When it comes to leveraging AI, many people feel it’s a means of forgoing human effort and doing things the “easy way.” While it is certainly true that AI has greatly improved efficiency, there’s a method of using it without losing the “soul” of your work – or your customers.
Facts are facts: people generally don’t love the idea that the work they’re paying for is being spit out by an AI. If that’s what they wanted, they could do that themselves. So, if a 2000+ comprehensive blog or webpage build crosses your desk, you need to write all that material from scratch, right?
Yes – of course. But there’s a way to use AI to make this task easier, all without losing the intrinsic soul and personality of your work.
After all, 83.2% of content marketers plan to use AI content generation tools to assist their content marketing efforts in 2024 – which is all well and good, but it’s important to remember we’re using the term TOOL here, not replacement.
Luckily, REM Web Solutions’ writers are hard at work (not written by AI – HI, HELLO, human writer here) and have all the tips for leveraging AI without losing the human spirit.
Research, Research, Research
A big part of writing comprehensive work is doing the research required to make sure your content reads as informative and authoritative. Research for large written pieces takes a long time, and sometimes, we investigate subjects that sometimes don’t have easily accessible information.
Sometimes, using Google Gemini or ChatGPT can be essential in shortening the length of time it takes to research various complex subjects. The more time you save, the more time you can spend personalizing the piece of work.
However, it is important to know that AI tools can be wrong, so it’s also worth it to double-check and verify the facts before you implement them into your work.
You can also ask most AI tools, “Are you sure?” and have it double check itself. But human eyes are often more discerning, so it’s best to do a quick search to verify that the AI has its facts straight.
Rearranging, Bulleting Points, Creating Lists
As writers, all of us tend to have a unique approach to how we produce content. Some of us write everything from start to finish, some of us compile notes and build what we sometimes call a “skeleton” (a basic build out that you flesh out later), and some of us literally just write the punch line and work around it.
If you’re anything like the writer of this blog, then you like to mix it up – but mixing it up can sometimes make my documents a little messy. This is where I’ll have the AI help.
Yes, I did just break the fourth wall.
If you have notes you’ve taken during client meetings or large paragraphs that appear hard to read, you can drop that information into the AI tool and ask it to break it down for you. Whether that’s into bullet points or breaking up your unique text into a more readable format, the AI tool can take menial tasks off your plate. You can even take a fully written article and ask it to add headers for you.
This way, you’re not having the AI write the content for you, but rather help you out with the structuring so your piece is neat, tidy, and nice to look at. This way, you can keep the unique tone of your work without sounding like a generic AI. And trust us – writers can tell the difference.
Offering Suggestions During Periods of Burnout
Sometimes, you can end up working on large projects (we’re talking 10,000 words or more sometimes) and find yourself facing a lot of burnout. No one is endlessly creative all the time, and sometimes, you need a second pair of eyes to offer you suggestions – or, in this case, an AI tool.
Here’s how I would personally do it:
- Begin working on a large project on, let’s say, a high-end dog grooming business. I’m writing 10 pages of content, 1000 words each. I got stuck on page five because I’m burnt out. Let’s say the page I’m working on is all about… dog shampoo.
- I have the information about the product from the client, but I can’t quite seem to get the page started because I’m experiencing burnout. I open a general AI tool and ask it something like: what are the benefits of dog shampoo?
- The AI searches the web and spits out general information on potential benefits of dog shampoo. I compare this to the notes the client gave me – and eureka! I realize that a big selling point of the product is that it uses hypoallergenic ingredients.
- I return to the AI and ask it the benefits of the shampoo's hypoallergenic ingredients. It provides me with a bullet list that I can use as a jumping off point for the page.
- Bip, bam, boom, I write the webpage with the help of AI. Everyone is happy.
Backing away from the fourth wall again.
Proofreading and Spell Checking
Listen, most programs you use for writing are intelligent enough to detect potential errors in your work. Plus, most of us have add-ons such as Grammarly or the like to make sure our work is in top shape. However, sometimes things can be missed. Sometimes, programs don’t pick up on tiny errors, and other times, the free version of Grammarly is WRONG.
Luckily, at REM Web Solutions, we have an amazing team of writers who all work together to double check each other's work and make sure everything is hunky dory.
But, sometimes, you don’t have a talented group of writers to look things over, and Grammarly has given you trust issues.
So, if you need someone, or rather, something, to look your work over, drop it into the AI and ask it to check for spelling or potential errors. You can even ask it to highlight areas it thinks need correction.
I personally haven’t done this more than a couple of times, but when I have, most of what I found is that occasionally I mistype a word and it isn’t caught because the word I mistyped isn’t technically wrong – it just wasn’t the word I was trying to write.
Having AI as a second pair of digital eyes can help you avoid potential mistakes that you missed. While you may be a talented editor, everyone experiences a little writing blindness after staring at a piece/screen for too long. AI can help with that.
Don’ts of Using AI
OK, we’ve given you some examples of how you can use AI without losing your souls (or customers). But now we need to offer examples of things you SHOULDN’T do when using AI.
Don’t Let AI Write Your Content for You
It is super tempting to have AI just write a piece or even just a section of a piece for you. And listen, asking AI to write an intro for you may not be the worst thing in the world, but you should use it more as a suggestion if you’re stuck rather than an opportunity to just copy and paste content.
NEVER copy and post content from the AI. You’re going to look very silly if you accidentally copy and paste a quip from ChatGPT into your content.
Again, the average person may not be able to tell the difference, but writers and marketers who have been in the industry for a long time, many of us can tell the difference.
Not to mention there are additional tools to check for the prevalence of AI content – although, to be clear, these can also be unreliable, especially the free versions.
You can let AI offer you writing suggestions if you’re stuck and need help on a piece of content, but having it write the content is a no-no.
Don’t Rely Too Heavily on AI
It’s OK to use AI, even daily, to help you with small tasks. But you shouldn’t rely too heavily on it. The more you rely on AI, the more likely you’re going to lose the human element in your work. The personality (and not so subtle Deadpool puns) could get lost in translation, and your work could start to sound soulless and drab.
Instead, it’s important to focus on writing content that is specially tailored to your business, including the persona or tone you want your content to have. For REM, we want you to know we have a team of writers who really enjoy creating content for you, so we try to make content fun and engaging.
By doing that, it not only makes our content unique, it makes you, the customer, more likely to stick around and enjoy the post.
So, we’re not telling you NOT to use AI, but use it smartly. After all, even Google’s own John Mueller recommends using AI to find inspiration to try new things on your writing projects.
Hopefully, our poorly written jokes and expert advice help to keep the soul in your work!
