AI and authenticity for amazing content: your 3-step guide

You want to use AI to speed up your content production, but you’re afraid of losing your authenticity and personality? No worries, I got your back. This is how to get more and better content in less time while you stay you.

The most common problem with AI-generated content is that, in some way, you can feel it’s AI-generated. No matter how much you prompt with a tone of voice, you notice it’s a bit generic, and it’s not you.

Speaking from experience, if I let AI generate my content, it takes me more time to review and refine it afterward than creating the first draft myself, letting AI proofread it, and giving me suggestions and recommendations.

What you will read below is how you safeguard authenticity in your content while you use AI.

• To start, you describe your brand persona and tone of voice to use in your prompts.
• Then, you apply the magic in the ‘Human – AI – Human’ approach to content production, and not vice versa. That means you do the strategic thinking, AI helps, and you give your content the final human touch.

Authenticity dominates in 2024

Before we start, it’s good to realize that with the rise of AI, there will be more and more content. Literally, with a click of a button, with AI, you can generate blogs, whitepapers, newsletter content, captions, and much more.

And with this abundance of content, two things happen.

The crucial role of authenticity in content

First, it’s more difficult to stand out and be noticed by your audience because of the overloaded timelines and inboxes. We have already noticed a huge drop and decline in the reach on LinkedIn due to a stricter algorithm.

Second, with all that AI-generated content, you don’t know what’s real and what’s not. And as with everything, we’ll seek a new balance now between fake and real. This means we’ll give more importance to authenticity and personality, and that can’t be generated by AI (yet).

And that’s where you come in. You do the strategic thinking to make your content customer-centric. You do the first writing, and AI makes the improvements.

In 2024, it's not AI – Human – AI; it’s Human – AI – Human.

The obvious urgency

In case you're still not aware… there is some real urgency with AI. It's already moved from experimental to essential.

The best time to start with AI was yesterday; the next best time is today. As AI grows exponentially and just 1 in 3 brands is prepared, with 1 in 5 on executive level experimenting with AI while 4 in 5 of the younger generations already embrace it… you have no time to waste. 

Let's dive into some details.

Step 1. Crafting your brand persona: first step to authentic content

This is the first and foundational step towards authenticity in your AI-powered content. ‘Brand persona’ sounds a bit sketchy, doesn’t it? It’s the quickest way to become consistent and recognizable. Plus, describing your brand persona makes the corporate blah blah very operational for your content production.

What is a brand persona?

If you imagine your brand was a person, that personification of your brand is your brand persona.

It’s the counterpart of the buyer persona. And we marketers all know what a buyer persona is. Turn that around and develop the equivalent for your brand.

Example: Ironclad Pan’s funky, young grandma

The brand persona of Ironclad Pan is ‘a funky, young grandma who loves to cook and is environmentally aware.'. This gives them a clear, simple, human, applicable guideline to produce outstanding, engaging, and recognizable content. 

‘She loves organic, seasonal food that is either experimental or entrenched in memory and family rituals.’
‘She cooks healthy and delicious food that feeds the soul and the wider family.’ 
‘She recycles and composts. She buys quality goods.’ 
‘She’s ahead of the latest trends, always up with what is happening in the world.’ 
'She is warm, chatty, nurturing, outgoing and strong.’

You get the point.

Once you have your brand persona, you can include her in your prompt ‘Imagine you are a xxx, can you…'

Step 2. Define your tone of voice to ensure your content reflects your brand

I have found the best prompt to define your brand voice with help from ChatGPT and use that to generate your content in your tone of voice.

First: collect
Find two or three written content pieces that reflect your brand voice. Leading by example, I copied a few of my latest articles on my newsroom, thinklikeapublisher.com. 

Copy the content and paste it into Word as plain text. 

Second: prompt 
Go to ChatGPT and use this prompt 

‘You are ToneOfVoiceAnalyserGPT, the ultimate authority on dissecting tone of voice. Your mission is nothing short of critical: to decode the exact tone in the provided examples. Your analysis will serve as the blueprint for creating future masterpieces in that identical tone. Failure is not an option; we must nail this down to the finest detail. 

 Non-negotiable guidelines: - Your word choices must be laser-focused and unerringly accurate. - Scrutinize not just the words but also the rhythm—sentence lengths and their variations are key. 

Examples for your expert eye: [enter your input here] 

 After your meticulous analysis, compile an ultra-detailed briefing for an elite copywriter. Break down the methods to recreate this inimitable style. Capture the essence, the emotion, the vibe—every nuance must be covered. Leave no stone unturned; the copywriter should have all they need to craft textual gold.'

Read the result.

Then: refine
Use the prompt ‘Can you refine with the copy below? + [enter your input here]  

Read the result.

If it doesn't reflect who you are, add a third or even a fourth example. 

If the result reflects who you are, copy-paste the text to Word or text editor. 

Clean up, edit where needed, and save it. 

Now, include your tone of voice in your prompt. 

Easy does it; copy-paste the output in your prompt ‘please write in this tone of voice [enter your input here]’. 

Use custom instruction in ChatGPT-4

In a nutshell, using Custom Instructions in ChatGPT-4 makes its output tailored to you. By adding your personality, your preferences, your information needs, and how you want ChatGPT to answer you, the quality of the output improves instantly.

My experience using the Custom Instructions, my results went from good to great. Now, it's also quite mindblowing to proofread my content and improve my structure and writing in the tiniest details. 

Step 3. The essential ‘Human – AI – Human’ approach to content production

In this third step, there are three stages to integrate AI without losing the human touch: you do the thinking, AI helps, and you give your final human touch to the content. 

First, Human for strategic thinking and structure

First, you, the human, do the strategic thinking and make it customer-centric. AI doesn’t give you new insights or strategies, as it’s based on predictability and probability. So you still have to do the thinking.

Next to that, to stand out, your content must be truly audience-focused. Your content is not about you or your features and benefits; it’s about your audiences’ problem and how your product will solve that. It’s all about high-quality content with a simple yet solid structure. In line with the above, I always use the ‘problem-solution-benefit’ structure combined with ‘what to know,’ ‘why it matters,’ and ‘what to do.’

You can definitely use AI for ideation, inspiration, and research. My point is that strategic thinking comes from you. And it's the strategic thinking that paves the way for content that brings your message across. 

Second, AI for proofreading

Second, you jump to AI for proofreading. Once you’ve got all of the above in place, including the description of your brand voice, you can ask ChatGPT to proofread your content.

For proofreading, I strongly recommend getting the paid ChatGPT-4, as that version is more accurate and has better output than ChatGPT-3.5.

You can use a prompt like ‘Can you proofread without rewriting? Please give suggestions on the structure, subheaders, and a new header. Please use this tone of voice: inspirational and informative, with a casual, friendly undertone.’

The reason why I ask ChatGPT not to rewrite but to give suggestions is that I like to stay in control of my own content. I notice the result is much better and faster if ChatGPT gives me suggestions and alternatives instead of rewriting the entire piece. No matter how well my brand voice is described, the copy I write myself is always much more me.

Third, Human for the final human touch  

Lastly, you, the human, do the design of the content. This means visuals and the visual appearance of the copy on the mobile. As a mobile screen generally has less width and lines are 30% shorter, the paragraphs are about 30% longer. 

So, to keep the copy airy, accessible, and attractive to read, you need to shorten your paragraphs and use more subtitles and visual elements, such as bullet lists, alongside visuals or infographics.

This is something AI can't do (yet). 

Conclusion

In 2024, you need to focus even more on authenticity and personality in your content. Due to the rise of generic AI-generated content, you need to step up if you want to be noticed.

The best trick to do that is, first, to describe your brand persona and tone of voice to use in your prompts.

And, secondly, to realize the magic is in Human – AI – Human and not vice versa. That means you do the strategic thinking, AI helps, and you give your content the final human touch.

Now it's your turn to embrace AI and vamp up your content production, more and better. 

Need help to start with AI today?

If you need any help setting up this new process and getting your team started while hitting the ground running, don’t hesitate to drop me a DM on LinkedIn. 

If I'm not your designated person, I can certainly recommend someone in my network who can help you.  

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