Getting Started with AI Prompts

Since late 2022, artificial intelligence (AI) in general, and ChatGPT in particular, have reached a wider range of users. Understanding AI and knowing how to use it has now become an essential skill for people working in many fields.

Put simply, AI works like this: you provide input, and AI generates a result based on that information. However, to ensure quality and meet your expectations, that input needs to be organized and written methodically.

Drawing on materials from Harvard University, Optimus introduces the basics of ‘prompts,’ the term used for information supplied to AI. The guidance below is mainly based on using ChatGPT.

The more detail, the better

For each situation, your prompt needs enough information for AI to return the desired result accurately.

Simply put, the level of detail in your prompt directly affects how complete AI's answer will be and helps limit poor responses.

Assign AI a specific role

Most commonly, AI is asked to act as someone doing a job or with expertise in a particular field. This allows AI to gather relevant information and respond to your needs.

For example, try these two prompts: ‘Suggest colors that go with yellow’ and ‘You are a contemporary fashion designer in 2023. Suggest colors that go with yellow.’ You will see the difference and can judge which prompt gives a more useful response.

Specify the response format

To get accurate results from AI, you sometimes need to specify a response format. For example, when analyzing and comparing several factors, a table is easier to use. Without a specified format, AI returns text by default. Instead, you can give AI an instruction such as:

"Answer in a table with three columns: the comparison factor, and the strengths and weaknesses of hiring an agency versus a freelancer."

Another useful suggestion is for anyone who has struggled to learn about script automation for Google Ads. Instead of spending time researching and writing scripts from scratch, you now only need a basic understanding of scripts and can easily ask AI to write them for you. For example, ask AI to write a script that automatically pauses all campaigns when total account spend exceeds a specific threshold. After refining the prompt to produce the script you want, simply put it into Google and test it before using it in practice.

Define the audience

Sometimes, to use AI's answers effectively, you need to provide extra information about the audience they are intended for. For example: briefly explain digital marketing to someone who knows nothing about it, versus briefly explaining digital marketing to someone with marketing experience.

Tone and writing style

AI can use many tones and writing styles to produce different results, such as professional, creative, polite, persuasive and more. Adding these elements makes AI's responses more varied and gives you more options to refine your final result. For the example above, I would add: briefly explain digital marketing to someone with experience, using a metaphorical tone and a persuasive tone.

Other points

The points above cover only the basic information to define before giving it to AI. As you talk with AI, you still need to add instructions to refine and complete its output.

Some simple instructions include:

• Specify what to include or exclude: tell AI whether specific content should appear in the response. For example: give me a list of keywords containing ‘digital marketing’ but excluding keywords such as ‘download, downloading, materials, recruitment, jobs.’

• To save time defining the input, you can give AI an existing template. For example, use the AIDA model to ask AI to write a Facebook ad introducing digital marketing services.

• Correct errors: break AI's response into smaller parts and ask it to fix specific elements. This helps improve the final result.

Conclusion

To use AI effectively, we should provide extremely detailed input. Clearly define the role AI should take on, such as a profession or position. Also specify the response format, tone and writing style. Finally, reviewing the result and issuing revisions until it is complete is an essential part of using AI. Alongside the guidance above, you can explore other Optimus services such as marketing, CRM implementation and automation.