When you conduct live interviews, whether virtual or in-person, you tap into unique perspectives that no one else can replicate. This creates material that’s inherently distinctive because it’s rooted in real interactions. Observing and weaving in environmental details, like someone’s workspace, further reinforces the authenticity. These elements signal to your audience that this content was crafted through original dialogue, not AI or secondhand sources.

2. Use First-Person Perspective

Inserting “I,” “me,” or “we” into your writing subtly reinforces that the content comes from a real person or brand, not a faceless source. Statements like “based on my experience” or quoting an interviewee directly with “they tell me…” create a sense of connection and immediacy. This approach imbues the content with personal ownership, another strong cue of originality.

3. Showcase Bylines and Author Bios

When content lacks attributions or bylines, it often feels generic or AI-generated. By clearly naming the author and including a brief biography, highlighting credentials, relevant experience, and a touch of personality, you add credibility and character. Linking to the author’s profile (e.g., LinkedIn) further reinforces transparency and trust.

4. Feature In-Person Elements in Video and Audio

If you're producing video or podcast content, preserve visual or contextual traces of your presence to fortify authenticity. A “split-screen” view showing your interaction with the subject, or behind-the-scenes thumbnails in social posts, remind the audience there was real collaboration behind the camera. For voice-only mediums, include production credits in descriptions to retain that signal of originality.

5. Go Behind the Scenes

Take your audience into the creation process. Whether through a product demo, a glimpse inside your creative workflow, or a tour of your workspace, sharing behind-the-scenes footage is uniquely yours. These moments reveal how content is made and deepen your audience’s connection to the story and the storyteller.

Bringing It Together

All these strategies, interviews, personal pronouns, explicit authorship, visible human involvement, and behind-the-scenes storytelling, serve as subtle yet powerful markers of authenticity. Just as Daniel Kahneman underscores the influence of environmental cues on perception, these authenticity signals operate on a psychological level, priming trust before the audience even processes the words themselves.

Bonus Insight

Think of these authenticity markers as breadcrumbs: even if they register subconsciously, they reinforce consistently that your content is human-crafted, thoughtful, and irreproducibly yours. It’s not just content, it’s trustworthy content.