The 4 tips to use AI for your content based on my 1.5 yrs experience

How to improve your AI-generated output, from personalisation to proofreading with ChatGPT

How to bring your AI-generated content from good to great? Almost 2 years after the launch of ChatGPT, we're still struggling. Professionally, it’s a slow process, and AI is still underused for high-end, top-notch content. Most brands are hesitant because it takes work, time, processes, and changing ways of working to get AI content that's on-brand and checked on validity.?

→ You can create authentic, standout content with AI while maintaining your unique voice and style.

These are my two cents based on my 1.5 years of active experience playing and fooling around with ChatGPT and other AI tools.?

For my newsroom, this results in a +10% traffic boost, heading to 40k+ unique visitors a year, gaining 1.500+ subscribers, and a big bump in engagement. All this while I speed up my production processes and free up headspace for creative and strategic thinking. Give or take, around 8 to 12 hours a week for my weekly publishing and distribution.?

And, maybe the most important, I know that reading my content is like hearing my voice.?My authenticity, personality, and point of view echo through every word.?Despite I vastly use AI.

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• 2 Reasons why your AI output s*cks
• AI-powered versus AI-generated

1. Use AI to define your brand voice
2. Use Custom Instructions
3. Learn to prompt
4. Create GPTs for proofreading

• Does Google rank AI content well??

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The final tip is not to take yourself or AI too seriously; just have and fall in love with the process, not the result.?

And realize that you can’t break AI, so you can push it, pook it, and play with it to discover how ChatGPT works and can help you.

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2 Reasons why your AI output s*cks

You don't get the WOW output from AI because you skipped the strategic part, didn’t configure it right, and didn’t master prompting. These could be some reasons for not getting what you want.?

• Over-relying on ChatGPT for the thinking ChatGPT is your wingman . It helps you write your content; it’s a tool, not a replacement. You do the strategic and creative thinking. You are the one who provides the insights, asks the right questions, and pushes ChatGPT to help you. Because AI does so much hands-on work for you, it frees up your time to be truly strategic and creative. ?
• Not paying for ChatGPT There is a huge difference between the free and paid versions of ChatGPT. ?Why pay? With the release of ChatGPT-4o, there are two reasons: Custom Instructions to personalize your output; this makes a world of difference., and create your own GPT to automate prompts. Paying for ChatGPT is worth the €25 a month if you use it professionally. Try it, and if you don't see the added value, you can cancel it monthly.?

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AI-powered versus AI-generated

Before we start, please check out all my content. It’s no secret I’m quite outspoken and use clear, bold, strong language. You can notice I’m not native English. And, I write for mobile screens with very short paragraphs, bullet lists, and many sub-headers.

And still, all of my copy is AI-powered. I purposefully say ‘powered’ and not ‘generated’, as that’s exactly what it is. I use AI to make my content better, not to make the content for me.

The difference between ‘powered’ and ‘generated’ is that I’m still in control in the first, and I drive the content. In the second, I’m lazy and let AI do all the work for me.

• AI-powered enables me to do strategic thinking based on research and insights. I don’t rely on AI for how my content adds value for my reader. Next to my hand-written structure, it’s me who adds some complementary visuals and does the copy design to enhance skimmability and readability on mobile. AI speeds up the process, helps me along the way, and checks the quality of my output. ?
• The AI-generated content is me prompting my way into a piece of content fully written by AI. All I do is prompt, at best, a final sanity check, and that’s it. That often results in mediocre recognizable AI-generated copy. It's long, difficult to read, full of expensive words, and a bit middle of the road without a personality and point of view.

Now, let's dive into my tips to improve your AI content. This is based on my 1.5 years of hands-on experience, pitfalls, mistakes, cutting corners, and failing spectacularly.?

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Tip 1. Use AI to define your brand voice

Your brand voice is the most important thing to have in place if you want to use AI to generate your content. You can bake this into your ChatGPT, but let's start first with how you get it.?

It's quite an extended process , but in short, you collect examples of your writing, apply the ‘tone of voice’ prompt, add more examples to fine-tune, and make it even more authentically you.?

Lastly, you create a prompt that you can use by copy-pasting it as an add-on to every prompt you write.? For example, this is my brand voice? 'The tone of voice in this copy is direct, authoritative, and slightly informal. It uses strong language and metaphors. The author is not afraid to be blunt and even a bit confrontational in their language to make their point clear. However, they balance this with a friendly and approachable tone, offering practical advice based on their own experiences. Overall, the tone is confident, knowledgeable, and passionate, with a sense of urgency to get the message across.’

Once you have your brand voice prompt, use this to personalise your ChatGPT.?

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Tip 2. Use Custom Instructions

This is the game changer I mentioned above. The main benefit of using Custom Instructions is that you bake in your brand voice and add another characteristic to personalize ChatGPT.

There are two elements of Custom Instructions; first you enter ‘What would you like ChatGPT to know about you to provide better responses?’. Second, you tell ‘‘How would you like ChatGPT to respond?’

I strongly recommend using this feature. It will 10x your output, add personality, and decrease the time you need to review and rewrite AI's output.?

I just can't emphasize enough how much of a game-changer Custom Instructions are. It's best you try and experience it yourself. Worst case, it's € 25 for a one-month paid ChatGPT subscription down the drain.?

Here, you can find the steps to use Custom Instructions

But, no matter how well you configure your ChatGPT, the quality or your prompt defines the results.

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Tip 3. Learn to prompt

The main reason why you’re not seeing results is the ‘sh*t in, sh*t out’ rule. If you can’t properly prompt, you will not get what you’re looking for.

Prompting and prompt engineering sounds impressive and complicated. In reality it’s like chatting with well, ChatGPT. It’s already in the name.

Based on research, following 60+ online courses and some trial and error, here are a few tips for?better prompting

• Long, detailed prompts. Ask ChatGPT, AI, exactly what you’re looking for as if you are giving 5-year-old instructions. Be clear. Be precise. My prompts usually are 3 to 5 lines, if not more. At this moment, I always use the RICE method; it's an easy word to remember and keeps me sharp: Roleplay, Instructions, Context, Examples ?
• Prompt chaining. Weave your prompts together; it’s a chat. There’s no such thing as a one-prompt answer; always use follow-up prompts to get a better answer. ?
• Give feedback. If the answer is not what you’re looking for, tell that to ChatGPT. You can do that with a new prompt in the same chat, or just hit the ‘regenerate’ button.

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Add more prompts for specific needs

Imagine you’re writing something specifically for mobile. Then, add that to your prompt.

It can be as simple as ‘please optimize for mobile reading, use short paragraphs, use sub-headers, use many break lines to create hierarchy, and use white spaces. Write in B1 intermediate English without jargon.’

Or add that you want the output in a bullet list, a top 10, or a table. The options are endless. ?

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Say ‘hi, please, and thank you’ to ChatGPT

My personal tip is to say ‘hi, please, and thank you’ while chatting with ChatGPT. It’s not that ChatGPT will do a better job, ?your input will be better as you’ll communicate with ChatGPT on an equal level, and therefore, the output will be better.

Now, my next tip, automate some prompts and tasks by building your own GPTs.

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Tip 4. Create GPTs for proofreading and more?

Once you have the paid version of ChatGPT, you can build your own GPTs. GPT stands for ‘Generative Pre-trained Transformer.’ These are much like pre-set prompts with their own bespoke Custom Instructions.?

Although GPTs look really complicated and impressive, I built them in not even 5 minutes.

My two most used GPTs

• Proofreading my content on clarity and structure. I specifically ask for suggestions and not to rewrite my content. So I can cherry-pick what to apply and what not. I apply around 75% of the suggestions; AI isn't always right and can make mistakes as well.? ?
• Writing LinkedIn statements: bold, clear, focus on the first 90 characters, and provoke engagement. Usually, I need to regenerate 3 times to get the right wordings, which I combine manually into 1 LinkedIn caption. Since I use this, my engagement has improved vastly, as it prevents me from writing lame captions that describe what I share.?

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You can also create a GPT for email marketing copywriting or SEO research (credits ). The options for GPTs are limited to your imagination.

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Update your GPTs frequently With the developments within ChatGPT and the continious new releases, things change. What works today, can be different tomorrow. So, always stay sharp and if the output of your GPT feels a bit different, it probably is and you need to review it.?

With the release of ChatGPT-4o, all of the sudden, my proofreading GPT gave a different output and I needed to update and refresh it.?

All that is pretty awesome, but how about Google, does it rank AI-generated content well?

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Does Google rank AI content well?

The lame answer is ‘it depends’ if the content is AI-powered or ?AI-generated. Let me explain by example.?

My content ranks very well in Google; about 80% of my traffic is Google, driven by about 5 to 10 top-notch pages. ?And all of my content is AI-powered. Google can't really see that my content is AI-written because I make a real effort to be authentic and personal, and I have a huge consistency in my brand voice in all my content.?

• So yes, AI content ranks well if done correctly. I do the strategic thinking, find the insights that solve your problem, and I wrap it up in a clean and clear structure for easy and light reading. AI helps me to write and proofread to improve the quality.? ?
• And no, if you use AI to generate your content fully, you're cutting corners but just prompting your way into a piece of content, Google will notice. And Google will dodge your content.?

Research shows that human-written content outranks AI-generated content 94% of the time. By month 5, an AI article generated 52 visitors a month, while a human-written article generated 283. Please keep in mind that they compare fully automated, AI-generated content against human-written and maybe AI-powered content (like mine).?

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Wrapping it up

You can use AI while you keep your personality and authenticity. All you need to do is configure it, learn to prompt and dare to challenge the status quo.

This is what you need to know and do

1. Use AI to define your brand voice
2. Use Custom Instructions
3. Learn to prompt
4. Create GPTs for proofreading

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Last tip! Have fun, you can’t break AI

This is my very last and maybe ?most important tip.?

Play it, pook it, test it. Fool around and have fun with ChatGPT. Push the limits, ask the weird things, challenge the status quo.

Whatever you do, you can’t break AI. If you get stuck or don’t like what you get, close the chat and open a new one. The worst that can happen is that ChatGPT remembers your quirky prompts; at best, that results in a better output for the next session.

Fall in love with the process, not the result. Enjoy the ride.

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Disclaimer: This article was originally published in May 2024. In September, I updated it with new insights and improved the structure and layout.?

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Need help?

If you need any help with all of the above—and I’m not biased at all—I’m thoroughly experienced, have ruffled many feathers, and have learned from my mistakes,?drop me an email. If I’m not the right person to help you, maybe I can recommend someone or an agency from my network.

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