No, ChatGPT Does Not Write Our Content.
Here’s how we, as a content agency, do and don’t use generative AI.
As a content agency, we often get these questions and comments:
“You must use ChatGPT to write all of that content.”
“How much of your content is written by generative AI?”
“What generative AI tool do you use to write your content?”
Let’s set the record straight: none of the content that ConiferCo creates is done by ChatGPT or some other generative AI platform. Here’s why:
We write hyper-specific content with a point of view. ChatGPT can’t do that.
We focus on high-performing content. ChatGPT can’t do that.
We write lots of long-form content. ChatGPT can’t do that.
In this article, we’ll dive into each of these in more detail. We’ll also explain what we think ChatGPT is helpful for today, from a content creation perspective.
For the sake of simplicity, in this article, we’ll refer to ChatGPT since it is the most recognizable generative AI platform, although we have used and tested several other competitors.
We write hyper-specific content with a point of view. ChatGPT can’t do that.
Before writing content for our clients, the ConiferCo team seeks to understand business objectives, target audiences, how content rolls into overarching marketing goals, and brand voice and tone. Then, we have our clients provide us with a brain dump of information about the content topic.
All of this research and preparation allows us to write content with a specific point of view. Not only do we convey the desired information, we also tailor it to the target audiences. We create it with the business’s broader marketing and strategic objectives in mind. Finally, we write it in the business’s own voice.
The result? Content that is hyper-specific to the client. It could not be repurposed by a competitor or for another client.
ChatGPT, on the other hand, is great at quickly churning out high-level content on a any topic. It does not need to be briefed, though theoretically, one could feed it all of the preliminary research that ConiferCo conducts.
When asked about the top 5 challenges faced by environmental policy makers, for example, it has a coherent response. (Albeit one caveated by the fact that its latest update was in January 2022.) The answer might be accurate (who knows?) but it is generic and high-level. It does not have any specific point of view.
We focus on high-performing content. ChatGPT can’t do that.
The ConiferCo team creates content that delivers results—for our clients’ specific use cases. That requires understanding how the content will be used: who will see it, what action it should drive people to take, what brand perception it should establish. We do this for all kinds of content, from social media content to SEO-optimized web copy.
ChatGPT can write social media captions. It cannot read the latest social posts in order to create content that is on-trend and will engage audiences.
ChatGPT can write web copy, given specific context. It cannot conduct SEO keyword analyses to know what pages to create and what keywords to optimize the copy for.
ChatGPT can write a wide range of content. But for it to be worth anything to a business, the prompt must be incredibly detailed. Often, writers end up spending a lot of time fine-tuning the prompt in order to get the desired results.
We write lots of long-form content. ChatGPT can’t do that.
Long-form content such as blog posts, case studies, or customer stories are a ConiferCo strength. Case studies are often 600-800 words whereas blog posts often exceed 1,000 words.
These long-form pieces are time-consuming to create, from conception through rounds of revisions with our clients. Truthfully, it’s something that we would love to have AI help with.
After all, long-form content is the backbone of a solid content marketing strategy. A powerful blog post can be re-used in several ways, from sourcing organic traffic to populating email newsletters to establishing credibility on social media. Being able to create good long-form pieces quickly would be a huge win—not just for us, but for all content marketers.
Unfortunately, ChatGPT and other generative AI tools have proven to be poor long-form writers. Even when given a specific word count in the prompt, ChatGPT always falls short of the target word count. When asked to rewrite to meet the desired word count, ChatGPT merely adds more generic content as padding.
We would have to edit the resulting work significantly, so much so that we would be better off writing the entire piece from scratch ourselves.
Here’s what ChatGPT is good for.
ConiferCo doesn’t use ChatGPT to do any actual writing. We have found it to be helpful in two primary ways today:
Frequently Asked Questions
ChatGPT is good at generating a list of frequently asked questions about a topic. We find this helpful when outlining a long blog post because we use the questions to frame different sections of the piece. This helps make sure that we don’t forget any key piece of information a reader might want.
Variations on Themes
ChatGPT is good at generating variations on content themes. We find this helpful in a few scenarios such as social media content creation. These variations prompt new ideas for how we can reinforce the same message without sounding like a broken record. We use these ideas as starting points for our own content.
What’s next?
We continue to test new generative AI tools in the hopes of finding one that will make our job easier. For now, we’re still writing the old-fashioned way.
Need help creating content? Here are ways we can help:
Establish your content strategy and editorial calendar.
Interested? Send us a note.