AI Considerations & ChatGPT Prompts for PR, Social Media Professionals

by Ashley Shuler | Oct 25, 2023 | Content, PR tools

You may be uncertain about AI. Where do I even start? How do I ethically leverage it in my PR efforts? How can it help me work faster and better? Will it take my job? How do I disclose that I’m using AI to my clients or boss?

As shared in the “The Realist’s Guide to AI & PR” master class by Michael Smart PR (free replay available until Oct. 26), it’s no longer a question of if AI will impact knowledge workers – it’s a question of when it will achieve critical mass within our industry.

The best time to experiment is now, as the Muck Rack State of AI in PR report found that 61% of PR pros say they already use AI or plan to explore it. Pros also concluded that AI is one of the top five skills companies must focus on to succeed in the next five years – ranking it higher than practice areas like influencer relations and social media. AI also took center stage in Sprout Social’s 2023 State of Social Media report, with 97% of leaders agreeing that AI and machine learning (ML) will enable companies to analyze social media data and insights more efficiently.

Below, we’ll explore the noteworthy AI tools relevant to our field and dive into some examples of prompts you can use in your day-to-day PR workflow.

Content Generator Examples

ChatGPT: Natural language processing tool that allows you to have human-like conversations and much more with the chatbot. The language model can answer questions and assist you with tasks such as composing emails, essays and code.
Bard: Google’s experimental, conversational, AI chat service. It is meant to function similarly to ChatGPT, with the biggest difference being that Google’s service will pull its information from the web.
Google Duet AI: Composes emails or writes a draft of something like a job description. In Gmail, Duet AI can understand the context of an email you received and calibrate your response to be shorter, more elaborate or more formal.
Jasper: AI writing tool designed to generate marketing copy, such as blog posts, product descriptions, company bios, ad copy and social media captions.
SlidesGPT: Slide deck generator compatible with PowerPoint and Google Slides.
Muck Rack’s PressPal: Drafts press releases based on news descriptions and surfaces a list of journalists to target based on the press release content.

AI text detectors also assess whether inputted content is human or AI-written to uphold ethics and identify plagiarism. Examples include GPTZero, AI Text Classifier and Copyleaks AI Content Detector.

Image & Video Generator Examples

DALL·E 3: Text-to-image generator that allows you to use ChatGPT to create prompts.
Midjourney: Popular AI program used for creating images using prompts.
Fotor: Quickly creates professional and realistic HD AI headshots and profile pictures.
Aragon: Another AI headshot generator.
Synthesia: Turns provided text into high-quality videos with AI avatars.
Fliki: Great for creating videos ready for social media.

For every tool listed in the above sections, there are 20 more, given the recent boom.

Productivity Tools

Grammarly: Grammar and style writing assistant that analyzes text in emails, documents, Slack, and social channels. GrammarlyGO now exists within its apps and browser extensions as a new tool that can generate text, refine existing text for tone, and help brainstorm ideas with simple prompts. (I’m using it to edit this blog!)
Slack GPT: Will summarize unread messages in a channel with the click of a button, compose or refine a message and automatically transcribe Huddles into notes (coming soon).
Otter.ai: Writes automatic meeting notes with real-time transcription, recorded audio, automated slide capture and automated meeting summaries. It syncs with Google and Microsoft calendars to join chosen meetings and works across Zoom, Google Meet and Microsoft Teams.
Fireflies.ai: Helps teams transcribe, summarize, search and analyze voice conversations across several video-conferencing apps, dialers and audio files.
Motion: Helps auto-schedule your calendar to set aside and organize time blocks for meetings, tasks, projects, breaks, etc.

ChatGPT Prompts for PR Pros

There are a few tips to write a good prompt, including being specific in what you ask and providing as much content as possible. Specify a preferred tone in your content prompt – journalistic, serious, lively, funny – and define a character limit if it’s of importance – think social posts, email subject lines, etc.

Words and phrases to get you started include:

List, generate, produce, propose, compile, describe, brainstorm, name, develop, answer outline, write, argue, edit…
Write in AP style.
Write three different headlines for this press release using standard journalistic news style. [Paste draft release]
Here is a news article. What is the main takeaway? [Paste article]
Read these three blogs. Summarize the main takeaways. Tell me what questions someone may still have about the subject. [Paste blogs]
Shorten this.
Cut this by 25%.
Rewrite this.
Correct this sentence.
Suggest alternatives to.
Suggest three different ways to conclude this blog. [Paste blog]
What are the most frequently asked questions on [topic]?
Suggest 10 outlets that cover [topic].
How can [product/service] help [audience] overcome [challenge]?
List [number] of influencers in the [industry] space.
List 10 national business journalists who have written extensively about [industry/topic].
In the voice of [interviewer/journalist], generate a list of [number] interview questions for [name and/or title] about [topic].
What are some awards that I could submit a [industry] company for?
Make a list of [industry] conferences taking place in 2024.
Generate a list of relevant industry events where we can pitch [company] as a thought leader in [niche] by showcasing our new [product/service].
What podcasts cover [topic]?
Generate a list of competitors for a [product] sold in [location].
Based on current data and patterns, what can we expect to see in terms of growth and innovation in the [industry] industry over the next [time frame]? Please provide specific insights and examples.
What are some of the key challenges facing the [industry] industry right now? How can a company in this space address these challenges, and what opportunities might arise as a result?

It’s vital to review all outputs closely for accuracy and personalize the copy to make it tailored, unique and human.

For more ideas, consider purchasing Jeneration PR’s Powerhouse Prompts resource or read Muck Rack’s blog, which includes 100 ChatGPT prompts for PR pros.

ChatGPT Prompts for Social Pros

Compile a list of [topic] hashtags on [social platform]
What are the most popular hashtags that include [keyword]?
Who are the most popular influencers in [industry]?
Make a list of Instagram influencers in [industry] with under [number] followers.
Create a social media post for a client in [industry].
Draft five Twitter posts with the following information [insert].
Write three tweets using this article. [Paste article]
Write a tweet announcing the launch of a new [product].
Generate a script for a [platform] video promoting a new [product].
Write five captions for a post about [topic] on [social platform].
Generate [number] ideas for an Instagram Story poll.
Generate [number] ideas for a Twitter thread about [topic].

What AI Can’t Do

ChatGPT and other tools aren’t perfect. They won’t do your job for you. While these tools, prompts and tips help give you a starting point, you will need to heavily edit to ensure what it spits out is reflective of your specific industry, client, preferences and more. And the more information you can give ChatGPT about a particular company, product or industry, the better it will respond.

Using AI tools has been found to increase worker productivity and accuracy on certain tasks. A recent Harvard Business School study found that the tested AI group completed tasks 25% faster than the AI group. Perhaps more interesting is that the AI group’s work was 40% higher quality. Leaning into AI and completing work quicker and of better quality than those around you can get you noticed at work.

Overall, think of AI tools like using a calculator – it gives you the answer, but it’s up to you to interpret and present the findings. After all, you are the PR pro!

Has your company been generating AI ideas, but you don’t know what to do with them next? We may be able to help. Shoot us a message.