Creating Strategic Content with AI: My Favourite Process

Not getting quality results from AI tools or feeling overwhelmed, not knowing how to use them?

Hopefully this info will help to create content using AI

Over the past few months I've been working closely with small business owners to show how AI can help to fill the space between them and the empty page. AI can really help you to overcome posting procrastination once you know how to use it effectively.

To help with this, I've been documenting my own process to achieve the most relevant results when using a generative AI tool like ChatGPT. This is AFTER I have already primed and trained it by creating an AI Persona.

I have attempted to provide a visual representation of this post-AI Persona process with the infographic above.

There are three key stages to my process:

• Stage 1.  Preparation

• Stage 2. Content Generation Using AI

• Stage 3. AI Content Post-Production

Stage 1.  Preparation

The Preparation Stage involves research.

I need to find out first what I'm going to ask the AI and what information it needs from me to be able to respond in a way that will be most helpful. Before I use the AI tool, I write out the prompts that I think would be the easiest way to get the information back that I need.

As part of the process, I provide what the goal of the content is, who the audience is, the key messages, and what I want the content to achieve overall, on what platform it will feature and in what format.

This information is super helpful into generating something close to what you will be able to use. These elements are the cornerstones of strategic communication. The AI needs this information to to actually craft effective communication.

Stage 2. Content Generation Using AI

Once I have my prompts drafted, then I begin the content generation process stage.

You can see these little arrows going in a circular direction. This is where I test my drafted prompts to see what the AI generates in response.

It is rarely exactly what I want, so I keep optimising the prompts using a process known as Chain of Thought Reasoning just to keep refining the prompts and the content that it's giving me until I'm happy with what it has generated.

With AI, it’s helpful to tell it when it's doing something right, when it's doing something wrong. If you want it to rewrite something, you need to go back and forth with the AI like you would when collaborating with anyone else throughout a creative process.

Once it's close to what I want, then I move on to stage three, which is the post production process.

Stage 3. AI Content Post-Production

In Stage 3, I begin post-production with fact-checking.

If the AI has provided any sort of ‘factual’ information, for example a quote from someone a statistic or something like that, I need to go and check that it is accurate,  because it makes stuff up. I need to check that that's factual.

After the fact-checking, then I usually copy and paste whatever it is out into a Word document or something similar to continue editing that piece of content because it's never going to be perfect.

Remember, AI is a first-draft generator when it comes to content.

You still need to tweak it to be what you need it to be, and to sound more like you. It can give you something that is close, but you need to put your own mark on it as well.

Sometimes it uses words that you may never use and it can also sound cheesy. I always edit that language and tone it down to something that I would actually write.

Finally, you synthesize it into the final version of what you want it to be. Depending on what purpose of the piece and the platform it has been created for, that could involve pasting it into a Canva design or into the Meta Business Suite to schedule for Facebook or Instagram, or even into LinkedIn as a post or an article.

Again, you will need to polish the piece once it is within its intended communication channel, and that is the final part of the process.

AI can be an amazingly helpful tool to generate strategic content, but it should always be approached as a first draft generator, never the final draft.

I find this process most helpful when used in combination with an AI Persona. If you would like to know more about how an AI Persona could help you save time and money in your business, please book in a time for a meeting with me and we can chat further.