How to Use ChatGPT to Support PR, Marketing and Social Media Strategy Implementation
If you’ve not heard about OpenAI’s new ChatGPT tool by now… where have you been?
ChatGPT is defined by OpenAI as “a language model that uses deep learning to generate human-like text which can be fine-tuned for specific tasks such as language translation, question answering, and text summarization”.
Taking the industry by storm, ChatGPT is currently free to use in its beta-version and its arrival on the scene was marked with both trepidation and jubilation by anyone who works in a creative or technical industry (basically, anyone whose job involves sitting behind a screen).
Fears of a near-future of absolute automation however proved unfounded as with experimentation has come realisation, with the rhetoric shifting from ‘ChatGPT is here to steal your job’ towards ‘ChatGPT might just make you more effective in the delivery of your job’ – and the prove really is in the pudding.
ChatGPT has blown other AI tools out of the water, both in terms of its user experience and in its ability to handle and process in lighting time much more complex queries. In its robustness, and ability to ‘learn’ from a series of prompts, ChatGPT is already proving itself a useful sounding board and research tool for a multitude of PR-related workstreams.
Here are some ways PR’s can use ChatGPT to streamline their workloads and make delivery of strategic set-pieces that bit more efficient:
- Content Generation – From social posts and pitches to blog titles and content pieces, ChatGPT can support PR’s in the time-consuming generation of all types of content in their first-draft stage. ChatGPT can easily conceptualise reems of interesting headlines or post starters from a particular prompt or data set that will help PR’s to determine more angles for pitching.
- Research and Analysis – Use it like a search engine. Pose ChatGPT a question and in seconds receive an answer. ChatGPT can also be used for fact-checking and analysis of existing content.
- News Sourcing – Keen to receive up to the minute news briefs? ChatCPT can breakdown what’s happening in the world right now which can help inspire reactive PR efforts.
- Contact Sourcing – Where media databases fall short, ChatGPT can help PR’s identify new contact and publication leads for more effective pitching.
- Supporting SEO – From meta descriptions to keyword research and search volume insights, ChatGPT gives PRs who are untrained in SEO access to top-line insights relevant to their brands that could well prove useful for determining the direction of campaigns and content pieces.
- Supporting Planning – Unsure where to start with a content plan or strategy, ChatGPT can outline the bones that seasoned PR’s can then add meat to.
- Supporting Communications Strategies – PRs can ask ChatGPT for help in handling a variety of communications situations from newsletter templates to an approach to crisis comms. While nuance and the particulars will need carefully weaving into internal and external comms, ChatGPT can support PRs with advice on how to approach various types of communications.
While PRs can now use ChatGPT to take on time-consuming or mundane daily tasks, it is clear to see that humans will be irreplaceable for a long time to come to ensure originality and uphold quality. It is a piece of the PR puzzle, rather than offering the whole shebang.
The ‘human touch’ of PR professionals is what will take ChatGPT-assisted content to the next level and ensure authenticity remains at the heart of PR activity in 2023.
It is important to note that ChatGPT can often be overly simplistic in its answers – and that PRs using it should be wary, fact-checking thoroughly and not simply copy-and-pasting to suit their needs. Fake news and plagiarism are still rife online – and even AI can’t always see the wood through the trees.
So, should PRs rush to ChatGPT? Yes and no.
It’s clear, whatever your Marketing discipline, that ChatGPT can’t much longer be ignored, but neither should it be relied upon wholly for effective delivery of PR, Marketing or SEO strategies.
PR’s bring nuance, originality, creativity, insight, and strategy to the framing of creative pieces from pitches and press releases to social posts and content pieces that ChatGPT simply cannot replicate.
So use ChatGPT, but with due diligence as while it might help you get the ball rolling, it is still up to PRs to get the job done.
