I love ChatGPT; it’s been one of the best things technology has done. Being dyslexic in writing can cause me anxiety to start. I can write when inspired, but to sit down and write something pithy with colorful language is not a skill I possess. I have always been jealous of those who can sit down and, in five minutes, take my basic words and make them exceptional. 

When I first used ChatGPT, I didn’t know how to use it and stumbled through the prompts. However, as I became more familiar with it, I generated fantastic results and text. It’s not the computer in Star Trek yet (OMG, I hope we get to that level), but it can do some amazing things. Here are some tips for getting better results.

Don’t ask it general results. 

If you ask for something general, most results will disappoint you. But if you get more specific, then you will be more impressed. Instead of saying, “Rewrite this text,” say, “Rewrite this text for an executive-level marketing plan.” You can do the opposite, saying, “Rewrite this text for a group who know nothing about (insert topic).” Or you can say on a grade level. 

Furnish it with text and information.

Don’t rely on ChatGPT to find data and information. If you have information, use it in your prompt. But note there is a limit to how much text you can enter at a time. One interesting thing is that you have it summarize a web page. Instead of asking it to summarize the web page on the ABC company site, it’s best to put a link in the prompt. 

ChatGPT goes off the rails. When you ask it to draw conclusions from data, it has to go out and source. This may not be the case in a few years, but for now, the more information you can give it, the better. Some of the prompts I have used are the following:

• Summarize this text for a CMO audience for a marketing plan introduction. 
• Generate last names that are of different ethnicities.
• Write me social media posts from the text above and optimize SEO for “Lead Generation (or whatever topic is listed).”  

One size doesn’t fit all. 

Don’t go with the first thing ChatGPT generates. If you write social media posts, ask it to generate three, five, or ten posts from the text. There will be some responses it generates that leave you scratching your head. The more options you have it generate the better the chance you will have several good options. This can apply to anything you ask it to generate. If you are unhappy, you can have it regenerate the response by clicking the regenerate button or refining your prompt with some qualifiers (for executive level, millennials, or fifth-grade audience.)

• Using the text above (or using the text provided), write me ten tweets, five Instagram posts, and three Facebook posts. 
• Generate two cover letters based on this job description – (pasted job description or link).
• Rewrite the response above for an audience with little knowledge of (topic) 

Generate Place holder Data.

If you do something you need data for but want to keep actual data from a business/organization, you can ask ChatGPT to generate it for you. It’s data that doesn’t matter if it’s slightly wrong; you want to showcase a skill using the data and not the data itself. It has amazed me how well this works. I’m creative and can come up with different names for companies, people, and products. But ChatGPT can do this in seconds when it may take me a day to craft the names and information. These prompts will build on the prompt before. 

• Create the name of 10 electronic stores, including two that include people’s names. 
• Generate the annual sales of the ten electronics stores.
• Generate the social media followers for Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube and generate an engagement rate for each. 
• Generate the market share of the top 5 brands, and make the top brand at least 15% higher than the nearest competitor. 

The good thing about ChatGPT is that it builds on what you did before, so you can keep asking it to refine and create more specific data. 

Prompts I don’t like

As I said above, the general prompts are the ones that give you information that may be wrong or could be very generic. Here are some prompts I don’t like and wh

Create ten blog topics for a marketing blog.

These prompts generate some very basic blog post topics. It may spur some creativity, but I have yet to be impressed with the ones I have run. 

How does Person A know Person B

ChatGPT probably needs to learn the context of this question and will pull what information it has, but it will more than likely make things up and generate something out of the left field. 

Answer this letter in my voice.

As of now, you can only personally train ChatGPT on your writing. Big brands will be doing this, but for the average Person, we are a little ways off, but as it rolls out, we can have it written the way we write. It’s cost prohibitive now, but we are close to this happening. 

Always Check ChatGPT’s work. 

As impressive as this tool is for me, ChatGPT isn’t infallible. The grammar can be off, as are the facts, if you need to check the grammar and double-check the facts. An easy way to check facts is to use Bing’s AI search. The “More Precise” option will give you footnotes and show you where the information came from, whereas ChatGPT doesn’t show you this information. I also run the results through Grammarly to double-check spelling and grammar. 

If you get on ChatGPT, have fun with it at first and play around before you start generating information. It will help you understand the service and how it works. Then when you get ready to use it for a purpose, you will have better knowledge of the service and how to use it for the best possible results.