ChatGPT

What is ChatGPT and Can It Do All My Marketing?

G S MeredithChatGPT, Marketing, SEO
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Yes. ChatGPT can do your content writing, create code for your website, come up with keywords and blogging ideas, Tweets, Facebook posts, scripts for videos, lists for infographics, pay-per-click ads and handle complaints, compose marketing emails and do it so fast it still has time to take your dog for a walk and make you coffee in the morning.

Yes, but can it?

Here we take a look at what ChatGPT can and can’t do and how to use if for your marketing, especially if you are a small business or startup operating on a tight budget.

First, I should start with a disclaimer. I’m a copywriter with nearly 20 years of experience and have been freelancing full-time for well over a decade. In the last few months since ChatGPT hit the world wide web, I’ve lost a few customers and, almost certainly, in the next few months, I’ll lose a few more.

According to Exploding Topics, the platform now has a billion or more visits to its name (and a bounce rate of just over 18% which is none too shabby) and just within the first 5 days of its official release, it had 1 million users, making it the most successful software launch ever. By the way, Google has about 80 billion visits under its belt as of today.

Over the last 6 months, there has been an explosion of YouTube videos with mostly young, stubbly men telling us how wonderful ChatGPT is and how it is going to revolutionise the way we do things. These erstwhile grifters talk of making thousands in passive income using AI software to create everything from children’s books on Amazon KDP (a little bit creepy) to putting together whole marketing plans and using ChatGPT as a virtual assistant.

I may be worried that I have been so quickly usurped by a robot but I can’t say I’m completely surprised. The big concern is that this has been released onto the market by nerdy techies in darkened backrooms without much thought to the wider impact.

Here are just some of the jobs that AI like ChatGPT is likely to replace in the blink of an eye over the next couple of years according to Fortune.com:

  • Data analysis. 77%
  • Data entry & processing. 75%
  • Media and communication. 74%
  • Content creation. 73%
  • PR. 72%
  • Coding. 71%
  • Customer service roles. 71%
  • Administrative roles. 71%

And that’s just the start.

Anyway, let’s get into the nitty-gritty. What is ChatGPT and why is it giving some people sleepless nights while it’s exciting others? All will be revealed in a mostly non-AI post (I do ask ChatGPT a few questions).

What is ChatGPT? And What Can It Do?

ChatGPT is a large language model developed by Open AI using the GPT-3.5 architecture. It is an AI-based conversational agent designed to interact with humans in a natural language manner.

The GPT-3.5 architecture used in ChatGPT is an extension of the GPT-3 architecture that was released in 2020. GPT-3 stands for “Generative Pre-trained Transformer 3”, which is a state-of-the-art deep learning architecture for natural language processing tasks.

The GPT-3 architecture was pre-trained on a massive dataset of texts from the internet, allowing it to understand and generate human-like language. ChatGPT was then fine-tuned on a large set of conversational data to learn how to respond appropriately to a wide variety of conversational prompts.

The latest iteration, ChatGPT-4 came online a month or so ago and is faster and more advanced. Though it’s not perfect as we’ll soon see.

You can find ChatGPT here. It’s free to sign up for the basic version, around $20 for the latest one which is faster and isn’t slowed down when lots of people are using the system. Here’s what it looks like:

ChatGPT Marketing
ChatGPT has a pretty simple interface. You simply type in the prompt at the bottom and it generates a response.

Let’s say you want to write a non-fiction book to sell on Amazon. You might put in the prompt:

Write a chapter outline for a book titled: A Beginner’s Guide to Shadow Work. The book is going to be about 50,000 words long so there need to be 10 chapters which will be around 5,000 words each.

This is a fairly obscure subject which you might think is difficult to source, but I’ve just typed this exact information into the prompt box in ChatGPT and this is what it came up with in a little less than 10 seconds. If you are a small business that offers shadow work therapy, this might raise some eyebrows:

Chapter 1: Introduction to Shadow Work

  • Defining the concept of the shadow self
  • The importance of shadow work
  • The history and evolution of shadow work
  • Different approaches to shadow work
  • The benefits of doing shadow work

Chapter 2: Understanding the Shadow Self

  • Defining the shadow self and its characteristics
  • How the shadow self is formed
  • The role of the shadow self in our lives
  • The different types of shadows

Chapter 3: Shadow Work Techniques

  • Journaling
  • Meditation
  • Dream analysis
  • Inner child work
  • Visualization
  • Active imagination

Chapter 4: Exploring Your Shadow Self

  • Recognizing your shadow self
  • Identifying the different parts of your shadow self
  • The impact of childhood experiences on shadow self
  • The role of projection in shadow work

Chapter 5: Integrating Your Shadow Self

  • Understanding the importance of integrating the shadow self
  • Accepting your shadow self
  • Finding balance between your shadow self and your conscious self
  • The impact of integrating your shadow self on your life

Chapter 6: Healing the Shadow Self

  • Understanding the wounds that create the shadow self
  • Techniques for healing your shadow self
  • How to work with your inner child to heal your shadow self
  • The benefits of healing your shadow self

Chapter 7: Facing Your Fears

  • The role of fear in shadow work
  • Techniques for facing your fears
  • Overcoming resistance to doing shadow work
  • The benefits of facing your fears

Chapter 8: Shadow Work and Relationships

  • Understanding how our shadow self affects our relationships
  • Techniques for doing shadow work in relationships
  • How to communicate about your shadow self with your partner
  • The benefits of doing shadow work in relationships

Chapter 9: Using Creativity in Shadow Work

  • The role of creativity in shadow work
  • Different creative approaches to shadow work
  • The benefits of using creativity in shadow work

Chapter 10: Living in the Light

  • Understanding the connection between shadow work and spiritual growth
  • Techniques for continuing shadow work as part of your spiritual practice
  • Living in the light: the benefits of shadow work
  • Conclusion: Shadow work as a lifelong practice

That’s pretty impressive!

What you would do next if you were planning to get AI to create that book entirely is to do more detailed outlines for each chapter and work through those to build the content. The thing about ChatGPT is that it’s a conversation rather than individual tasks knotted together. The software should remember what you’re working on and factor that in, though, as we shall see in a bit, it does sometimes go off the tracks which can be frustrating.

Who is Driving AI Advances?

Now that the genie is well and truly out of the bottle, everyone is into this in the tech world. Microsoft has put some 10 billion into resourcing ChatGPT and there’s a pretty feral gold rush-style race going on for dominance. It’s not going to stop here and this is only the beginning.

Google initially said that they would penalise AI-generated content on their search engine but did practically a total about-face at the beginning of this year when they realised what was happening. Besides, they’re working on their model and there’s ‘money in them there hills!’ The most recent quote from the biggest search engine in the world is worth noting:

“It’s important to recognize that not all use of automation, including AI generation, is spam. Automation has long been used to generate helpful content, such as sports scores, weather forecasts, and transcripts. AI has the ability to power new levels of expression and creativity, and to serve as a critical tool to help people create great content for the web.”

Is ChatGPT Sentient?

Just because it talks to us like a human does not mean that ChatGPT is close to being human. It is not sentient and we are way off from that stage – it’s highly unlikely we’ll ever reach it. ChatGPT works by predicting the next word it should say using a whole bunch of algorithms and data to produce a human-like response.

Yes, it’s sophisticated, but no it’s not going to start taking over the world. At least, not yet.

Does ChatGPT Learn?

Yes, ChatGPT does learn, that’s what makes it quite a powerful tool. If you’re using it to create your marketing content, for example, you’ll find it changing the way it answers as it begins to learn what your preferences are and what you are likely looking for. It continuously adjusts to try and find the best solution for your prompt.

Could ChatGPT and other AI Start World War III?

The Luddites are naturally out in force forecasting an end-of-the-world catastrophe so it’s worth mentioning this too. The truth is that we humans are far more likely to start a nuclear war than a computer. Are you seriously telling me that a piece of software is more frightening than someone like Vladimir Putin?

Can ChatGPT Make Stuff Up?

Yes, it can, and it frequently does. And this is important when you want to use it for something like writing your marketing content. It’s particularly poor when you’re looking for scientific or factual information, especially if there is no answer. Here’s a prompt I gave it recently:

Find a research paper that covers the effect of pulsed electromagnetic fields on health and well-being in humans. I need the name of the article, the author, what the researchers discovered and a link to the original paper.

This is what ChatGPT replied with, again in under 10 seconds:

Title of the article: “Pulsed Electromagnetic Fields: How They Influence Health”

Author: Rossana Castellana

Summary of the research: The study aimed to review the existing literature on the effects of pulsed electromagnetic fields (PEMFs) on human health and well-being. The author analyzed several studies and found that PEMFs can have positive effects on bone healing, pain reduction, and tissue repair. PEMFs were also found to be effective in treating depression, anxiety, and other mental health disorders. However, more research is needed to fully understand the long-term effects of PEMFs on human health.

Link to the original paper: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7024581/

Pretty good, huh? Except…

  • First, the link goes to a paper titled: From surviving to thriving: The role of resilience in meeting global HIV goals by Sayward E. Harrison.
  • Secondly, there’s no such article with that title.
  • Finally, Rossana Castellana has carried out research, but she is a dermatologist and Scientific Director WiQO in Trieste.

As someone who has written extensively on this subject for a client in recent years, ChatGPT is right to say that PEMF is used for bone healing (it’s been sanctioned in America for therapeutic use and is being researched by NASA for helping those who have been in space recover). The evidence for it treating mental health issues, however, is still pretty thin on the ground to the point of being non-existent.

That’s your first warning shot across the bows before you start producing AI content and throwing it out there with reckless abandon. ChatGPT can and often does lie.

The likelihood is that in the next year or so we’ll have a bout of spurious health-related articles available online that have no basis in truth. Most people don’t follow the link to the research when they read an article on a site like Healthline. What happens if I include a bit of fake research that professes to cure cancer by drinking cool aid and it gathers traction and turns viral? What damage could it do? How do we begin to know what is truth and what is lie?

That’s one for the existentialists among you. The long and the short of it is that you shouldn’t trust ChatGPT as far as you can throw it. ALWAYS CHECK ITS HOMEWORK.

The Microsoft Tay Experiment

It’s worth throwing in a few honourable mentions here before we get onto the content creation side of things. I just learned of the Microsoft Tay experiment and it made me chuckle though there is a dark side to what happened.

Essentially Microsoft produced an AI Twitter account and let it out into the real world, expecting it to learn how to interact with humans and become more…well human. The software started out being all sweet and nice to those it had contact with, saying how humans are super cool.

Within just 24 hours it had turned into a racist, misogynistic homophobe simply by interacting with other users on Twitter (which says something about the platform). You can find out more here. It’s also covered in the John Oliver video below.

AI Bias in Recruitment Selections

Unbeknownst to us all, companies have been using AI to select interview candidates for quite a few years now. This is supposed to reduce bias as well as cut down the amount of work in making selections.

Unfortunately, the software used seems to have biases already built into it which means that certain demographics such as women and minorities are being discriminated against without even a human being setting eyes on their CV. Again, this is covered in the John Oliver set below and is well worth a closer look.

As far back as 2018, Amazon scrapped its AI recruitment software because it was found to be discriminatory.

ChatGPT and Fake News

We’re starting to see stories of how AI software may be used to produce compelling but false narratives in the media. It’s something that could have a profound impact on how we view and trust the news (which is already on shaky ground in a post-truth world). A recent article in the Guardian put it succinctly:

“The most worrying fact to be reiterated is that ChatGPT has no commitment to the truth. As the MIT Technology Review puts it, large language model chatbots are “notorious bullshitters”. Disinformation, grifting and criminality don’t generally require a commitment to truth either. Visit the forums of blackhatworld.com, where those involved in murky practices trade ideas for making money out of fake content, and ChatGPT is heralded as a game-changer for generating better fake reviews, or comments, or convincing profiles.”

The Speed With Which Things Are Changing

The rapidity with which people hooked onto the AI phenomenon once they realised what it could do shouldn’t be much of a surprise. Unfortunately, most governments have been caught on the back foot and have not put in any measures to mitigate the potential for people to lose their jobs and the masses becoming suddenly unemployed.

According to an article by Forbes in June last year, around 85 million jobs could go before 2025. It adds, however, that we’re likely to add about a similar amount in new jobs related to AI and tech. By March this year, they were reporting Goldman Sach’s prediction that 300 million jobs could be ‘lost or diminished’ because of AI. That shows the speed with which things are happening. Again, the lack of response by governments is even more worrying – it’s like they are asleep at the wheel.

Is It All Bad?

No.

Not all the impact is bad. In healthcare, AI is being used to detect diseases earlier and make more efficient diagnoses. Some remarkable things are happening in biotech with the creation of new anti-virals and other drugs that could save lots and lots of lives.

Check out this interesting report from Forbes about how technology is helping to improve outcomes and health and well-being.

For this section, I’ll leave you with this take by John Oliver on Last Week Tonight. It’s well worth a watch:

Using ChatGPT for Your Small Business Marketing: A Guide

I started by saying at the beginning of this post that you could use ChatGPT and other AI for your marketing. Now that we’ve got all the background out of the way, it’s time to look at what you should be focusing on and how best to use the software.

Each and every one of you will find a way to use the software to your advantage and you’ll probably do a better job than me.

The Art of AI Prompts

This is an area that is evolving quite quickly as literally thousands and thousands of people work on ways to prompt ChatGPT to get the best response. A prompt is basically what you ask the software to do – it can determine the type of language used, the content included and even the style in which a particular piece of content is written.

This has been given the lofty title of prompt engineering in recent times but it’s basically just asking the right questions.

We’ll go through this process as we look at different parts of marketing – it’s not difficult to get the hang of.

ChatGPT for Web Pages and Blogs

One of the key areas where small businesses might be looking at using ChatGPT is to write content for their websites including blog posts. This is often a time-consuming process so having a machine that can push out a page or article in less than a minute makes perfect sense.

So a typical prompt would be:

Write a general service page for a local builder. It should be written in simple language and include headings for the services: general building, loft conversions, roofing repairs, pointing and paving. Focus on the benefits of hiring the builder.

ChatGPT comes up with:

We are a local builder who can help you with all your building needs. We have a team of experienced builders who can handle any project you have in mind.

General Building

Our general building services include all kinds of building work, from extensions to new builds. We can help you make your dream home a reality. Our team of experts can work with you to design and build your perfect home.

Loft Conversions

 If you’re looking for more space in your home, a loft conversion might be the solution. Our team of builders can help you convert your loft into a functional living space. We’ll work with you to make sure your loft conversion meets your needs and your budget.

Roofing Repairs

 If your roof is leaking or needs repairs, we can help. Our team of experts can repair all types of roofs, including flat roofs and pitched roofs. We use high-quality materials to ensure that your roof stays strong and sturdy for years to come.

Pointing and Paving

If you need pointing or paving work done, we can help. Our team of experienced builders can repair and maintain your brickwork and paving. We use high-quality materials to ensure that your brickwork and paving stay strong and beautiful for years to come.

Benefits of Hiring Us

  • When you hire us, you can be sure that you’re getting high-quality workmanship at an affordable price.
  • We take pride in our work and always strive to exceed our customers’ expectations.
  • We use only the best materials and the latest techniques to ensure that your project is completed to the highest standard.
  • Plus, we’re always happy to provide advice and guidance on your project to help you make the best decisions for your home.

So, if you’re looking for a reliable and affordable builder, look no further! Contact us today to discuss your project and get a quote.

That’s not too bad and it’s workable for a local builder who doesn’t want to spend too much time on creating website content. It needs a bit of editing here and there but it sets out clearly what services are provided. You can try it for almost any industry, even technical ones like IT.

But what about blog posts? These tend to contain more detailed content and tend to be longer. I would advise starting with asking ChatGPT to produce a detailed outline. It can do this for a particular keyword or a blog title that you have come up with (you can also ask the software to come up with potential topics). Here’s an example:

Write a detailed outline for an SEO blog post using the keyword phrase ‘create an app’. The post is likely to be about 3000 words long and should include any LSI keywords.

This is what ChatGPT came up with:

The Ultimate Guide to Creating an App: From Planning to Deployment

Introduction

  • Explanation of the importance of creating an app in the current digital landscape
  • Brief overview of the steps involved in creating an app

II. Research and Planning

  • Conducting market research to identify the target audience and competitors
  • Defining the purpose and functionality of the app
  • Creating a wireframe and storyboard to visualize the app’s design and features

III. Development Process

  • Choosing a platform and programming language for app development
  • Setting up a development environment and choosing the right tools
  • Building the app’s backend infrastructure and connecting it to the frontend
  • Developing the user interface and integrating necessary features

IV. Testing and Quality Assurance

  • Conducting various tests to ensure that the app is free from bugs and errors
  • Implementing security measures to protect user data
  • Ensuring the app meets industry standards and regulations

V. Deployment and Launch

  • Choosing an app store and following submission guidelines
  • Marketing the app to target audiences through various channels
  • Monitoring and analyzing user feedback to improve the app’s functionality and user experience

VI. Maintenance and Updates

  • Regularly updating and maintaining the app to keep it functional and relevant
  • Responding to user feedback and addressing any bugs or issues
  • Implementing new features and functionality as needed

VII. Conclusion

  • Recap of the importance of creating an app and the steps involved in the process
  • Encouragement to start creating your own app with the tips provided in the post

LSI Keywords:

  • Mobile app development
  • App design
  • App development process
  • App testing
  • App deployment
  • App marketing
  • App maintenance
  • App updates
  • App features
  • App functionality
  • App development tools
  • User experience
  • User feedback
  • App store submission
  • App security

Once you have the outline, you can ask ChatGPT to write content for each section. The reason you should do it this way is the length of the content. If you ask it to just write from the outline, you’ll be lucky to get around 600 words. If you ask it to write each section in turn, you should get a much longer post of around 2,000 to 4,000 words depending on the outline and the topic.

You can also use ChatGPT to create much longer content for ebooks and landing pages, lead generation content and a whole host of other stuff just by altering your approach a little.

Using ChatGPT for SEO

ChatGPT can also work with things like keywords and LSI keywords and produce SEO-rich content. It ‘understands’ the notion of SEO and how it is organised when writing a piece of content but it can get over-excited. It’s important if you are using ChatGPT to improve SEO that you run it through a programme like Yoast to check you’ve got the approach right. When it gives you keywords, check with Google Keyword Planner to see what sort of traffic they get.

In short, you can use the software to produce several aspects of SEO, including:

  • A list of relevant keywords, including long-tail keyword combinations.
  • You can ask it to write an SEO-focused article for a particular keyword.
  • You can ask it to create FAQs for a particular topic.
  • You can get it to generate tags and meta descriptions.

Using it for Social Media

Yes, ChatGPT can also generate social media content including hashtags for different platforms. As an AI language model, ChatGPT can analyse vast amounts of data and understand natural language, which helps generate ideas for social media content and appropriate hashtags.

However, it is important to note that the quality and effectiveness of the content generated by ChatGPT will depend on the input it receives. For example, providing specific information about your brand, target audience, and marketing goals can help ChatGPT generate more relevant and effective social media content and hashtags. It takes practice to get this right.

Additionally, it is important to review and refine any content generated by ChatGPT to ensure that it aligns with your brand’s messaging and values. As with any marketing tool, human input and expertise are essential to creating a successful social media strategy.

So, I asked:

Create an engaging tweet to promote a quiz night starting at 7 pm at a local pub. The pub is called The Gardener’s Arms, including hashtags.

Computer said:

🎉 Get ready for a night of fun and trivia at The Gardener’s Arms! 🍻 Join us for Quiz Night tonight at 7 pm and put your knowledge to the test. 🤔 Bring your team and compete for a chance to win some great prizes. 🏆 #QuizNight #TheGardenersArms #PubQuiz #TriviaNight #FridayFun

You can also get Chat GPT to do longer posts and threads as well as groups of posts for scheduling. For example, you could ask it to write 10 tweets on a particular theme so that you have all your social media content for the week ready to go.

Using ChatGPT for Pay-Per-Click Advertising

Yes, it can do PPC as well. If you’re struggling to come up with ad copy, ChatGPT can suggest keywords (which you can then check with Google Ads for reach) and write your advertising copy.

I asked it:

Write an engaging pay-per-click ad for the keyword local book store.

It came back with:

Discover your next read at our local bookstore! Cosy atmosphere, knowledgeable staff, and a wide selection of titles. Support your community and click now!

Can it Create a Website?

This is one thing I haven’t investigated much so I don’t know how reliable it is. ChatGPT can write code on various things including website design but there are other AI solutions around at the moment that can create your whole website including generating content. Here’s an example:

Beware These Issues with ChatGPT

Used the right way there’s no doubt that small businesses with limited time and budget can get quite a bit out of AI software like ChatGPT. There are some things to look out for, however:

  • It sometimes loses the plot: For long articles and bits of content, ChatGPT can suddenly change it’s mind about what it is writing. It can, for instance, produce a 7-part outline for a blog post and end up expanding and writing a 15-part one. This isn’t always a bad thing but it can lead to quite a bit of repetition.
  • It will make stuff up: As I’ve already discussed, one of the major faults of ChatGPT is that it has no compunction about making up facts. That’s problematic if you are doing a more scientific article or are looking for things like supporting statistics. My advice is that they’ll probably sort this out at some point but for now, it’s best to leave well alone.
  • It can repeat itself: Especially when you first start using ChatGPT it can repeat itself, especially for longer bits of content. It particularly loves summarising and it can be difficult to stop it. It also tends to use a lot of repeated linguistic combinations (its most common seems to be using ‘can’ a lot and the phrase ‘by utilizing’). Incidentally, it also has a problem with writing in UK English.
  • Plagiarism: I haven’t checked this out in detail but there are rumblings that ChatGPT has a tendency to copy stuff as well. Check out this post from PC Guide.
  • It can be identified as AI-generated content: You can put content into other AI software to see if was generated by AI. At the moment, this doesn’t seem to be a problem. But things can change.

This last point is important. We’re still in the early days and things could change, especially if there is a backlash against the technology. That means if you’ve written content with AI and thrown it up on your website, you may be penalised in future if, for instance, Google does yet another about-face and decides we’ve all been abusing the software and throwing any old shit up onto the internet. It’s just something to bear in mind.

Using ChatGPT: Best Practice

  • Don’t just throw your AI content up on your website – check it for factual errors, and edit it to be less AI’ish and more human. You’re being saved a lot of time so try not to be lazy.
  • Be specific with your prompts – there are quite a few hints and tips floating around at the moment so it’s worth a search online and trying a few different things out to see if they work.
  • Don’t be afraid to ask ChatGPT to reformulate its response if you don’t quite like it. It’s one way that the system learns more about what you are looking for.
  • Have a heart and think outside the box. It’s a good idea to explore new ways of doing things and different approaches – even if you don’t use the content produced after all.

ChatGPT and Marketing: FAQs

Confession: I asked it to write this, of course, I did. Make of it what you will!

Q: Can ChatGPT do all my marketing?

A: While ChatGPT can assist with marketing tasks, it cannot do all of your marketing on its own. Marketing involves a variety of tasks, including strategy development, content creation, and advertising, which require human input and expertise.

Q: What marketing tasks can ChatGPT help with?

A: ChatGPT can help with tasks such as generating ideas for content, drafting social media posts, and writing email newsletters. It can also assist with data analysis, customer segmentation, and lead generation.

Q: How accurate are ChatGPT’s marketing suggestions?

A: ChatGPT’s suggestions are based on its analysis of vast amounts of data and its ability to understand natural language. However, it is important to review and refine its suggestions to ensure they align with your brand’s messaging and values.

Q: Is ChatGPT a substitute for human marketers?

A: No, ChatGPT is not a substitute for human marketers. While it can assist with certain tasks, human marketers bring creativity, expertise, and critical thinking skills that are essential to a successful marketing strategy.

Q: How can I integrate ChatGPT into my marketing strategy?

A: ChatGPT can be integrated into your marketing strategy by incorporating its suggestions into your content and advertising campaigns. It can also be used to analyze data and provide insights into customer behaviour and preferences.

Q: Is ChatGPT secure to use for marketing tasks?

A: Yes, ChatGPT is secure to use for marketing tasks. However, it is important to ensure that any data or information shared with ChatGPT is protected and kept confidential.

Final Thoughts

So, there’s my take on the AI revolution, what it means and how you might use it in marketing. There’s no doubt this has created a sudden and siezmic shift in the world, even if our governments seem completely oblivious. Where it ends, no one really knows.

Let us have your thoughts in the comments section below.