Hi Fellow Growth Explorers!*
If you’re in marketing and following generative AI, you’re seeing signs of ChatGPT all over. It’s likely in your own work too. But, what’s our relationship? Is it an assistant lifting us to new heights or our descent in the race to the lowest common denominator.
✅ I’m not a robot
* I know what you’re thinking, but that’s not ChatGPT. That’s 100% Bryan 😄
A Quick Look Under the Hood
ChatGPT is trained using a method called supervised fine-tuning. This training is on a large amount of text from books, websites, and other sources in a process called pretraining. It learns language patterns, facts about the world, and some reasoning abilities.
These models don’t “understand” text in the human sense. They become incredibly good at recognizing patterns. The result is that it’s responses often mirror the most common trends and phrases.
Deja Vu Moments with ChatGPT
Here’s something I’ve noticed, both in my interactions and in what I’ve come across many media channels.
Familiar words and phrases that are starting to crop up more than usual:
- “Harnessing the Power of…”
- “Delve into the transformative world of…”
- “Unlock the Power of…”
- “Game-changer”
- “Deep dive”
- “In the realm of…”
And then there’s also a certain brand of humor that I can’t quite put my finger on. You know it when you see it.
While these may actually be punchy phrases, they’ve become predictable (a nice word for lame).
My theory is that ChatGPT has an elementary idea of what makes a good headline, for example. It knows the components but doesn’t understand why so it can create diverse effective alternatives.
How to Make Killer Headlines that Do Not Scream ChatGPT
One day ChatGPT (or other LLMs) will also have specialized expertise.
Tools like Headline Analyzer use a set of criteria as a guide to creating compelling headlines.
Below is a basic outline to craft a headline in a way that ChatGPT doesn’t (at least not by default).
Engaging Headline Types
- List: “5 Hidden Phrases to Avoid So You Don’t Actually Look Like ChatGPT”
- How To: “How to Make Killer Headlines That Do Not Scream ChatGPT”
- Question: “Have You Seen the Horrific AI Headlines Made With Lack of Imagination?”
Headline Word Balance
- Common Words: 20–30%.
- Uncommon Words: 10–20%.
- Emotional Words: 10–15%.
- Power Words: At least one.
Word Balance Type Examples:
Common Words
| a | about | after | and |
| her | how | this | why |
| these | what | your | things |
Uncommon Words
| actually | awesome | baby | beautiful |
| heart | here | more | right |
| see | social | world | year |
Emotional Words
| absolutely | attractive | blissful | bravery |
| confessions | danger | dollar | spotlight |
| valuable | results | wonderful | zinger |
Power Words
| amazing | big | breakthrough | chance |
| destroy | exploit | forget | pay |
| scream | steal | urgent | wealth |
Headline Length
- 12 words
- 60 characters
Sentiment
- Positive sentiments: the way to go for best overall results
- Negative sentiments: more engaging than neutral, but will turn off some of your audience
- Neutral sentiments: Take a stance, and have a point of view.
Reading Level
This is a rule for copywriting across the board.
Simple is the new sophisticated:
- Write at a 6th-grade reading level
The Hemingway Editor App is great for reading level adjustments as well.
Bonus: Social Media Post Recommendations:
🚀 Emojis – A ChatGPT 🤖 Love Afair 💘
Emojis have their use
- Adding eye-catching color, emotion, and clarity.
- Capturing attention in email subjects, and this trend translates to social media posts
ChatGPT’s Use and Abuse
- The good: makes use of emojis that are technically contextually correct.
- The not good: Frequency – will include emojis in every sentence of social posts if you let it
- A couple of emojis are great, but we’re not decorating a Christmas tree here. 🎄🚫
- The not good: Frequency – will include emojis in every sentence of social posts if you let it
Because I’m Silly:
In fairness, I told ChatGPT to ramp up the emojis to exaggerate my point:
## 🚀 **Emojis - A ChatGPT 🤖 Love Affair 💘**
### Emojis have their use 🌟
- Adding eye-catching color 🌈, emotion 😊, and clarity 🔍.
- Capturing attention 👀 in email subjects 💌, and this trend translates to social media posts 📱💬
### ChatGPT’s Use and Abuse 😇😈
- **The good:** makes use of emojis 😃 that are technically contextually correct ✅.
- **The not good:** Frequency 🔄 - will include emojis in every sentence of social posts if you let it 📝
- A couple of emojis are great 😁, but we’re not decorating a Christmas tree here 🎄🚫.
My EYES! 😎😎😎😎😎😎Making ChatGPT Work for Marketers
So, we’ve got this tool, which, while incredibly powerful, sometimes seems to take the road frequently traveled. How do we, as marketers steer it in the direction we want?
- Content Ideation: ChatGPT is great for brainstorming and organizing your ideas. It can even help you create visual content faster.
- Workflow Automation: You can have ChatGPT write VBA code to automate PowerPoint slides for repurposing content.
- Test Custom Instructions: block the played-out phrases. Instruct it to use a diverse set of power words.
- Use the right tool for the job: know when you shouldn’t use AI and when there’s no substitute for a dedicated tool.
- Headline Analyzer for headlines.
- Hemingway Editor for reading level
- The same goes for other marketing initiatives like audience and keyword research
- Feedback Loop: Tell ChatGPT what you want.
- Direct and Specific: Be clear in your prompts.
- Continuous Learning: The allure of AI tools like ChatGPT is their ability to learn from interactions. The more you engage and correct, the better the outputs become.
In Conclusion…
ChatGPT can be a powerful tool in your utility belt. It’s just important to use it with intention, a strong input, and always make the final product yours.
Keep experimenting, keep refining.
And remember, while ChatGPT can suggest “Harnessing the Power…”
but only you can harness the power of your unique point of view.
***🎤 Drop***