At first, using an AI bot was all fun and games. You could write silly rap lyrics on a random topic or ask it to give you five reasons why your favorite sports team would win their next game. But now, writers, marketers—and businesses everywhere—wonder if using AI to create real content is best for business. Our vote: Bring your AI bot to work. (And make it work for you.)
Can you use AI to replace team members or fill that marketing hole? Not likely. We’ve laid out our opinion on the best way to use ChatGPT for your marketing needs—along with a few caveats.
Is Using ChatGPT Cheating?
We don’t think so. (Note: In academia and essay writing, it’s absolutely questionable and most likely wrong.) However, for marketing and business, it’s an efficient tool. The best way to use it is as a jumping-off point, a starting place. And can be more effective than staring at a blank page with a blinking cursor.
Professional ChatGPT use
USERS
Who’s using AI bots now? Plenty of businesses. Chatbots have been around for a bit. Websites that work to reach a broader audience offer better accessibility options for those that are hard-of-hearing or visually impaired through AI bots. Beyond bots, artificial intelligence also aids with better search results (semantic search) and automated “recommended for you” sections on e-commerce sites.
Generally speaking, your competitors are likely using AI bots. Human writing will almost always win out against ChatGPT writing in terms of quality, but it won’t be able to touch the quantity that AI bots can churn out. The human brain is better at reaching an audience with empathetic, engaging, valuable content, especially when it comes to creating a useful website or snappy digital marketing.
AUDIENCE OPINION
But what will people (your audience) think? Will they care and will they know? As far as we can tell, the audience [website visitors] seems to be ambivalent about AI bots. They care whether they are getting the answers they’re looking for—determining whether your product or service is right for them. If the writing is garbage, it doesn’t matter if a human or a bot wrote it; it’s not reaching the audience the way you had hoped, whether it’s because of poorly integrated keywords or an uninspired message. Above all else, make sure that your content is answering the questions your users have, and offering solutions to their problems. Helpfulness is still key.
For example, a lot of sites still have a live chat that pops up from the corner. The bot’s been able to help the user self-select out, and get the user to where they need to go. Better UX is a better use of time for the visitor and for the company. So, question whether the AI bot content is going to be a good use of time for now and for later.
There’s really no shortcut to knowing your target audience, their challenges, and how your product or service can benefit them. No AI bot can explain outcomes and differentiation better than you can. Self-awareness is something bots just don’t have yet.
Solid Digital’s ChatGPT Opinion
HELPFUL, NOT EVIL
Use AI bots for what you need. Keep in mind its strengths and weaknesses, giving it only the assignments and tasks that you know it can come through on. For example, you don’t expect Siri to tuck you in at night, and a Google home assistant can’t iron your shirts in the morning. They’re not full-service, they just offer a little bit of a specific kind of help.
WHAT TO USE AI FOR
AI bots are a starting point, not an ending point. They’re great for added reference and particular tasks. You can use AI bots for:
- Keywords: Use it to help you to develop new keywords, but keep in mind that the chosen keywords might not be the most relevant, so check them. Perhaps you’ve had this happen before with suggestions from Google Ads or SEMrush—some are helpful, and some aren’t!
- Services content: AI can write about your services and create content, and you can edit it. Bring in your subject matter expert, or have the marketer or writer make sure it fits your brand voice and tone.
- SEO: Content for SEO or a PPC campaign could come from an AI bot, but you must comb through and do your own keyword research, taking a look at search volume and comparing it against the pages you have—does it make sense?
- A/B Testing – See what it produces from a prompt, and track that result against a human-developed version. Examine the data, and see if the bot won out this time.
- FAQs – Questions and answers for your FAQ page can be produced using AI. Again, go through the content and make sure it’s what your audience will be looking for.
You can use AI bots to help with plenty of things, but they’ll always be missing the human element. For anything with marketing, you’ll need to optimize the content or search, ensure there’s internal linking in your site, and you’ll need to make sure the site architecture functions for the best UX—a robot can’t understand the full customer journey and tell you how to best nest your pages.
DECREASE EFFORT, INCREASE IMPACT
Bringing AI into your business can help you become more efficient if it’s used properly. If competitors aren’t using it, you can save time and energy. If you have a system for helpful AI prompts and enough time to review, you may see a reduction in costs or resources for your business.
AI Bot Example
For example, I asked ChatGPT to give me a title for this blog. (My prompt: “Please give me a good name for a blog about using AI bots for business.”) The real title of this blog was human-penned, but ChatGPT offered me a full gamut of 10 options, with some veering into pun territory and getting cheeky with alliteration:
- BotBoost: AI-Powered Business Insights
- Botelligence: Unlocking the Potential of AI Bots for Business
- Bot Business: Streamlining Your Operations with AI
- Botonomics: Maximizing Profitability with AI Bots
- Botify Your Business: Harnessing the Power of AI Bots
- AI for Business: Revolutionizing Operations with Bots
- Bot Strategist: Mastering AI Bot Deployment for Business
- BotWise: Insights and Tips on AI Bot Integration for Business
- BotGenius: Innovating Business Processes with AI Bots
- BotPartner: Transforming Your Business with AI Bot Collaboration.
They’re helpful, clear, and might have good SEO in mind (but that would need a little more research). More than anything, AI bot results should be able to guide the user from their problem to a solution. If a bot helps you do that, awesome. But remain in control and audit and edit those results.
USE YOUR NOODLE, STILL
It’s up to you to choose the right things to automate. Asking AI to help with the factual, the data-based, and the busy work will help free up your time to create pieces that need more than a question and answer. Most parts of your brand still need a human touch, because your customers and clients want to connect on a human level. Robots are great from numbers-only, stats-are-all-that-matters type content. Accuracy can help build reliability, but storytelling and connection helps build trust and authenticity. Stay clear on when to bring your AI bot to work—and don’t go out to lunch all day.
