How to use ChatGPT & AI for Content Marketing in 2023
ChatGPT is the AI Chatbot that everyone is talking about, and This year it’s already been changing the game for content creation, blogging and marketing completely.
Over the past few months I’ve been using ChatGPT as a content creation and marketing tool for my website design business and my lifestyle blog, and yes - its powers are mindblowing.
In my business, I use AI to outline blog posts, craft Instagram posts, Instagram prompts, website SEO descriptions and more - all automatically at the click of a button! And that’s not even to mention all the ways I’m using AI tools in my daily home life too.
I wanted to share more about how it works, how to use it (wisely!), and some thoughts about how this will affect us as content creators, marketers and small business owners.
Table of Contents
This blog was originally published on 28th Jan 2023. It was updated on 15th October 2023.
What is ChatGPT?
ChatGPT is an AI ‘chatbot’ created by OpenAI in late 2022. This language processing tool is driven by artificial intelligence, allowing you to have conversations with this bot - asking it questions or giving it prompts - and it will generate human-like responses (pretty much instantly!) using data from across the internet and constant training.
There is currently a free version of ChatGPT available for anyone to sign up to and use online, as it’s been launched for ‘beta research’ as of January 2023. The free version means responses are limited up to around 280 words, or you can sign up for the paid version for more (the paid version is currently run on a ‘credits’ system so you essentially pay per 1000 words… and it’s incredibly cheap!).
What can ChatGPT do?
When you type a question or prompt into the chat box of ChatGPT, it create responses that are based on huge amounts of data and intelligence around the web. But it doesn’t just copy and paste from Wikipedia! It generates a new response based on data.
This means ChatGPT can answer any question you give it, do research for you, write content for you and even generate code and images for you - all based off a prompt or question you ask it.
Therefore, you can ask it to write you a piece of content (eg. blog post, Instagram caption, email etc.) about a specific topic, and it will do it - pretty much instantly!
How to use ChatGPT for content creation:
Once you start playing with this you will realise how INSANE this tool is. AI tools similar to this have been around for a while, but ChatGPT is said to be one of the best, and what makes it so powerful is how accessible it is. It’s free for anyone to use!
There are lots of uses for this tool, but in terms of content creation, you essentially just give ChatGPT a prompt (or content brief - just like you would send to a content writer or assistant!), press submit, and sit back and let it do the work!
So in the example below, I asked ChatGPT to write a blog post about the best email marketing tips for creative business owners in 2023, and this is part of what it came up with:
As you can see, it’s written like a real human would write. And the answers it comes up with are incredibly detailed and actually useful (not to mention spelling / grammatically correct)!
In another example below, I asked ChatGPT to write 5 Instagram post ideas for a Squarespace website designer to share about their knowledge of Squarespace:
It even included suggested hashtags for me to use!
B
UT! basic questions/prompts get basic responses…
The key to using AI tools and ChatGPT effectively is writing detailed prompts that give the bot plenty of context about who you are and what your business does, who your audience are, and exactly the type of response you want to get.
You can be as detailed as you want with your prompts that you give to ChatGPT. The more detailed you are, the better and more detailed the response you will get. The prompt examples I’ve given here above are actually very vague in comparison to what you could do! Prompt-writing for AI will definitely become an art-form and a real skill to work on in the coming years….
Learn how to use AI effectively for your content marketing in my course - The Streamlined Content System - where you’ll get access to my full AI Prompt Bank with in-depth, detailed prompts to copy & paste!
Can you use ChatGPT to write content?
(+ Limitations & Considerations when using ChatGPT for content marketing):
Okay so when I first used this tool and started processing the sheer scale of what ChatGPT can do, my first reaction was WOW! This is SO cool.
However once it sank in, my second reaction was more along the lines of… woah, this could really f**k sh*t up in the content creation and SEO world (and a lot of other worlds too!).
Won’t it put people out of jobs? What’s the point in being a content creator anymore? Surely every website will use this for SEO, and how will Google know where to rank websites in a valuable way?
ChatGPT is making headlines every day right now, so it’s impossible to know the true scale of how this tool is going to change things - BUT here are some of my thoughts:
Pumping out Low quality Ai generated content won’t help your SEO
Google values quality, high value content that its users actually find helpful and engaging, and so already have algorithms in place to weed out content that is low quality and just roughly ‘pumped out’ by AI without being fact-checked or edited by humans.
That’s not to say that content written by ChatGPT and AI tools is ‘bad’ in Google’s eyes - you can still use ChatGPT to help you write content - just remember that it’s more important than ever that the content we are sharing is thoroughly researched, high quality, and highly relevant.
Ai tools still carry a plagiarism/fair use/copyright risk-factor
ChatGPT, AI and plagiarism is an ongoing conversation across news outlets that is developing as we speak, so it’s impossible to know where this is going to go.
Currently there have been tests done on content created by ChatGPT where its ranked as fairly low risk in terms of plagiarism and copyright issues BUT it’s impossible for it to be perfect, so there is still a small risk.
There’s also technology being developed as we speak to create what’s called ‘cryptographic watermarks’ which will help algorithms and software to be able to detect when something has been written by AI.
AI technology is moving too fast for copyright laws to keep up right now, but there are already legal cases popping up about it so precedents will soon start to be set around this as well. Definitely something to keep an eye on!
This is why you want to avoid just ‘copying and pasting’ AI text into your content without tweaking and checking over first.
PS. You can test your AI content for plagiarism using the Originality.ai ‘AI Content Detector’* tool!
ChatGPT is not perfect and still requires human input! ^
If you’re asking ChatGPT to create content for you around broader topics, it’s going to do pretty well. However when I tested it on some very niche, or highly specialised local knowledge, or topics that are more subjective, I did notice some issues.
For example, when I asked it to write a blog post about ‘the best paddle boarding spots in Cornwall’, one of its suggestions was not somewhere I would personally say is an appropriate spot for paddle boarding. Not to say it wouldn’t be possible, but it certainly wouldn’t be in my list of ‘best’ spots.
This highly specialised, local knowledge isn’t something I’d expect a human content writer from a different county to know, and therefore probably not something I could expect an AI robot to know. It’s also partly subjective, but it definitely made me realise that it’s important to have some intimate knowledge of specific niches yourself when using this tool so you can fact check.
In another example, I asked ChatGPT to write a blog post about the best tips for using the email marketing tool, Flodesk.
Again, this is a very niche subject because this tool is still relatively new on the market and it’s for a very specific use. I personally specialise in using Flodesk (I even have an online course all about it) so I know it inside-out, and one of the tips that ChatGPT gave mentioned a feature that I know Flodesk doesn’t have - so it was factually incorrect.
This again solidified to me that ChatGPT is not 100% perfect, and still requires human input.
How to use ChatGPT & AI strategically for your content marketing in 2023:
Overall I would recommend NOT simply copying and pasting content created by ChatGPT and sharing it as your own content without editing it, because of the reasons above.
Sure, you could use this to pump out a tonne of blog posts and you might see an initial boost in your SEO, BUT we don’t know how this is going to fair as a strategy in the long-term, and - even if the posts are fairly good quality - Google might end up penalising sites that are doing this. Not to mention the fact you don’t know for sure that it doesn’t contain plagiarised content!
Here are some ways I think we can use ChatGPT wisely and strategically for our content creation instead:
Use ChatGPT to generate prompts and content ideas for your marketing on different platforms
Use ChatGPT to do research for your content (but make sure you fact check and edit!)
Use ChatGPT to outline, and figure out what subheadings and subtopics to include in your content
Use ChatGPT’s content as a jumping off point / foundation to get you started and then customise
What is the future of ChatGPT and AI in content marketing?
There are clearly a lot of positives to be gained from the incredible AI technology provided by ChatGPT and other tools, but it can be worrying too if content creation is part of your livelihood, or if you’re concerned how this could start effecting SEO and website traffic.
Below are some of my thoughts and predictions for how ChatGPT might start to affect content marketing and what we can do to stay ahead of the game!
Everyone & anyone Is now able to pump out well-researched content
Literally anyone with an email address can sign up to ChatGPT for free and start using it to write decent quality, well-researched content, so the VALUE of broader topic content is going to go way down (in terms of search engines and audiences!).
However not everyone (and clearly not AI, yet!) knows every nuance of more specific, specialised, niche topics, so it will be interesting to see if this kind of content will get more traction.
Important: There are already tools out there that are able to detect how likely a piece of content is to have been written by AI! If you’re using AI to help you write, be sure to edit it, and use a tool like Originality.ai* to scan your content for plagiarism, and to make sure it’s passing the test!
Personality & storytelling Is more important than ever
In order to make your content stand out from the crowd (and the bots!), including your brand voice, personal storytelling, anecdotes and insights into the content you create is going to be SO important moving forwards, because it’s what will make you unique!
Creating a brand & content that people trust will be paramount
After using ChatGPT for a day or so, I started having trust issues when reading articles around the web. ‘Was this actually written by a human or was it AI?’ ‘If it’s written by AI, has it been fact checked and is it reliable?’
Therefore people are going to start only consuming content from sources they truly trust, so make sure you’re building a brand and creating content that nurtures your community and builds trust.
Video content will continue to be key as well
Currently AI can write human-like text, and it can even produce images that look just like real photographs! But currently video content is a lot harder to fake, so it stands to reason that this is going to mean video content is going to grow in importance for your content marketing as well (sorry, I know it’s not everyone’s fave!).
How I’m using ChatGPT & AI in my business in 2023:
Other than content marketing, what are some other use cases for ChatGPT and AI tools? Below are a few I’ve been loving:
Help with naming products/offers/brands
Messaging prompts & understanding my customers better
Repurposing content (I share exactly how I do this and my full AI prompt bank in The Streamlined Content System)
Writing email responses
Listen to this podcast episode for more about how to use AI in your business in 2023, plus use cases for your home and daily life too!
What are your thoughts on ChatGPT? Are you enjoying using it, or already frustrated by the growth of AI?
*Indicates an affiliate link where I get a small commission if you sign up for a paid plan with the tools I recommend. But I only share tools & softwares I personally use and love! Thanks in advance :)
