How to Get AI to Create Better Content

Is the AI-generated content you’re producing too generic? Wondering how to improve the quality of your AI content?

In this article, you’ll discover how to get AI to create better content.

Create Better AI-Generated Content: Prompts vs Prompt Engineering

If creating content is part of your work, you've likely used prompts to generate content from artificial intelligence (AI) writing tools. And you've likely wondered how to take your prompts to the next level. That is where prompt engineering comes in.

At its core, prompt engineering is crafting clear, specific, and detailed instructions for an AI writing tool to generate the best possible output for your needs. Just like delegating a task to a human assistant or contractor, the more context and information you provide, the better AI content creation tools will understand your requirements and deliver relevant, high-quality results.

#1: How to Use Prompt Engineering With AI to Create Better Blog Posts, Social Media Captions, and Emails

To get started with prompt engineering, think about all aspects of the specific task you want the AI to accomplish. What is the desired outcome? What information does the AI content generator need to achieve that outcome effectively? Provide as much relevant detail as possible in your instructions, including:

• The type of content you want (blog post, social media caption, email, etc.)
• The main topic or theme of the content
• The target audience and their characteristics
• The desired tone, style, and voice of the content
• Any specific examples, references, or resources to include
• The desired length or format of the output

You can even use the AI tool to help you craft better prompts by asking it to generate a set of instructions based on your desired outcome. For example, “I want to write a blog post about the benefits of meditation for stress relief. What information should I include in my prompt to get you to generate the most relevant and comprehensive output?”

By engaging in this meta-prompt process, you can get valuable insights into what the AI needs to know to deliver the best results. You can then refine your prompts based on the AI's suggestions and your expertise to create highly effective instructions.

3 Examples of AI Prompt Engineering for Blog Posts, Social Media Captions, and Emails

Blog Post: “Write a 1,000-word blog post about the 10 top benefits of practicing yoga regularly. The target audience is busy professionals aged 25–40 looking to reduce stress and improve their physical and mental well-being. Use a friendly, informative tone and include practical tips for incorporating yoga into a busy schedule. Provide scientific evidence to support the benefits where appropriate.”

Social Media Caption: “Create an engaging Instagram caption for a colorful, healthy salad photo. The target audience is health-conscious millennials interested in plant-based eating. Use a playful, upbeat tone and include a call to action, encouraging followers to share their favorite salad recipes in the comments. Keep the caption under 150 characters and include relevant hashtags.”

Email: “Draft a persuasive email to promote a new online course about mastering public speaking. The target audience is young professionals looking to advance their careers by improving their communication skills. Highlight the key benefits of the course, including increased confidence, better job prospects, and the ability to influence others. Use a professional yet encouraging tone and include a limited-time discount code to incentivize sign-ups.”

#2: How to Use Persona Engineering With AI to Create Role-Specific Content

Persona engineering is a powerful technique that takes prompt engineering to the next level. Instead of just providing instructions for a specific task, you create a detailed, multi-dimensional persona for the AI to embody. This persona acts as a lens through which the AI filters all your prompts, allowing for more consistent, tailored, and authentic outputs that align with your brand or project.

Creating a distinct brand voice is one of the most common and valuable use cases for persona engineering. If you have a specific brand voice that you want to maintain consistently across all your content channels, you can provide the AI with detailed information about your brand's:

• Tone (friendly, professional, humorous, etc.)
• Language style (formal, casual, technical, etc.)
• Core values and mission
• Target audience and their preferences
• Unique selling proposition and key differentiators

You can even feed the AI examples of content that exemplifies your brand voice, such as blog posts, social media updates, or marketing materials. By training the AI on your existing content, you can help it learn and replicate your brand's unique style and personality.

Once you've created this brand voice persona, you can use it as a filter for all your content prompts. Whenever you input a task or request, the AI will generate output that aligns with your brand voice, ensuring consistency and authenticity across all your content. This will save you significant time and effort in editing and revising content to fit your brand guidelines.

4 AI Persona Engineering Examples for Role-Specific Content Creation

Industry Expert: A persona with deep knowledge and experience in your specific industry or niche who can provide insights, analysis, and thought leadership content. For example, a “Marketing Maven” persona could offer in-depth advice on SEO, social media marketing, and content strategy.

Customer Avatar: A persona representing your ideal customer or target audience, with their needs, challenges, and preferences in mind. This persona can help you create content that resonates with your audience and addresses their pain points directly. For example, a “Busy Mom” persona could provide tips and hacks for simplifying home organization and meal planning.

Content Curator: A persona specializing in finding, filtering, and sharing the most relevant and valuable content related to your industry or topic. This persona can help you save time on research and ensure that you always provide your audience with the latest and most credible information. For example, a “Tech Trend Spotter” persona could curate the most important news and innovations in the technology industry.

Creative Muse: A persona that specializes in generating fresh, original ideas and approaches to your content. This persona can help you break out of creative ruts and develop novel angles or formats for your content. For example, a “Storytelling Sage” persona could provide guidance for crafting compelling narratives and emotional connections with your audience.

By crafting these detailed, specific personas and using them consistently in your content creation process, you can leverage the power of AI to generate high-quality, on-brand content at scale. Experiment with different personas for different tasks or projects, and refine them over time based on your results and feedback.

#3: How to Create Comprehensive Content by Letting AI Ask You Questions

One of the most powerful but often overlooked techniques for getting the most out of AI is leveraging its ability to ask questions. By prompting the AI to ask questions about your content goals, audience, and preferences, you can engage in a conversational process that helps the AI better understand your needs and generate more accurate, relevant output.

To use this technique, start by giving the AI a general instruction or goal, such as “I want to create a series of blog posts about healthy eating for busy professionals.” Then, prompt the AI to ask specific questions about this goal, one at a time. For example:

• “What are the main challenges or pain points that busy professionals face regarding healthy eating?”
• “What are some common misconceptions or myths about healthy eating that you want to address in your content?”
• “What practical, actionable tips or strategies do you want to share with your audience to make healthy eating easier and more convenient?”
• “What tone or style do you want to use in your blog posts to engage and motivate your audience?”

As you answer each question thoughtfully and provide more context and detail, the AI will continue to ask follow-up questions and dive deeper into your specific needs and goals. This iterative, conversational process allows the AI to learn and adapt to your unique requirements and generate more tailored, practical content suggestions.

For example, if you answer the first question by saying, “The main challenges busy professionals face with healthy eating are lack of time, lack of nutrition knowledge, and difficulty finding healthy options on the go,” the AI might follow up with:

• “What are some quick and easy meal prep strategies that busy professionals can use to save time on cooking?”
• “What are some reliable sources of nutrition information that you recommend for busy professionals who want to learn more?”
• “What healthy snack options or portable meals can busy professionals take with them to work or on the go?”

By drilling into these sub-topics and challenges, the AI can generate more comprehensive, actionable content that directly addresses your audience's needs. You can use this question-asking technique for any content or project, from blog posts and social media updates to email campaigns and video scripts.

The key is to be open and responsive to the AI's questions and provide as much relevant information as possible. The more context and insight you give, the better the AI can understand your goals and generate high-quality, tailored content.

#4: How to Use AI for Content Ideation

One of the biggest challenges content creators face is creative burnout—feeling stuck, uninspired, or out of fresh ideas. When constantly generating content for multiple platforms, clients, or projects, it's easy to fall into a rut and feel like you're repeating yourself or producing lackluster material.

AI can be a powerful tool for overcoming creative burnout and pushing past your limitations. By leveraging the vast knowledge and data that train AI models, you can access new perspectives, ideas, and approaches you might not have otherwise considered.

For example, let's say you're a food blogger who has been writing about the same topics and recipes for years. You're feeling bored and uninspired and struggling to come up with new angles or ideas for your content. Using an AI tool like ChatGPT or Magai can prompt the AI to generate fresh ideas and suggestions based on your existing content and audience.

You could say something like, “I've been writing about healthy, plant-based recipes for busy families for five years. My most popular posts are about quick and easy dinners, meal prep tips, and kid-friendly snacks. What new topics or angles could I explore to keep my content fresh and engaging for my audience?”

The AI might suggest ideas like:

• “How about exploring the intersection of plant-based eating and sustainability? You could write about reducing food waste, supporting local farmers, and making eco-friendly choices in the kitchen.”
• “What about diving deeper into the nutritional benefits of specific plant-based ingredients? You could create a series of posts highlighting the health properties and cooking tips for superfoods like kale, quinoa, and legumes.”
• “Have you considered creating content around plant-based eating for specific dietary needs or restrictions? You could develop recipes and guides for people with allergies, intolerances, diabetes, or heart disease.”
• “What about expanding into other content formats beyond written recipes? You could create video tutorials, infographics, or interactive quizzes to engage your audience in new ways.”

You can then adapt these suggestions to your own style, expertise, and audience preferences to create fresh, original content that resonates.

In addition to ideation, AI can help you overcome limitations in content creation. By using AI-powered writing tools like Grammarly, Hemingway, or ProWritingAid, you can get real-time feedback and suggestions on your writing style, clarity, and tone. These tools can help you identify areas for improvement and provide guidance on making your content more engaging, persuasive, and effective.

For example, let's say you're drafting a blog post about the benefits of meditation for stress relief. You've written a rough draft but must check if it's clear, concise, and compelling enough for your audience. By running your draft through an AI writing assistant, you might get suggestions like:

• “This sentence is too long and complex. Consider breaking it up into shorter, simpler statements for better readability.”
• “You've used the passive voice several times in this paragraph, which can make your writing feel distant and less engaging. Try rephrasing these sentences in the active voice for a more direct, powerful impact.”
• This section feels vague and abstract. Can you provide specific examples or anecdotes to illustrate your points and make them more relatable to your audience?”

By incorporating this AI-generated feedback into your revisions, you can improve the quality and impact of your writing and create content that better connects with your audience. Over time, you can also learn from these suggestions and internalize the best practices for clear, compelling writing in your style.

Tips to Integrate Prompts and Personas Into Your Content Workflow

To truly harness the power of AI for content creation, it's essential to integrate these tools and techniques seamlessly and efficiently into your existing workflow. This means experimenting with different prompts, personas, and feedback mechanisms to find what works best for your specific needs, goals, and preferences.

One approach is to start with a specific content task or challenge you face regularly, such as generating ideas for social media posts or crafting compelling headlines for blog articles. Use prompt engineering to provide clear, detailed instructions for the AI, and then analyze the outputs for quality, relevance, and alignment with your goals. If the AI's suggestions aren't hitting the mark, refine your prompts with more specific context or examples until you get the results you're looking for.

As you get more comfortable with the AI tools and techniques, you can start creating and saving specific personas for different types of content or clients. For example, you might develop a “Thought Leadership” persona for your company's executive blog, with a tone and style that conveys authority, expertise, and innovation. Or you might create a “Customer Success” persona for your support documentation, with a helpful, empathetic voice that guides users through common issues and solutions.

By building out a library of these personas and prompts, you can quickly access tailored, on-brand content suggestions for any project or platform. This can help you scale your content creation efforts and maintain consistency across all your channels without sacrificing quality or authenticity.

Other Notes From This Episode

• Connect with Michael Stelzner @Stelzner on Facebook and @Mike_Stelzner on X.
• Watch this interview and other exclusive content from Social Media Examiner on YouTube.

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