Learn how to use ChatGPT intelligently and reap the benefits of AI writing.

Two weeks ago, I wrote about what it felt like, as a professional writer, to have AI write my blog for me. 

The experience, and the LinkedIn discussion that followed, made it clear that despite the benefits of saving time and getting new ideas, machines still don’t have that human creative spark, nor the human skills of critical thinking. 

However, I felt there is still more to explore. Given its popularity, there must be more to machine writing than a monotonous tone and a lack of fact-checking and source criticism. Being the optimist that I am, I wanted to give the topic a positive spin.

This time my exploration in the land of AI writing led me to share with you five intelligent AI writing strategies that allow content creators, communications teams and entrepreneurs to reap the benefits of ChatGPT and similar tools without falling into the pitfalls. 

Here are creative and smart ways to have ChatGPT write content for you!

1 – Great Ideas Come to Those Who Ask the Right Questions

We all get that frustration sometimes: the feeling that you’ve already said everything even remotely interesting about your area of expertise. Have all the blog articles already been written?

One recommended way to use ChatGPT for content creation is to have it generate some ideas for you. However, to get good suggestions, you need to ask good questions. 

Ask specific questions and follow-up questions to get fresh perspectives and out-of-the-box ideas. You can also regenerate the answer if you’re not happy with the first set of topics you get. 

Remember that the ideas haven’t been fact-checked and it might be that reality doesn’t support all of them. There’s still the thinking and writing parts to be done, but the ideas will get you started and nudge you in a new direction.

2 – Copyeditor and Proofreader at Your Service

Instead of asking AI tools to write your article at this point, turn the process around. Do your own digging and thinking, check your sources and structure your main ideas. 

Then, enter AI. Feed your article outline to ChatGPT and ask it to polish your draft for you. You won’t risk getting erroneous sources, because you’ve already done that part of the work.

Instead, you might get some fresh sentence structures (because we all tend to default on certain words and phrases), and if you’re a non-native writer, you might get a few spelling and grammar errors fixed at no extra cost. 

I wouldn’t go as far as to say this eliminates the need for actual proofreading, but you’ll have a cleaner version in your hands to work on.

3 – An All-You-Can-Eat Buffet of Attention-Grabbing Headlines

I have a confession to make: there’s one part of the writing and editing process I never learned to fall in love with. That is crafting attention-grabbing headlines. 

That was a key part of my work for years, so I am of course capable of doing it, but there never was that special spark between me and titles. The good news is that now I can work on the rest of the text and ask AI to help with the final five to ten words or so. 

You can ask AI writing tools for headline suggestions and honestly, get a quite nice range of options to choose from. You will, of course, want to double-check these against the backdrop of your article and point of view, but at the very least you’ll have a strong first draft to start with. 

(Don’t get too picky though, because after the first 20 proposals, you’ll see it’s just the same words and structures being shuffled around. Take your pick or write a better one yourself.)

4 – Content that Search Engines Will Love

In addition to generating ideas, structuring and polishing your text and working on some headline suggestions, ChatGPT can optimise your content for searches. You can ask it to give you some search terms people are using right now to spark your imagination, or use it to optimise existing content to match your audience’s interests. 

Again, asking for specific words or long-tail keywords might prompt your thinking more than a general query could. Also, keep a close eye on your own strategy to know what you’re looking for and to discern which suggestions to follow.

5 – Repurposing Has Always Been Easy – But Never This Easy

Finally, AI is a good buddy for those who want to leverage the power of repurposing. 

I know – for a long time I’ve been ranting about how easy repurposing is, and how it’s the fastest way to create fresh content. On top of that, if you create your repurposed pieces in one go (right after you’ve finished the original piece), you’ll build a content bank and can make content withdrawals whenever you want. As a bonus, content banks stay stable even through financial crises.

I also know that despite my constant preaching, not everyone has the time, headspace and patience to create six additional pieces of content out of one. 

Ask our AI writing friends to create a social media post, a script for an introduction video, a “How-to” post and more. ChatGPT can also repurpose your article for slightly different audiences, should you want to edit your post for different channels.

Which Idea Will You Grab First?

I hope this article has given you some ideas on how to speed up your content creation process with some help from AI, without compromising the quality and uniqueness of your content!

If you’re looking for more content ideas and still feel stuck, download my Complimentary Content Guide below. It includes 10 content ideas that work on any channel.

The best bit is, that you can make them completely unique to you and your brand!