Why is AI not helping?
When I sat down to write this post about AI, I drew a blank. There is so much I want to talk about, but I was struggling to frame it in a way that would really fit the blog post format.
I thought, well, this is exactly where AI is supposed to be able to help. So, I opened my ChatGPT app and started ‘chatting’.
Everything ChatGPT came up with was OK… it was on topic, it was relevant, but it didn’t grab the attention. It wasn’t ‘me’.
I quickly realised I was chasing my own tail. My problem was I wasn’t clear on what I wanted to say, and that lack of clarity meant ChatGPT couldn’t really help. The problem was the problem!
So why am I sharing this with you?
Because I want to show people that sometimes even people who have lots of ideas hit a brick wall. Social media is full of them – people who look like they know what they’re doing; and do it perfectly day in, day out. But appearances can be deceptive.
And I want to show that while AI is definitely not a magic, cure-all solution, used right it can be very helpful.
AI is not necessarily the threat everyone says it is
AI is often presented as being a tool that will replace artists, writers and thinkers; i.e. ‘end creativity’.
But asking ChatGPT to help me clarify my thoughts and ideas didn’t work; all it did was dig me in deeper.
In an odd way, I found that quite reassuring – AI won’t replace us anytime soon. In fact, it’s our human imperfection that sets us apart. Our uncertainty at times is not a weakness, it’s what makes us who we are.
“You need to learn how to prompt better!”
But Simon, you just didn’t ask ChatGPT in the right way. You need to learn how to prompt better.
Yes, I hear this a lot from AI fans mansplaining (yes, they’re almost always men!) to people who are not getting what they want from ChatGPT.
So, let me share with you how I’ve used AI in this context because I think it might help us all understand a bit more about the possibilities and limitations available.
If I ask ChatGPT to, “Write a blog about how AI is affecting coaches and consultants,” I will get a very generic answer with no real substance. It’s unlikely to be wrong, but it’s also unlikely to make any real point at all; and certainly nothing new.
A better prompt would be to expand on what I am asking by adding a specific task, context, format and tone. For example:
“Write a 1000-word blog post for coaches and consultants who are doing their own marketing about how generative AI tools are going to impact their marketing in terms of its reach and effectiveness. Structure the blog into a short introduction, then explain the current thinking, followed by offering an alternative perspective. Then, recommend what they can do to change and summarise the main points. Be encouraging and supportive and reference any examples with their sources.”
This will give you a very different – and much more specific – result than the first prompt.
The art of asking the right question…
The quality of AI output is directly proportional to what the quality of your input. That’s a polite way of saying: garbage in, garbage out.
AI is great at average. If you’re selling water bottles to yoga people, then an average blog will do the job. If what you’re ‘selling’ is change, meaningful work and a process that takes time, effort and commitment from the client, then average won’t cut it.
Why didn’t I use what AI gave me for this blog? It wasn’t up to my standards. I was bored reading it and I knew my subscribers would be too.
(For full disclosure, I also tried a custom GPT trained on my book and blog content. That did get closer to kind of thing I wanted, but it still wasn’t landing with me. More on how that works in another blog)
But … “I never seem to get a good result from ChatGPT”
It can be frustrating when what you get back just doesn’t live up to your expectations. While a poor result might be down to the limitations of AI, often it’s a case of asking the wrong question or not going deep enough with your instructions.
Try giving ChatGPT a longer, more detailed prompt. Use this format to help you structure your prompt and include the details you need:
Task + Context + Example + Audience + Format + Tone
AI is useful but you’re still essential to the process
I’m not saying AI can’t help with marketing. What I am saying here is that sometimes you have to take a step back and really look at what you want; and maybe ask yourself if you even need AI in the first place.
As I’ve said before, AI is a tool – it’s there to use and experiment with. In the past, I’ve found AI has really helped me with articulating ideas and concepts in new ways.
This week, however, it didn’t deliver. Although the experience did prompt me to write this blog post!
If you want to learn more about AI and how it is affecting small businesses, coaches, consultants and freelancers, then I have a whole series of AI-related content on this blog, YouTube and podcast.
You can also become a subscriber below to receive my Monday Marketing Motivation email with content and things I find interesting each week.
