ChatGPT—a popular generative AI tool—is top-of-mind for everyone involved in marketing and content creation these days. And for good reason. Its potential is astonishing. With a short prompt and the tap of the keyboard it spews out content related to virtually anything you present it with in literally seconds.
It’s truly amazing.
Multiple Use Cases
We’ve only experimented with ChatGPT a little bit at this point, but based on this early experience we’ve found some of the most useful applications in our work to be:
- Creating outlines. “Give me an outline for…”
- Identifying key points to cover for a specific topic. “What are the key point to cover in a post about…” or “What do (insert audience) need to know about XYZ…”
- Generating lists of things, something we think could be especially useful for trends reports. “What were the top trends in 2023 related to…” While it only provides data/research through 2021, I found that it will create these kinds of trends lists for more recent timeframes. When I asked it what the top trends around ChatGPT are in 2023, it said: “As an AI language model, I do not have the ability to predict the future or access real-time information beyond my knowledge cutoff in 2021. However, I can give you some insights on the current trends around the use of language models such as ChatGPT, which are likely to continue into 2023 and beyond.”
- Asking it to find and summarize information around a specific topic (although, again, keeping in mind that it doesn’t look beyond 2021). For evergreen topics though, like managing employees, providing good customer service, etc., this could be useful.
- Summarizing longer content into shorter pieces—or, from a research standpoint, identifying the key points in an article or research report.
- Editing content.
- Reviewing content to find out what might be missing.
- Summarizing a transcript of an interview and pulling out quotes from a transcript.
It’s quite fun to play around with but it is not (yet) 100% reliable.
Not Ready to be Unleashed Without Critical Review
For instance, after asking it to pull out some quotes for an interview transcript I quickly searched the transcript for a couple of the quotes and found—nothing. So I asked it: “Where did you get these quotes from?” And it said: “I made them up.” The same thing occurred when asking it for research around a specific topic. It provided a list of what appeared to be credible sources and relevant topics but, based on my earlier experience I thought it would be prudent to ask it if the sources were real.
They weren’t!
Still, there is definitely some interesting and time-saving applications for the tool. One of our favorite right now is helping us get unstuck around a topic—asking it for ideas around a specific topic, for instance.
There are so many other things we’d like to experiment with. The time it saves can easily be lost playing around with the possibilities.
Will Content Creators Be Replaced?
The question on most content creators’ minds these days, of course, is “will I be replaced by generative AI”? We don’t think so, at least not yet, and at least not experienced content creators. Could people seeking content via sites like Upwork or Fiverr, turn to ChatGPT instead? Probably, but they’d also need to be committed to carefully reviewing, editing, and fact-checking the content produced.
The type of content we typically produce, though, seems safe for now. We’re usually doing extensive research that involves finding and interviewing expert sources, and relying on data and other supporting material that is more recent than 2021.
And, in fact, these tools are likely to create new types of demand for content marketers. For instance, a demand for those who can write great prompts. Like any tech tool the old GIGO (garbage in, garbage out) rule applies. The better prompts you create and the more specific follow-up requests you ask, the better the output you’ll receive.
To test it out, we actually recently created a blog post written entirely by ChatGPT after a series of prompts. Not bad.
Maybe we’ll be replaced sooner than we think…
About Us
Strategic Communications, LLC, works with B2B clients to help them achieve their goals through effective content marketing and management with both internal and external audiences. We work with clients to plan, create and publish high-quality, unique content. Whether on- or offline, or both, we’ll help you achieve desired results at reasonable rates.
In addition to content creation we specialize in helping B2B clients raise awareness and drive website traffic through a strong LinkedIn and Twitter presence.
(Strategic Communications is certified as a Woman-Owned Business Enterprise through the Wisconsin Department of Administration.)
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Tags: ChatGPT, generative AI, pros and cons of ChatGPT, using ChatGPT