I refused to engage with ChatGPT when it first began making headlines.
“I’ve been writing for decades and you’re going to tell me this soulless robot can replace me?”
Of course not. And that’s the biggest misconception about ChatGPT. AI is not meant to replace human creativity. Instead, AI tools like ChatGPT are best used as resources that allow us to be even more creative. I’ll explain.
You’re about to start a 1,000-piece puzzle.
Do you want all of the pieces facing up or facing down?
Using ChatGPT is like starting with all of the pieces facing up. You don’t have to waste time flipping over every piece and putting them in rough areas of where you think they might fit. You can just dive right in.
Like I said, at first I was a stubborn sceptic of ChatGPT. Then I took an online Prompt Engineering course from Vanderbilt and I finally realized the immense value of ChatGPT, especially as it relates to the advertising space.
As a copywriter, half of my job consists of research. Getting to know the client, the industry, the audience, etc. Before ChatGPT, that meant scouring the internet for hours, hopping from one resource to another, flipping over every puzzle piece. I still need to do a little scouring – and often some experiential research – but scouring with a base knowledge provided by ChatGPT cuts my time in half.
Then comes writer’s block. We’ve all reached that point where your brain turns to mush and the only thing you can think of is the theme song to Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. ChatGPT is a great tool to get your thoughts back on track. Think of it as a free brainstorming partner and a source of creative inspiration like you would Behance or social media.
In addition to being your creative muse, ChatGPT can tackle necessary evils like project briefs and reporting decks. Given the right prompts with the right parameters and information, ChatGPT can crank out monotonous, time-consuming work in a matter of seconds. Freedom!
Here are a few of my favorites prompts to streamline your workflow…
Persona Prompt
This prompt allows you to choose your brainstorm partner. You can converse with a skeptical third grader, a beginner home chef, or a concerned senior citizen from the Midwest. Great for target audience research.
Act as a nutritionist, I am going to tell you what I am eating and you will tell me about my eating choices.
or…
You are a stubborn toddler. I’m going to present you with dinner options until you hear one you like. Ask me what is for dinner.
Outline Expansion Pattern
This is the first prompt I use when I begin researching a new topic or industry. Not only will ChatGPT create a summarized outline of relevant information, but you can then expand bullet points for further depth. Here’s what a prompt might look like using this pattern:
Generate a bullet point outline based on the input that I give you and then ask me which bullet point you should expand on. Each bullet can have at most 3-5 sub bullets. At the end, ask me for what bullet point to expand next. Ask me what to outline.
Semantic Filter Pattern
If you need to make simple changes to existing content (like updating a statistic or removing certain words) this is your prompt. Here are a couple of examples you can use:
Go through this email and remove redundant information.
or…
Go through this content and change all mentions of “4x stronger” to “5x stronger”.
Today, I love ChatGPT because it does leg work – or flipping over the puzzle pieces—while I can focus on doing great copywriting. It’s a tool that allows us to be more productive, more creative and more human than ever.
Written by Sam Potesky
Associate Creative Director
