Use AI as Your Free Virtual Assistant
What do you have to lose? You don't want more free time?
It’s been a while since I wrote this newsletter and this one about my experiments with AI. Now I have researched how all kinds of food writers — bloggers, freelance writers, recipe writers and newsletter writers — can use AI in ways that are actually useful.
AI, as far as I can find, is only good for a few things. But unfortunately, using it requires much more fossil fuel and money than just doing a Google search (Thanks, Alicia Kennedy). But hey, if you’re going to use it, I have thoughts about how to be strategic.
If you’re currently already using AI to generate content, and you don’t edit it, please stop that. The copy it generates will never be as good as your own, and Google has a way to detect AI copy anyway. You don’t want them to make your work less visible because of it. AI might give you a decent first pass for a story or blog post, but then you must put in the work.
Think of generative AI as your intern or virtual assistant. Ask ChatGPT, Google Gemini or Meta AI to help you. Phrase your search as a prompt. An example might be: “Acting as a food blogger, please create SEO keywords for a post on Kimchi Fried Rice.” Or ask it to generate story ideas, headlines, link suggestions, and graphics. The choices it makes might make your work easier. This ChatGPT Cheat Sheet shows you how to structure a search prompt.
Have you already tried prompts? Warning: You might get a good response right away, but it’s more likely that you will have to refine your prompt if the answer is too broad or goes down the wrong track. Refining your promos is key to getting a specific and therefore helpful answer.
Here are a few suggestions on how to use AI:
1. If you’re a food blogger or content creator
I listened to this webinar with Casey Markee of MediaWyse and came up with these prompt ideas, with his help:
“You are a professional food blogger with a deep understanding of ingredients, food science, and best practices. Generate recipes for these three ingredients. With that as your base, generate a list of possible recipe ideas using these three ingredients but confine the recipes to {insert meal type here] dishes.”
The three ingredients might be in your fridge, or seasonal ingredients, or whatever is in vogue right now.
Let’s say a brand hired you to write a round-up of Halloween recipes. You go through your blog and find that you already have two recipe posts, but you need three more. Use a prompt such as: “You are a professional freelance writer working for XXX brand. You need five recipes for a Halloween post. Here are two of the recipes (paste them in). Write three more as part of a round-up post, with a one-paragraph introduction.”
With fall coming up, you could try something like “You are a food blogger planning to write a round-up blog post. Generate 10 recipe titles for recipes using apples. Include a paragraph on the three types of apples that are best for baking.”
“Create a sales sheet I can send to brands.” Cut and paste your website’s About page and see what it produces. When I tried it I was pleasantly surprised, although I saw some lazy writing I needed to fix.