How would you promote a product in the age of AI “slop”?
I don’t want to rant here (but I probably will a bit)... 😀
Almost every ad visual, but also a lot of organic content on social media, is very generic and created by AI (I get it, it’s a cheaper and more scalable way of promoting). But when everyone does it, it becomes really hard to stand out and differentiate yourself.
I feel like it’s not just on the internet anymore, but even on TV.
So, how do you stand out in a time when there is an overload of information and AI slop everywhere around us?
The only possible solutions that come to my mind are guerrilla campaigns in physical spaces, whose impact is then amplified by social media sharing, basically some kind of mediated experience that people talk about online.
I know this will depend on the type of product, but how would you approach this?
Replies
I’d probably go the opposite direction of polished AI content. Show the real product, real use cases, real people using it, even if it looks a bit rough. The more perfect everything looks now, the easier it is to ignore. Human proof feels more valuable than another clean AI-generated visual.
minimalist phone: reduce your screentime
@farrukh_butt1 But nowadays, even with AI you can make content that looks unpolished (like "human-made") :D
AISA (aisa.to) AI Fluency Assessment
the differentiators people keep naming (authenticity, showing up) are real but AI will happily mimic the tone of all of it. the one thing it cant fake is a specific, checkable claim tied to you. slop is always unfalsifiable, "grow faster", "10x your workflow", nothing you could ever prove wrong. the stuff that cuts through is a claim someone could call you a liar over if it wasnt true: this exact number, this real before/after, this thing I shipped on this date. a generator wont produce that because it has nothing real to put on the line. so id promote with falsifiable specifics, not better vibes.
minimalist phone: reduce your screentime
@ozandag it feels like the only true thing is to show up IRL :D
It's incredible how good our brains have become to detect AI generated content. I guess like with everything in life, there are no shortcuts. I shifted to writing without AI again. It might not be as polished but I do think it lands better and ultimately reflects what I want to stand for. I could see a world where AI generated content (especially in Ads and Marketing) prompts a negative effect to the product that is being displayed.
minimalist phone: reduce your screentime
@andreas_rubin_schwarz I think that there is a huge number of people who do not know how AI works. We are living in the bubble, I think.
Receiptor AI
I get the guerrilla idea but i'm not sure the doomsday scenario happens. Platforms will just remove the slop before users leave, and models will eventually write the way you do anyway. So maybe the feed just gets better overall.
The harder question is if everyone's posting decent content, how do you cut through, and i don't think the answer changes much, it's still the same distribution game. Who vouches for you, which influencers, which partnerships, showing up in the right rooms
minimalist phone: reduce your screentime
@luigi_receiptorai Marketing seems to be the most crucial role in this era (to make you visible – distribution)
Warmup Inbox
Leave typos in your copy ;)
#DyslexicThinking
minimalist phone: reduce your screentime
@fabian_maume Some AIs do it to sound more human :D
Distinctiveness is the new distribution. When every feed is full of generic AI output, the brands that look and sound unmistakably themselves get remembered and cited — by humans and by AI agents doing the recommending.
But on the other side, I do get why people are just pushing more and more AI content on social media and even ads. The entry barrier to access the resources for doing such activities are no more. And for the most of them, getting the message out is just more than enough.
minimalist phone: reduce your screentime
@sanjeev617 I can't say... some ads are really good, but some (most of them) are off, even when there are possibilities of using AI for executing the idea.
@busmark_w_nika I agree, the possibilities are endless. At the end of the day, AI is a tool—a very powerful one. But what truly drives impact is how that tool is used to create something meaningful.
I agree everything is harder because it's now easier to produce, so there is more, much more noise. So the only way is to focus on the differentiators and unique problems you solve - rise above the noise by being different... oh and don't try to sell on price, that won't cut it!
minimalist phone: reduce your screentime
@mark_trowbridge what will add the value so that producers could ask for more money (despite generating things by AI):
@busmark_w_nika I think the value shifts from production to judgment.
AI makes it easier and cheaper to create content, code, designs, and products. What becomes scarce is knowing what to create, for whom, and why.
The people who can command higher prices will be those who bring:
• Original insights and ideas
• Deep understanding of customer problems
• Strong personal or company brands
• Trust and credibility
• Strategic thinking and curation
• The ability to connect disparate information into something genuinely useful
AI can generate outputs. It can't easily replicate experience, reputation, taste, relationships, or unique perspectives.
As production becomes commoditised, differentiation becomes more valuable.
What cut through for me was posting the unglamorous specifics: a real bug, the actual fix, a number smaller than I wanted. Generic AI content can't fake a concrete story it didn't live. The slop is scalable but it has no scars, and scars are what make people trust you.
minimalist phone: reduce your screentime
@theuniverseson I love the paralel with scars you used :) poetic!
We all love reading the "#1 Product of the Day" success stories. They are inspiring, but they often suffer from survivor bias.
Sometimes, the most brutal failures offer the best blueprints.
The day before Publora’s incredible #1 launch, we launched our own product, AEO Table. Our modest target was 50+ upvotes. We ended up with 9 upvotes and 2 comments. To make it sting more, most of those 9 upvotes came from our own team.
No secondhand theories here. Here is the exact post-mortem of how we screwed up, so you don't have to.
❌ Mistake 1: Zero Pre-Launch = Launching Naked
Product Hunt removed the "Coming Soon" shipping feature in August 2025, right before our launch. We didn’t do our homework on this change and assumed we could just build momentum on launch day. With zero pre-existing follower base on PH, we started from a dead stop.
The Lesson: Never rely on a platform's built-in discovery. Build your audience in your own backyard (Slack, Discord, newsletters) at least 30 days before you hit launch.
❌ Mistake 2: New Reddit Account + External Links = Global Shadowban
To drive traffic, we posted on r/bigseo using a brand-new Reddit account with external links included. The moderator manually removed it instantly. Out of panic, we immediately reposted on r/SEO. This triggered Reddit’s automated spam filter, resulting in a permanent Global Shadowban. Our account died on the spot, and our appeals are still met with silence.
The Lesson: Do not treat Reddit as a billboard. New accounts + links = instant death. You must warm up accounts months in advance, build Karma, and provide genuine value without being salesy.
❌ Mistake 3: All Channels at Once = All Channels Failed
We tried to be everywhere. On launch day, we pushed simultaneously to Product Hunt, Reddit, X, LinkedIn, our blog, and Indie Hackers. Six channels, and because our team was stretched so thin, we executed every single one poorly. Worse, the time we should have spent engaging on PH was entirely eaten up by Reddit damage control.
The Lesson: Omnichannel marketing sounds great until you try to do it with a small team. Pick 1 or 2 core channels to dominate, and let the others just be passive mirrors.
❌ Mistake 4: Friends' Same-Day PH Accounts = Worthless Votes (The Karma Coefficient)
When we saw our numbers stalling, we sent out emergency SOS messages to friends. They were amazing and immediately created PH accounts to upvote us. However, we completely underestimated PH’s Karma Coefficient algorithm. The system flagged these "zero-history, same-day" accounts as spam and filtered out every single vote.
The Lesson: Numbers don't lie, but algorithms are smarter. You need upvotes from established PH users with active history. Turning a bunch of newbies into a "friend army" on launch day will only trigger anti-cheat filters.
💡 The Takeaway
Success is great, but failure is the ultimate textbook. While we missed our target, this launch taught us more about the realities of international Go-to-Market execution than months of reading tutorials.
Hopefully, our 4 mistakes will save your upcoming launch.
Makers, what’s the biggest "hidden" mistake you’ve ever made during a product launch? Let’s swap some horror stories in the comments! 👇
Reading this from two worlds at once. I used to run a restaurant, and the thing that brought people back was never the polished menu photo, it was the small specific detail they could only get from us. I see the exact same thing now on the recruiting side: the signal that actually matters is usually the messy, hyper-specific one that no model can fake. AI slop is smooth and forgettable; real stories have rough edges, and those edges are the moat. Show the friction, that is the part nobody can generate.
minimalist phone: reduce your screentime
@ceciliatran I am afraid that AI will become very good at "making authentic materials"