Introduction to ChatGPT and Its Effectiveness
00:00:00
Speaker
The result you get from chat GPT is only as good as the prompt that you give it. All right. So you know, our friend Taylor over at tailored media, you know what she says about chat GPT is garbage in garbage out. Right. You know, so if you don't feed it a good prompt, you're often not going to get a good outcome.
00:00:19
Speaker
You're listening to the Brands That Book Show, a podcast for creative entrepreneurs who want practical tips and strategies for building engaging brands, crafting high converting websites, and creating reliable lead generation systems for their businesses.
ChatGPT in Business and Content Creation
00:00:34
Speaker
I'm your host, Davy Jones, co-founder of two agencies, a brand and website design agency, Davy & Krista, and the digital advertising agency, Till Agency. And I ask questions so you can find answers.
00:00:48
Speaker
Today we are diving into chat GPT, how you can use it for your business and how to get the most out of it. It seems like every day I run across new ways to use this tool. And let me tell you, it has completely transformed my content creation workflow. No, I don't think the tool is replacing anyone anytime soon, but I do think it can be super helpful for marketing your business.
00:01:10
Speaker
And Chat GPT isn't the only AI on the block anymore, albeit most of the tools out there, or at least a lot of the AI tools out there, are using Chat GPT's API. Anyways, in this episode, I give a quick rundown of the tools that I've tried and what I think of each.
00:01:28
Speaker
Also, I was recently a guest on the weddings for real podcast chatting about content strategy and chat GBT. If content is something you struggle with, you should listen to that episode. I really enjoyed the conversation with Megan over there. I'll make sure that I link to that in the show notes.
00:01:45
Speaker
As always, links and resources can be found in
Recording Anecdotes and Summer Plans
00:01:48
Speaker
the show notes. Check them out at DaveyandChrista.com. And if you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review over at Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to this podcast. It really does help. Now, on to the episode. All right, early morning podcast recording because the kids are out of school for summer.
00:02:08
Speaker
Yes, hopefully we'll be spending some time at the pool. The weather over, you know, the unofficial start of summer Memorial Day weekend was not great. I know it was really cold and rainy and we had planned to spend the whole weekend at the pool and instead we made pillow forts with the boys inside.
00:02:24
Speaker
which was a lot of fun. And there is something nice about a rainy day. You know, we did some, you know, I smoked a brisket on, I forget what day, you know, Saturday. Yeah. Someday this past weekend. So, you know, that was a lot of fun. There's something I like about a rainy day.
Applications of ChatGPT in Business Tasks
00:02:40
Speaker
But now that it's, it should be warm out today. Hopefully we'll start spending some time at the pool.
00:02:45
Speaker
Yes, hopefully it's the real startup summer today. Well, I know you don't like recording podcast episodes early in the morning. I do appreciate you doing that. I do wish that all this lighting that we have installed in our house, that we would actually use it. I don't know why they have to be dimmed to the lowest setting.
00:03:00
Speaker
Okay, so one, you make it sound like I don't get up early in the morning. We get up at the same time. I would just rather do like focused quiet work in the morning. Two, I know that I'm not alone in my sentiment of dislike of fake lighting and the weird orange tint that they cast. I just prefer real sunlight, so. I know, I know, but when the house was being built, I just don't understand why we put so much lighting in it to not use it. Other people like it, so maybe if we ever...
00:03:31
Speaker
Anyways, anyways, not what we're chatting about this morning. This morning, we're chatting about chat GPT. So we've talked a little bit about chat GPT on the podcast already, AI tool for those of you who haven't heard about it. Although my guess is that a lot of you have heard about it.
00:03:47
Speaker
And if you haven't heard about it, you should go and check it out and just be aware of what it's about. And that's what we're talking about a little bit today. We're talking about how chat GPT can be used in your business. We're talking about ways to get the most out of chat GPT, some other AI tools out there. We're talking about chat GPT and SEO.
00:04:06
Speaker
And lately I've been on a few other podcasts. One of those podcasts is actually going to have been released last week, at least by the time this episode airs, where I got to talk about content strategy. And it was on the Weddings for Real podcast with Megan Gilligan over at the Planners Vault.
00:04:25
Speaker
And really excited about that conversation. We got to talk about content strategy, but we also talked about chat GPT in the context of that conversation. So go over and check out that conversation. I'll make sure that I link to it in the show notes. But sort of continuing that conversation about chat GPT over here.
00:04:46
Speaker
And I think there are a lot of questions around it and people who've had sort of mixed experiences with it. So hopefully today we can talk about some concrete ways that it can be used in business and how just to get the most out of it. Yeah, I feel like the first time I opened it up, I was really confused about what I was supposed to type in and how to get it to actually spit out anything helpful. So what are some ways that chat2pt can actually be helpful?
00:05:14
Speaker
Yeah, so the way, and I mentioned this on Megan's podcast as well, but I think the, how I've gotten the most use out of it and the most value out of it is help with content creation. All right, specifically around researching content ideas, coming up with blog post outlines so that it's easier for me to write blog posts. All right, so if you are a content creator, I think chat GPT can be immensely helpful.
00:05:40
Speaker
What I find, especially when I'm doing research, is that it comes up with questions about that content that maybe I wouldn't have thought about otherwise. So it's really helped me in outlining blog posts and I think just coming up with more thorough content, more in-depth content. Okay. And you can just ask it to outline a blog post about a specific topic.
00:06:05
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And in a minute here, we'll actually get to, you know, how I formulate my prompts to get the most out of chat GPT. But yeah, you know, it will spit out a great, a great outline for me. And yeah, so that's probably how I get the most out of it. Other people have used it in a few creative ways, though.
00:06:25
Speaker
So one person I saw, they gave their team members a survey. And instead of going through all that data and trying to pull out stuff on their own, they dumped all that data into chat GPT and had chat GPT formulate the three biggest takeaways from that survey. And it's just another way to sort through large data dumps.
00:06:50
Speaker
other ways that you can use it, keyword research. I found that it's really helpful as well. I think that this needs to be verified against the keyword research tool, but if you want, if you're looking for keyword ideas, ChatGPT can help you come up with a list of keywords and grouping those keywords together in clusters just way more efficiently than maybe I would be able to individually in the past.
SEO and AI-Generated Content Concerns
00:07:17
Speaker
So what about having it actually write content for you? I've heard that AI-generated content is not great for SEO. Is there any truth to that? Yeah, that's a really good question. One other thing I want to mention, though, in terms of how chat GPT can help, sorry, that's such a mouthful, is when you're coming up with a blog post, so let's say you're a wedding professional, for instance, I know in the past you've recorded a YouTube video on how we used to blog weddings.
00:07:44
Speaker
And basically what you would do and jump in if I get this wrong, but you would take the wedding questionnaire that we gave our clients and you use that for the blog post. And I always thought that was sort of ingenious because you don't like writing. And so it allowed you to do less writing because you're basically taking this wedding questionnaire where you would ask them things like,
00:08:05
Speaker
like about meaningful details for their wedding and their initial questionnaire that I sent them when they inquired, I asked them to tell me their story. So like how they met. Yeah. And so you would take all that information and then you would incorporate into the blog post. And so you didn't, you felt like you didn't have to come up with all of that from scratch. Remember all of the details of how they met. Yeah, exactly. After shooting a lot of weddings, they all get jumbled together.
00:08:29
Speaker
Yeah, and so you could take that information if you were still, you know, photographing weddings today. You could take that information and you could dump it into chat GPT and have it create a blog post for you. And what you could do is you could even give chat GPT a sample blog post, all right? So, you know, a blog post that you've written that you feel like is good and represents your style and have it write a blog post in that style.
00:08:54
Speaker
So there are just I think endless ways that you can use chat GPT. I guess one thing just as a quick disclaimer is just be careful of the data you put in chat GPT. It's not super protected. It's learning off of your data. So you want to be aware of that. But just a lot of different ways that you can use chat GPT for your business. And then is that blog post that it writes going back to the SEO question, is it going to be okay for SEO?
00:09:19
Speaker
Yeah, this is a really good question. And this is, I think, a question that's been talked a lot about in the last few weeks, especially. I am not at the point where, you know, regardless of the prompt that I put in chat GPT, I haven't got to a point where I feel like I could take a blog post written totally by chat GPT and just paste it into the blog and it'd be good to go.
00:09:40
Speaker
Chat GPT has, I think, sped up our content creation process in a lot of ways. It's been great for generating ideas. It's been great for maybe, maybe I'm struggling summarizing something, you know, and asking chat GPT to summarize it. And then, you know, that really just getting me past that roadblock or whatever.
00:10:00
Speaker
But one thing that Google really, really emphasized in their most recent keynote around the changes that were coming to search and how they're going to be incorporating AI into search is how much experience matters. I think one thing that they emphasize a lot is that people trust people, right? And this is a sentiment that we shared during the first episode that we recorded when we started talking about chat GPT.
00:10:27
Speaker
is that people are always going to trust people, right? You know, I think one of the examples that I've used in the past is I really like backpacks. And so, you know, the most recent backpack that I bought, for instance, like what did I do? Well, I went to a YouTube video where a actual person reviews backpacks and I watched that review, right? And so experience really, really, really matters. And I think
00:10:49
Speaker
Google does its best and other search engines as well to evaluate how much firsthand experience somebody has with a product or a service and then ranks that content accordingly. Okay. So I think that you can use chat GPT to cut down on a lot of the legwork. You could even use chat GPT to maybe come up with sort of a rough draft
00:11:13
Speaker
of the blog post, but at the end of the day, you're going to want to go back and edit it with a human hand, right? And you're going to want to make sure to emphasize your experience with whatever it is that you're talking about.
Crafting Effective Prompts for ChatGPT
00:11:26
Speaker
Like we just had a copywriter help us with some copywriting for an email sequence and she put in some personal details that a generated content never could have, like she put in a story of you buying too many animals and always bringing home new animals for us. And the, even like the best chat GPT prompt could never have known that detail to put it in.
00:11:48
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. And you know, I mean, it's so interesting, just the conversation about how chat GPT is going to change sort of the creative landscape. You know, I know that there's been a lot of anxiety around chat GPT as well. But you know, the thing that I keep telling people is like, who are the best, you know, who gets the best results out of chat GPT for copywriting projects?
00:12:08
Speaker
copywriters exactly you know it's and it's why well because you know they're giving it the best prompt all right because they know exactly what they need out of copy they're evaluating that copy you know with with copywriter eyes right and so you know it's it's like i'm just thinking about my experience at till agency
00:12:28
Speaker
where we have a creative team, who gets the best work out of chat GPT? It's often the creatives. I think somebody that has very little copywriting experience, for instance, and I keep on using copywriting as an example because that's just the way that I typically use chat GPT. I think somebody with very little copywriting experience
00:12:52
Speaker
you know, they're going to chat chat GPT might make things a little easier for them. But you know, I still think that the people who are going to get the best results from for a copywriting project are the people who specialize in that. Okay. Yeah.
00:13:10
Speaker
I've played around with it a bit. I used it to generate some demo copy for a fun website project that I was working on. And I feel like the results that I get have been kind of mixed. So what are some of these prompts that you put in to get the most out of chat GPT?
00:13:26
Speaker
Yeah, this I think is I think this is kind of the most important information around chat GPT because the the result you get from chat GPT is only as good as the prompt that you give it. All right. So you know, our friend Taylor over at tailored media, you know what she says about chat GPT is garbage in garbage out. Right. You know, so if you don't feed it a good prompt, you're often not going to get a good outcome.
00:13:52
Speaker
So here are a few things to remember when it comes to using chat GPT. Here are sort of three principles, you know, to kind of get the best result. First, what I was just saying, AI becomes more useful, the better the prompt. So for instance, if I use the prompt, build a blog post outline about wedding first looks. And I talked a little bit about this on Megan's podcast as well. You know, I'm going to get a traditional outline with Roman numerals, one, two, three, and so on.
00:14:20
Speaker
So that's helpful. It still gives me an outline, but I can improve that prompt by saying something like, build a blog post about the topic wedding first looks. Write it as a marketing specialist and professional editor using H2s, 3s, and bullet points.
00:14:37
Speaker
Make sure the article answers common questions about wedding first looks. And so in that example, like in that prompt, I'm doing a few things now. I'm giving the tool role. All right. I'm saying you are a blank act like a blank, right? I am providing an action for it. All right. I'm very clearly saying write or I'm sorry, build a blog post. I could also say outline a blog post. And then I'm providing an outcome in a format. All right. Like I want my.
00:15:04
Speaker
my outline to be formatted in a specific way. I want it to be structured like a blog post would with H2s and H3s. And that way I know, okay, my blog post is one step further down the road than it would be if I just got more of a traditional outline with Roman numerals. Does that make sense?
00:15:26
Speaker
Awesome. So second, the more input you can provide, the better. All right. So this is especially helpful if you're trying to make sure that what chat GPT is providing you matches your voice, right? Or your brand's voice.
00:15:43
Speaker
So, you know, I've already alluded to an example, but basically what you can do and if, you know, let's say we were continuing that blog post on wedding first looks that I just had chat GPT outline in that prompt, you know, maybe I want it to write part of that blog post.
00:16:01
Speaker
What I could do is take a writing sample from my blog that I think is pretty representative of me and say, you know, write the introduction to this blog post that you outlined in this style. And then I could paste in, you know, that blog post that I want it to use as a sample. And what it should spit out is, you know, the introduction of that blog post that was just outlined in the style of whatever input text I just put there.
00:16:31
Speaker
And so you can see how that would be powerful. Yeah. Right. And do you feel like it does a pretty accurate job writing in the style?
ChatGPT's Conversational Edge
00:16:38
Speaker
I honestly, I think it's a little bit hit or miss. Okay. You know, I think that again, the more data you can provide it, the more sample input you can provide it, the better. And so if it doesn't nail it, then finding another writing sample and asking it to rewrite that introduction, I think helps. Right. Okay. That's good to know.
00:16:57
Speaker
Yeah, so third, continuing the conversation. I think the neat thing about chat GPT, unlike just your traditional Google search, is that if I'm researching on Google, I might type in a search that I think will get me the result I need, and then maybe it doesn't quite get me the result I need, so I have to go back and I have to restart and research. Whereas chat GPT, it's more of like a conversation.
00:17:21
Speaker
So if I don't get quite what I'm looking for, I can say, hey, redo that outline, but instead of focusing on these points, focus on those points. And what it will do is it knows that I'm referring back to this outline and it will give me a new outline. I don't have to then retype in the original prompt and make the adjustments there.
00:17:46
Speaker
I think that was one of the things that was a learning curve for me, getting used to remembering what you asked it before. Are there a certain number of prompts that people get for free? I think that it's limited, right? I think I've maybe run out of prompts or is it not limited anymore?
00:18:02
Speaker
Yeah, so it depends. There is a free version of chat GPT and there's a premium version of chat GPT. So it doesn't have as much to do with the number of prompts as it does the output, right? So basically your usage of it will be capped and that amount changes if you are just on the free version.
00:18:23
Speaker
Okay. So the premium version, I think right now at least costs about $20 a month. I think that's right. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So when using chat GPT, make sure that you give it smaller, like break up larger tasks into smaller tasks. Typically the output is going to be better.
00:18:42
Speaker
Okay. All right. So yeah, those are kind of the three things that I would remember when formulating a chat GPT prompt or prompting it to take a specific action. Are
Ethics and Privacy in AI Usage
00:18:53
Speaker
there any things that you shouldn't use chat GPT for? Or do you have any warnings for people?
00:18:58
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. Like I said, just be careful about the data that you put in there, right? You shouldn't be putting sensitive data into chat GPT, right? Yeah, so you just kind of want to be aware of that. I mean, you want to be aware of putting sensitive data anywhere, but definitely chat GPT. There have been some humorous and tragic stories about people putting sensitive data into chat GPT.
00:19:22
Speaker
So, you know, avoid doing that. The second thing I would say is to make sure that you fact checked, like don't trust what chat GPT has to say about a given subject. You know, like I said, for a blog post, for instance, it's really helpful when it comes to outlining. But if I were to actually ask it to tackle a given subject for me, oftentimes I'm going to find a few mistakes in there. And not only that, you know, it's really hard for chat GPT to, you know, capture your experience.
00:19:50
Speaker
So I would make sure that you fact check. The other thing, if you use anything from chat GPT, like straight out of the box, all right, I would highly, highly, highly recommend running it through a plagiarism checker. Can you put some examples of those in your blog post or show notes?
00:20:09
Speaker
Yeah, we'll try to put a few examples in the show notes. There's a number of those out there. If you Google plagiarism checker or AI plagiarism checker or something like that, the number of results will show up. But definitely run it through plagiarism checker because you never know
00:20:25
Speaker
really where chat GPT is getting its information. I think that at least my understanding is that it's come a long way since version one of it, or at least version one, I think version one for me was like 3.5. I think that's when I started using it. But regardless, I would not just say, hey, write me this blog post and then pass that blog post off as my own or pass it on to a client without telling them.
00:20:52
Speaker
So keep that in mind. Run it through a plagiarism checker. And then lastly, I would disclose when appropriate that you've used chat GPT or another AI tool in your work. All right. Would this be like in a blog post or what would you consider appropriate?
00:21:09
Speaker
Yeah, that's a good question. I don't know if I wanna get into the specific examples of when I think it's appropriate to disclose when you're using chat GPT. I do view it as a tool like you would use in any work, just like you use Sketch when designing websites, right? It's not like you disclose that you use Sketch. With that said, Sketch isn't generating the website for you, you know what I'm saying? So there is a bit of a difference there.
00:21:37
Speaker
I think most of the situations that come to mind probably have to do with delivering work to a client. If I was working with a copywriter and that copywriter was only giving me chat GPT generated blog posts or sales pages or whatever,
00:21:58
Speaker
I would want to know that. I don't know if I would care quite as much if they took all the steps that I was just talking about, like going back and giving it a heavy revision, a heavy human revision, running it through a plagiarism checker, those sorts of things. I don't know if I would care as much, but certainly if they were relying on it in any substantive way.
Comparison with Other AI Tools
00:22:24
Speaker
Anyways. And since chat GPT has gotten popular, I feel like there are a million AI tools out there. Have you tried any of the other ones and how do they compare it to chat GPT? So for, this is just a fun Photoshop thing. They can now, I saw a video the other day where you can take like an image of Photoshop. Like I could take a picture of you standing in the field and like circle a spot and like tell Photoshop to put a cow in. And it actually like matches all of the colors and tones.
00:22:52
Speaker
I could say put a dinosaur chasing in here. It's pretty crazy how far it's come. Have you tried any other tools? Yeah, that's a great question. I haven't tried as many visual tools yet, but that's wild. I guess it makes total sense. Our son Jack loves dinosaurs. I was going to take a picture of Jack in our yard and then have a dinosaur tell him to put a dinosaur in. I feel like he's just going to love it.
00:23:17
Speaker
Yeah, he's going to go out for that. Yeah, that's funny. So I haven't used as many visual tools. There are visual tools out there. You know, chat JPT or open AI, the same company behind a chat JPT has a, like a visual tool as well. And I don't know if I'm pronouncing this right, but it's spelled D A L L dash E. So I've been pronouncing it Dolly, but I don't know if that's right.
00:23:38
Speaker
It kind of sounds like it would be like Salvador Dali, you know, the artist. You're like, you know, that famous artist. You can tell which one of us went to art school. But I have tried a lot of other AI tools. So the ones that I've tried, I've tried Bard, Google's version of chat GPT. It works a lot like chat GPT. Honestly, I haven't found it quite as helpful. You know, if I was a betting man, I'd put my money on Google's Bard, though, just because I think the data set that
00:24:06
Speaker
it has access to to train on is far greater than chat GPTs. So keep an eye on that. I log in there every once in a while. And is it also free? Yeah. So Bard right now is free and there is no premium version, at least at the time of recording this episode. My bet is that or my guess is that there will be one day a premium version. There is a wait list. So I think you have to join the wait list and then they send you an invite, you know, that sort of thing.
00:24:35
Speaker
Yeah. So other ones include Jasper AI. Jasper AI is probably the one with the most name recognition. All right. This is one of the kind of the original AI tools. This is popular even before chat GPT got popular. Basically, you know, they like in their marketing, they'll say, you know, you can write a blog post in, you know, I think I watch a YouTube video and it was like write a blog post in 12 minutes, you know, or something like that. Right. Right.
00:25:00
Speaker
I do think it's an interesting tool. You know, I've signed up for it twice to see, you know, how it works once, like kind of probably back closer to when it when it launched and then again recently. And I just haven't I haven't figured out how it's that much better than something like chat GBT. And how much does it cost a month?
00:25:22
Speaker
Yeah, that's the other thing is that it's relatively expensive. I want to say like the cheapest plan is going to be somewhere around $50 a month. And there's no free version? I don't think there's a free version. But again, I feel like pricing on these things changes so often. So if you're interested, definitely check it out. I know that a lot of people find the tool really helpful. It does have a visual kind of AI built into it. There are a number of features that I haven't really even dug into yet.
00:25:49
Speaker
So I don't want to just like write it off, especially because there are a lot of people out there who've found it helpful. But I just haven't, you know, I've found a use for it that, oh, you know, oh, I have to use this tool. And it really justifies the cost when I want a lot of the same things I can do. I can do with chat GPT, you know, right?
00:26:10
Speaker
Another one, Surfer SEO. This is actually one of my favorite SEO tools. And I think AI aside, that this is a really helpful tool for SEO. I think it is one of the more affordable SEO tools. At least it was till recently. They also went through a pricing change. I don't know what their new prices look like. I can't remember off the top of my head. But I do think this is one of my favorite SEO tools. They launched an AI, you know, writer, like a tool similar to Jasper and some of these other ones that I'm talking about.
00:26:41
Speaker
I went, I logged in to check it out. They work on a credit system, which I think is kind of annoying. You know, like I'd rather just pay and get access and not work on credits. So I haven't really played around with their AI writing tool and I probably won't because again, that gets expensive and you know, I have access to chat GBT.
00:27:05
Speaker
So Surfer SEO, definitely worth checking out from an SEO perspective. I don't know if they're AI, you know, writing content tool. I don't know about it. Same thing with RankMath. RankMath, another one of our favorite SEO tools. It's the SEO plugin that we use on all of our sites now.
00:27:22
Speaker
And we use it for optimizing our blog posts, but they have a content writing portion now too. Yeah, they do. They have an AI tool built in. But again, it works on credits. So again, I haven't really been using it.
AI's Integration in Everyday Technology
00:27:37
Speaker
Right. Yeah. So great SEO tool. I don't know about the stuff. Rework. This one was really interesting. And I might give this one another shot. The way this one trains itself, not only on I don't know how it trains, but it will train itself on your Google search console data. All right. So the idea is that it trains itself on like your blog post, your Google search console data, and then it will suggest topics accordingly. You know, so I thought there was a lot of potential here.
00:28:07
Speaker
Yeah, again, just kind of going back to I guess my same criticism of Jasper, it was kind of like, well, I guess I don't really struggle with the ideas, right? I have a system for coming up with ideas. So is it worth paying for yet another tool when I can get 90% of the same functionality out of chat GPT? Right.
00:28:35
Speaker
Yeah, so I think that's it. I think, you know, what's interesting, you know, I know AI feels new for a lot of people. And in how we're using it, it definitely is. But AI has been around for a long time now, you know, and is built into all sorts of tools that we all use probably on a daily basis. Like probably Google, right? Oh, for sure. And there's probably so many things to use every day.
00:28:54
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. So anyways, we hope you found this this episode helpful. If you have more questions about AI, we'd love to hear those questions. All right. Listener questions always make for the best episodes, I think. All right. So instead of us sitting here thinking like, oh,
00:29:11
Speaker
What kinds of questions do we think people are asking about this topic? Right. We'd love just to know your questions. I love testing things out. You know, I can't help but test out tools and different strategies that I come across. So I'm happy to be your guinea pig. All right. So if you're listening to this, you're like, oh,
00:29:27
Speaker
I wonder how this works, all right? Send us a question, all right? Send us that question and there's a good chance that we'll record a podcast episode or write a blog post or we'll answer it on social media, all right? But we love hearing from listeners, so let us know.
00:29:45
Speaker
Thanks for tuning in to the Brands of Book Show. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing, leaving a review on Apple Podcasts, and sharing this episode with others. For show notes and other resources, head on over to DavianKrista.com.