If you’ve ever struggled with maintaining an online blog or updating your website copy, your eyes probably lit up when ChatGPT debuted. You thought of all the time you’d save with the help of this handy dandy AI writing tool. That excitement probably turned to frustration after a few hours spent trying to craft the perfect AI prompt and wondering why every output sounded sooooo bad (don’t worry, we had the same experience).
Like any good tool, AI will help make your work easier once you know how to use it. The trick is understanding how to write the kind of AI prompt that your robot of choice needs as input to give you the output you need. The GreenCup copywriting team has spent enough time in the belly of the AI beast to figure out those tricks so you don’t have to.
Be Specific
Even the best writer in the world, human or robot, can’t give you the content you want if you don’t tell them what you want. To get the best out of AI writing tools, your prompts should outline specific parameters for the kind of content you need. Just saying something like, “Write a blog post about gardening,” is like playing the lottery. You might hit the jackpot, but you’ll probably end up with a blog that’s more at home in the trash can than on your website.
What specific aspect of gardening do you want to address? Who is your target audience? How long should it be? Should there be subheadings? What tone of voice do you want to use? Is this an informative post or a persuasive one? Do you have target keywords you want to incorporate into the blog? Do you want them to take action after they read it?
A human writer would ask you these questions before they started writing. Answer these questions in your AI prompt to get the best results.
Use Examples
AI isn’t very creative. In fact, it’s designed to copy, not create from scratch. AI writing tools are large language models (they let you call them “LLMs” once you get to know them), which means they analyze huge volumes of text, look for patterns, and try to replicate those patterns based on keywords in the writing prompts they’re given. If you ask AI to write website copy for a brewery, it will scour the internet looking at brewery websites and try to replicate the words, phrasing, and tone it finds.
So, how do you get an AI writing tool to capture your unique brand voice? Feed it examples of writing from your business. Incorporate characteristic turns of phrase, blog paragraphs, and website copy that capture your business’s tone when writing your prompt.
Give Feedback
If you need proof that the AI-induced robot uprising is still a few years off, just look at the first draft of any AI-generated writing. No matter how specific you are, you probably won’t get a usable piece of content on the first try. Like any other writer, AI may need a few revisions before it gives you exactly what you’re after.
If the first draft is disappointing, rather than starting from scratch with a new prompt, tell your AI writing tool to make edits. Say which parts of the writing were good, which parts need tweaking, and why. Be as clear, concise, and blunt as possible when providing feedback. Don’t worry about being too harsh; robots don’t have feelings (yet).
Ask Questions
Still stuck on developing a useful prompt even after going through these steps? Use AI to help write a better prompt! Despite its many quirks, AI has thankfully taken the maxim, “Know thy self,” to heart (its cold, metallic heart). If you’re unsure what else you need to feed into the AI to get the output you want, just ask!
“What should I ask to help write an email for a small business marketing newsletter?”
“How can I ensure you write in my business’s tone and voice?”
“Tell me what you need to write this content.”
Responding with phrases like these can help put the finishing touches on your prompt and ensure you always get usable content.
Save Your Prompt Template
You might get the impression from all these steps that writing a good AI prompt is just as much work as writing the content on your own.
Well, yeah, it kind of is.
BUT it’s a lot of work that you only have to do once. Once you frontload the effort of developing a detailed, useful writing prompt, you can switch out details for future prompts to tailor each piece of AI writing to the content you’re after. Think of it less as writing a prompt and more like creating a template you can use for all future prompts. The first time takes a little elbow grease; every time after that, it takes just a few keyboard shortcuts.
Edit Edit Edit
Writing a good prompt and hitting “Enter” isn’t the end of the writing process! AI writing, even at its best, has a characteristic flavor to it. If you just copy and paste AI content onto your website, it won’t sound like you. It will sound like an AI trying to sound like you (because that’s exactly what it is).
Just like with a human, the last step in finalizing a piece of AI content is editing. Look for those odd word choices, repetitive phrases, and superfluous sentences that give AI its distinctive style, and clean them up with your own words. This injects more of your unique voice into the writing and leaves each piece of content looking less like R2-D2 and more like Arnold Schwarzenegger (minus the robot apocalypse, preferably).
As cool as robots are, do you know what’s even cooler? A team of human writers, graphic designers, social media experts, and digital marketing wizards. That’s what you get when you partner with the GreenCup Digital team. Connect with us today to start putting your best branding foot forward!
