Jan 12, 2023

Read time: 4 minutes

If you could see into the future and get ahead of the content trends in 2023, what would you do?

Because big changes are coming – fast. And this year won’t be one to “do what you’ve always done.” Because generative AI is already shaking up the future of business forever.

My prediction is that we’re about to see some of the biggest shifts in the way we do content marketing since social media first became big.

And – as always – it pays off big time to be ahead of the game.

This is not a newsletter about crystal ball gazing or manifesting realities. It’s about looking at the current content marketing landscape and working it in your favour.

Here’s what’s inside…

• AI generated content – what it means for you
• Leveraging AI for brand storytelling in 2023
• Best practices for AI copywriting (and common pitfalls)
• A quick overview of the current AI tool landscape
• How AI will impact my content strategy this year

Buckle up, it’s going to be a slightly longer one than usual.

But I promise if you apply what I show you, your ROI on time will pay off 1000x.

Ready? Let’s dive in.

If your LinkedIn feed is anything like mine, I’m sure you’ve seen the deluge of ChatGPT-generated content in the last month or so.

Much of which is downright cringey.

But if you leverage generative AI right, it can be a legit game changer for your content production this year.

In full transparency, I didn’t think the day would come where AI could replace 90% of junior copywriters.

But it’s here. And it will affect your business whether you like it or not. (No matter which industry you’re in.)

Because just like E-bikes cracked open a brand new market of middle-aged bike fans (no hate, I own one too), AI writing tools have opened up the content game to every man and his dog.

And tools like ChatGPT are gaining tens of millions of new users EVERY DAY.

Which means two things for you:

1. There will be more people publishing very average content at an alarming rate. (More noise to compete with.)
2. BUT, if you learn to work the tools right, you’ll be able to create A LOT of high-quality content at a remarkable pace. (I’m talking about a month’s worth of content in hours instead of days.)

So let’s break down what “working the tools” looks like, and how you can leverage AI for effective brand storytelling.

Before we dive into how you can use AI for brand storytelling, let’s recap what brand storytelling is:

Brand storytelling is a messaging strategy that communicates your brand identity over time to build brand awareness, authority and trust. It’s the combination of branding and storytelling.

Brand Storytelling = Branding + Storytelling

So the prerequisite to using AI for brand storytelling is having a brand storytelling strategy in place. Including a clear definition of your brand identity, your audience personas, your mission, values, USP… all the rest of it.

Because without those things, your AI content will end up just as generic and uninspired as most of what’s currently flooding LinkedIn.

If you simply go to ChatGPT and prompt it to “Write me a LinkedIn post about the 5 hidden dangers of consuming too much canola oil,” you’ll get a fairly generic output.

But if you then follow up with further prompts, based on your brand storytelling strategy (what you want to communicate and to whom), you’ll start getting deeper and more nuanced copy that you can mould into a usable first draft.

For example, your next prompt might be “Based on that output, write an emotional diary entry of a middle-aged man [audience] who is worried about his cholesterol negatively impacting his health, and feeling anxious about his future [pain points].”

Now you’re giving the tool an emotional angle to work with.

From there, you can start feeding copywriting frameworks, headline formulas, or story structures into the AI tool and ask it to turn the raw info into draft copy. (Yes, it can even do stories!)

For example, you could say “Based on that output, give me a list of 20 emotional, unique, specific, vivid headlines.” Or “Based on that output, write a LinkedIn post in AIDA format promoting a paleo diet as the solution to health and longevity.”

Or even “Based on that output, give me 10 story ideas following the hero’s journey framework and overcoming the monster plot.”

The key is stacking prompts on top of each other so the tool can learn more about your topic as the conversation progresses. So that by the time you’re asking it for draft copy, it has enough context and background information to work with.

And if you learn to do this well, you’ll end up with something that’s at least as good as what a junior copywriter could put together as a first draft. Except it won’t cost you a lot of time or money.  

As great as all that sounds, there are some dangers and pitfalls to be aware of as you learn to navigate this brave new world of AI content and copywriting. The main one being a drop in your content quality.

Low quality content is pretty much inevitable if you treat AI writing tools as a replacement rather than an assistant.

As great as AI has become, it has its limitations, and it needs close supervision and guidance to produce anything useful.

Which means you still need a decent brand and content strategy as a North star for what you’re asking the AI to do. And you still need to:

• Identify parts of the output that are usable based on your personas
• Add human touches like vulnerability and personal details
• Compile various parts of usable output into a spreadsheet
• Check all facts & claims and find relevant references
• Organise your messages into a storyline
• Polish the draft into usable copy
• Publish, and distribute

And understand that the rules of marketing and copywriting still apply. 

So always run the output through your usual filters, and ask yourself:

• Does this communicate my core brand messages (brand story?)
• Does it add value and convey my unique expertise?
• Does it communicate my unique point of view?
• Does it target the correct audience?
• Is it clear, compelling, and concise?
• Does it connect on a human level?
• Is it specific enough?
• It it fit for purpose?

And make sure you edit profusely until you can answer each of those questions with YES. 

That way, you can be certain that your content will help build your brand instead of adding to the noise of generic AI rubbish. 

Full disclosure: I am no expert in everything that’s out there, so this section will focus on the tools I’ve personally tried and tested.

In general, there are two ways to access generative AI:

• Via GPT3 directly (https://beta.openai.com/playground)
• Via an application built on top of GPT3 like Jasper or ChatGPT

But no matter which tool you use, the underlying engine is always GPT3.

Personally, I have worked with both ChatGPT and Jasper, and they are both excellent tools.

ChatGPT is currently free (it won’t stay that way), and gives you more flexibility with the input prompts. But since there are currently tens of millions of users on the platform at any time, the servers have been pretty strained so you might not be able to access it.

Jasper is a paid tool that operates with credits, and it prompts GPT3 for you. This makes it slightly easier to use, but it also means that you have less control over the output. Because it’s a paid tool, there’s less strain on the servers and you shouldn’t have any issues working with it.

At the moment, my go-to is a mixture of ChatGPT and GPT3 directly (also less strained than ChatGPT.) Although they’re all based on the same engine, they can sometimes deliver quite different results, so it pays to play around and work with various tools.

At the moment, you can “train” ChatGPT to write in your tone of voice and “know” your business context, story, value proposition, etc. within one session. But when you finish the session or switch topics, it won’t “remember” your brand.

BUT this is coming – fast. Several applications are currently being developed that will allow you to train your own little bot on your brand specifically. So you’ll be able to feed it your website content, past articles, social posts, whatever, and “teach” it the context of your brand.

And that’s going to be the real game changer. I think we’re going to start seeing tools like this come to market within the next few months.

Surprisingly (or not?) my content strategy this year hasn’t changed because of AI. But how I execute it has.

Here’s an overview of my content strategy to give you a real life example of how AI can assist the process:

1. Create a fortnightly video podcast

I’ve been doing this for a few months now and not much will change. Except that I might start using AI to help me write episode outlines quicker.

2. Repurpose that episode into a weekly blog article

My process for this in the past was creating a transcript and polishing that into a blog. But not anymore.

Now, I take the transcript, put it into AI, ask the AI to pull out key points, ask the AI to summarise the details under each point, and re-write the whole thing into my tone of voice. Then I edit the output like I’d edit work by a junior copywriter.

3. Write 5 – 10 LinkedIn posts on the topic

I used to cut the podcast episode into micro clips and write captions for each clip. I’ll still be doing this, but now I’ll also ask AI to rewrite the captions from different angles and for different audiences which I’ll drip out over the next month or so.

4. Write a newsletter about the stuff people want more of

This part is still the same. I keep my finger on the LinkedIn pulse to see what my audience wants more of. What they’re interested in, what problems they’re facing, or what questions they have that I can answer.

That way, I can add the most immediate value and spark the kind of interesting conversations that I want to have more of this year.

On that note, if you have any questions about today’s newsletter, or would like to chat about AI content or copywriting, hit reply and we can have a yarn.

Otherwise, have fun applying today’s tips and getting to know your new productivity-boosting sidekick (promise it won’t bite.)

Till next time

If you want to build brand awareness, authority, and trust, your best bet is to start by nailing your brand story.

Whenever you are ready, there are 2 ways we can help you do that:

1. Join The Storydriven Marketing Academy: Our FREE course that teaches you how to consistently nail your messaging across all brand assets
2. Enquire about our Brand Storytelling Workshop: We work with you 1:1 over four guided workshop sessions to craft your storydriven brand messaging & content strategy