Is ChatGPT Your 'Best' Content Writing Tool?

In the rapidly evolving landscape of content creation, Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools like ChatGPT have emerged as game-changers, offering new possibilities for marketers and business leaders. However, while these tools are promising, it is essential to critically evaluate their capabilities to determine their suitability for specific applications.

In the previous post in this series, I outlined the criteria I use to evaluate various tools. In this installment, we'll dive into the tools themselves, starting with the widely-used ChatGPT as a content writing solution. By applying several key criteria, I aim to provide marketing leaders, content creators, product marketing professionals, founders, and marketers with a thorough understanding of its strengths and weaknesses.

Text Quality and Accuracy

When evaluating any content writing tool, the quality and accuracy of the text it produces are paramount. ChatGPT excels in providing coherent and grammatically correct responses, making it suitable for generating short-form content, such as social media posts. However, it is not a dedicated copywriting tool, and its output can sometimes resemble a "high school level" essay structure, which may not meet the expectations of professional marketers seeking nuanced and persuasive copy. Additionally, the tool occasionally exhibits biases, particularly when tasked with producing content on controversial topics. This can hinder its ability to reflect a user's intended opinion. I personally encountered this when working on topics such as AI and politics.

Customization and Flexibility

A key factor in evaluating ChatGPT is its ability to adapt to various writing styles and tones. While it offers some level of customization, allowing users to prime it to emulate certain voices, such as that of a Product Marketing Director, its flexibility is limited compared to more specialized tools. Marketers may find that adjusting prompts and refining inputs is necessary to achieve the desired tone, which can be a time-consuming process.

Multilinguality

ChatGPT offers support for a wide array of languages. However, based on my personal experience, I can only evaluate its capabilities in English and German. Its proficiency in English is impressive, yet its performance in languages like German appears to be less robust. For global enterprises with varied linguistic requirements, this limitation could present challenges in producing consistent and high-quality content across different languages.

SEO Capabilities

In terms of Search Engine Optimization (SEO), ChatGPT can respond to queries related to SEO strategies and provide guidance on crafting SEO-friendly content. However, it lacks advanced optimization features and may not be the best choice for marketers seeking comprehensive SEO support. Compared to other dedicated SEO tools, ChatGPT ranks lower in delivering targeted keyword analysis and optimization suggestions.

User Interface and Experience

ChatGPT's user interface is intuitive and easy to use, making it accessible to a broad audience. Users appreciate its simplicity, which allows for quick interactions and content generation. However, the interface is not specifically designed for content creation, which can limit its effectiveness in supporting more complex writing tasks.

Content Types and Use Cases

One of ChatGPT's strengths lies in its versatility for various content types and use cases. It excels in ideation, structuring, brainstorming, and research, helping marketers generate ideas and outline content effectively. However, it may not be as suitable for long-form content creation or email copy, where precision and narrative depth are essential. Social media posts remain its best use case, although even these may require significant editing.

Collaboration and Workflow Features

While ChatGPT offers some minor collaboration features in its paid version, it lacks advanced workflow capabilities found in other content creation tools. The absence of version control and robust team collaboration features means users must rely on manual processes, such as copy-pasting, to integrate ChatGPT's output into their existing workflows effectively.

Cost and Value

Cost is an important consideration for businesses assessing the value of AI tools. ChatGPT offers a free version, making it accessible to those on a budget. However, professional users seeking higher-quality or more holistic solutions may find other paid tools more suitable for their needs. The cost-effectiveness of ChatGPT largely depends on how its capabilities align with the user's specific requirements.

Support and Documentation

ChatGPT provides adequate support and documentation to help users understand its functionalities and optimize its use. However, given its general-purpose nature, users may not find in-depth resources tailored to the unique challenges of content creation. For more specialized guidance, marketers might need to seek additional external resources or training.

Data Privacy and Security

Data privacy and security are critical considerations, especially for businesses handling sensitive information. While using ChatGPT's free version may raise concerns about data privacy, the paid version, particularly when deployed on an individual instance, offers improved security measures. Enterprises should carefully evaluate their data protection needs before integrating ChatGPT into their workflows.

Performance and Speed

ChatGPT generally performs well in terms of speed and responsiveness. While users experienced occasional outages during the tool's early stages, these issues have been largely resolved, ensuring a smooth experience.

Conclusion

In evaluating ChatGPT as a content writing tool, it becomes clear that it offers a range of capabilities, from generating coherent short-form content to supporting ideation and research processes. However, its limitations in text quality, customization, and specialized features make it less suitable for professional marketers seeking polished and persuasive content. Despite these challenges, ChatGPT's strengths in ease of use, versatility for various use cases, and affordability make it a valuable tool for initial content generation and brainstorming. Ultimately, businesses should consider their unique requirements and workflows when integrating ChatGPT into their content creation strategies, recognizing its potential as a complementary tool in the broader content marketing landscape.

My Verdict

In my experience, ChatGPT plays a crucial role in my workflows, particularly during the initial preparation stages. I utilize the system primarily for brainstorming. I find it helpful to explore various problems by asking about common questions, objections, and misconceptions. Additionally, I seek guidance on how to effectively structure an article and ensure its uniqueness. Essentially, it serves as a valuable tool for research.

Read More

Part 1 of the series: Comparison of AI-based Content Creation Tools - Part 1: Methodology

Part 3 of the series: Copy.ai Review: Best Value for Money Content Creation

And here is what ChatGPT writes about itself:

### Evaluating ChatGPT as a Content Creation Tool: A Balanced Perspective

When assessing ChatGPT as a content creation tool, it's essential to approach it with realistic expectations. While it's often treated as a go-to copywriting assistant, it's important to recognize that ChatGPT isn't specifically designed for this purpose. Nevertheless, it can produce decent short-form content, particularly for social media posts, but it has its limitations.

One significant issue with ChatGPT is its bias, especially when dealing with controversial topics like LGBTQ+ issues, politics, or history. In such cases, the tool may downplay or even oppose certain viewpoints that its developers have flagged as sensitive. This bias can be frustrating if you're trying to express a more nuanced or controversial stance.

However, the most notable challenge with ChatGPT is the quality of its output, particularly for mid- to long-form content. The tool often adheres to a formulaic structure—what I call a "high school essay" format. It tends to follow a predictable pattern: summarize the problem, present an argument for, an argument against, and then summarize again. While this might work for basic content, it can be limiting for more sophisticated copywriting needs.

Given these constraints, I primarily use ChatGPT for ideation, structuring, brainstorming, or research rather than advanced copywriting or customization. The tool's interface is simple and user-friendly, but it lacks the flexibility needed for in-depth editing. You'll often need to refine your prompts and rework the generated content. On the plus side, ChatGPT is quite adept at understanding the prompts you provide, making it a useful tool for initial idea generation.

In terms of language support, my experience has primarily been with English and German. While the English output is generally strong, the German language support seems less robust. As for SEO and optimization, ChatGPT can respond to queries related to these topics, but it's not a tool I rely on for this purpose, so I can't fully evaluate its effectiveness in this area.

Customization to your voice is possible to some extent. For instance, you can prime ChatGPT to adopt a specific tone, like that of an experienced Product Marketing Director addressing founders in a concise, authoritative manner. However, this customization is limited and may not fully capture the nuance of your desired style.

The user interface is straightforward and intuitive, making it easy to generate content. However, for more complex tasks like long-form articles or email copy, the tool falls short. It lacks collaboration features, version control, and other advanced functionalities that are often required for professional content creation.

When it comes to cost and value, it really depends on your needs. I personally use the free version occasionally but have not subscribed to the paid version, as I'm seeking more comprehensive solutions for my content creation needs.

Regarding data privacy and security, if you're using the free version, you shouldn't rely on ChatGPT to protect sensitive information. The paid version, especially if used on a private instance, should offer better privacy and security, but this is something to consider carefully.

In terms of performance and speed, I've rarely encountered issues, aside from some early outages due to high demand. These issues seem to have been resolved, making ChatGPT a reliable tool for brainstorming, research, and basic content structuring.

In summary, ChatGPT is a useful tool for generating ideas and structuring content, especially for short-form posts. However, it requires significant reworking for mid- to long-form content, and its limitations in customization, bias, and advanced features make it less suitable for professional copywriting tasks.