Writing & Storytelling

How to Use AI to Help Catch the Attention of Your Readers

AI

Want to learn more ways to use ChatGPT and other techniques to draw readers in and move them to act? Join PRSA and Ann Wylie at “How To Catch Your Readers With ChatGPT: Six Ways To Use AI To Become a Better Writer” on May 18.


I had dinner with a favorite tech friend the other day. “Ann,” he says, “when are you going to start helping your clients use ChatGPT to write better messages faster?”

Just the other day, I heard myself say in a PRSA webinar, “If you can’t write better than a robot, then you’re in the wrong business.”

Turns out I was wrong.

People who use ChatGPT to write messages get the job done 59% faster than those who don’t, according to a study by MIT researchers Shakked Noy and Whitney Zhang. (And some of these folks had never used ChatGPT before, so that includes learning-curve time.)

Plus, those who used AI in writing produced better messages. Writers sco­red 4.5 on a 1-7 quality scale with ChatGPT, and 3.8 without it.

I don’t know about you, but I’ll take a 18% boost in quality in less than half the time any time!

Let’s pause for a minute and address the robot in the room: Am I afraid I’m going to lose my job to AI? No. But I don’t want to lose my job to someone who knows how to manage AI better than I do.

Think of ChatGPT as a really good virtual assistant — one who doesn’t sleep, doesn’t need to be paid and has read just about every book in the world (up until 2021). If you know how to use it, then ChatGPT can help you write better, easier and faster.

But it’s up to you to know how to write well enough to give ChatGPT good direction, to review its work for accuracy, and to edit what may or may not be a good first draft.

3 ways to get writing help from ChatGPT

So how can you get your new, free assistant to help you with your next assignment?

  1. Have ChatGPT read and write Cliffs Notes on those 36 academic studies that will give your white paper weight and substance. You’ll save time — and your writing will be deeper, more valuable and more interesting. For instance, I had ChatGPT summarize the MIT research I shared earlier in this article.
  2. My tech friend gave ChatGPT an article I’d written on persuasive writing, and then asked the tool to use that approach to transform her product features into benefits. She got a good first draft — better than if the intern had done it — that she was able to edit and use.
  3. She then asked ChatGPT to create a series of puns about Gantt charts, one element of her new company’s offerings. She’ll use the puns in her campaign and particularly loved this one: “Gantt do it like you used to anymore?”

Did ChatGPT do her job for her? No. Did it help? Oh, yeah.

What’s next?

The people who watch these things say that ChatGPT will be bigger than the Internet. Two things to focus on as AI evolves:

  1. Learn to use AI. You know how to use the Internet, right? And your phone? Get good at using this tool, too.
  2. Be fully human. What stories can you tell? What people can you talk to? What anecdotes can you share? As a writer, this will increasingly become your sweet spot.

Ann Wylie works with communicators who want to reach more readers and with organizations that want to get the word out. To learn more about her training, consulting or writing and editing services, contact her at ann@WylieComm.com. Get FREE writing tips here. Find more than 2,000 writing tip sheets at RevUpReadership.com.

Copyright © 2023 Ann Wylie. All rights reserved.

[Photo credit: vectormine]

About the author

Ann Wylie

1 Comment

  • As a PR student, I appreciate your insight into how I can make ChatGPT work for me! As professionals, we must harness the power of this application to craft better and more timely messages in a way that still feels human. I’m interested to see how the integration of this platform into day-to-day PR work shakes out, and I’ll be looking forward to PRSay’s developing professional opinion about AI best practices!

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