How to Not Sound like CHatGPT_mixdown
Kinsey: [00:00:00] It is one of those telltale signs of when people are just copy pasting directly from Chat GPT into their social media posts. It's like, Oh man, this person used quite a lot of emojis. It's a little overboard. It's probably just copy pasted from Chat GPT. Welcome to Authentic AI for Entrepreneurs, the podcast that shows you how to leverage the power of AI technology without wasting your time or selling your soul.
Let's embrace making AI work for you. Hey hey my friend, I'm your host Kinsey and today we are talking about how not to sound like Chat GPT with your copy. I'm dishing up the five common tropes that you should look out for and avoid or fix when you are using Chat GPT in your content creation process and especially to write.
Copy for You. These are the tropes that you can kind of recognize when it comes to people's social media captions or their [00:01:00] emails. I am constantly, maybe I'm just a Chat GPT nerd, but I'm constantly like seeing people's captions or seeing people's emails and being like, oh, yep, this was written by Chat GPT.
Just because I can pick out these common tropes that Chat GPT just often tends to use. in the copy that it dishes up. So that is not to say that we should not be using Chat GPT to help us write copy, right? I use Chat GPT all the time to help me write emails and social media posts and all that jazz.
However, these are things that we can totally be aware of, catch, fix, move on so that we are sharing copy with the world that feels more human and doesn't look like a robot wrote it. So if you do enjoy this podcast, make sure that you share it with a Biz Bunny who should also listen to it. And Hey, while you're at it, go ahead and leave us.
five stars or a friendly review on whatever platform you're listening to this episode on, because that really will help us to continue [00:02:00] spreading our authentic AI message and building our authentic AI community. All right, let's go ahead and dive right in.
Okay, my friends, so I just want to reiterate that the fact that these common tropes pop up with the copy that Chat GPT is generating for us, it doesn't mean that we should just avoid using AI tools in general. It's up to you to decide how you want to use Chat GPT in your business. And I am all for having it help you write copy.
I myself have Chat GPT write copy for me, for my courses, for my social media posts, blogs, podcasts, outlines, emails. Like I said, you know, lots of different things. But I do think it is important to always be looking at the copy that Chat GPT is throwing our way and making sure that it aligns with our brand, that it sounds like us.
And avoid these tropes that are kind of recognizable nowadays as copy that may have came from [00:03:00] Chat GPT or another tool so that we can maintain our brand's authenticity so that we can make sure we are sharing copy of the world that sounds human and doesn't necessarily look like a robot wrote it for us.
Right? So that is what we're talking about today. And I can't start this episode without talking about the very first step to using Chat GPT to write copy for you. And that is training Chat GPT on your brand persona. So that is the very, very first step that you should do if you are using Chat GPT or similar AI tool in any way in your business.
When you can train Chat GPT to understand your brand, to understand who your brand is, who you're speaking to, and how you write copy, then that is how you will get the best initial response. from Chat GPT. When you can train them to think and sound like your brand from the get go, then when you are asking Chat GPT to write copy for you, you are more likely to get [00:04:00] a response that sounds like your brand.
So if you need help training Chat GPT on your brand persona, I actually do have a mini course for that. It's called the Brand Persona for Chat GPT mini course. You can complete it in under an hour and it will walk you through the steps of training Chat GPT to sound like your brand, to think like your brand, and it will give you two proven methods to get it to write copy that is more in your brand's voice.
You can find the mini course at diywith. ai slash mini course. That's diywith. ai slash mini course. It is linked in the show notes below, and you can snag that today, complete it in under an hour, and then hit the ground running, getting Chat GPT to work for your brand in a way that's aligned with your brand.
Okay, so moving on to these five common tropes that Chat GPT will often dish up in the copy that it produces. And I do want to just say that when it comes to getting Chat GPT to [00:05:00] write copy for you, even if you do train Chat GPT on your brand's voice and writing style and all that jazz, These are common things that can pop up.
You can, you know, tweak and hone and do different things. Remind Chat GPT what you want out of the copy that's producing. And at the same time, these things commonly pop up. So one reason I'm bringing this up is because it's always a good idea to keep these things in the back of your mind and kind of analyze the copies in your way so that you can quickly fix and edit and make sure that it is not looking like a robot rodent.
But also, I want to touch on the fact that often a complaint that I hear from people who are using Chat GPT to write copy for them is that they ask Chat GPT to write this blog post or write this social media caption and it throws something their way and they're like, Ooh, this just doesn't align with me.
This just doesn't sound like me. And they end up getting frustrated because they waste a lot of time, firstly, prompting Chat GPT and asking it for the copy and then being [00:06:00] like, okay, this is bad. I'm going to rewrite it all anyway. Here is where these tropes and just doing quick edits can come in handy, because there's a difference between editing and revising a piece of copy and doing a total rewrite.
And I have a lot of experience actually with editing copy myself. I was a opinions editor at the newspaper at Purdue, and you know, in my courses and in my business, I have done a lot of looking at people's captions or just copy in general and Helping them edit it and revise it to make it a little bit better.
Right. And I think that a lot of people don't understand that when you can look at a piece of copy and you can do those quick edits first, that will immediately improve the copy, then it feels less overwhelming. And often it doesn't end up in a total rewrite. If you can, you know, get rid of words that are overused or change up words that don't make sense.
Get rid of the repetitive statements. You just do a cleanup job first. then you can really get [00:07:00] to the bones of the copy and it is so much better so much more quickly without you just like getting frustrated and completely rewriting it, right? So that's what I wanted to bring up first because these quick fixes for these common tropes will likely help you not have to completely rewrite your copy every time.
Often, you look at the copy that Chat GPT and it's these common tropes that make you go, ugh, this does not sound like me. But the cool thing is, if you can just get rid of the tropes and then work with the copy that Chat GPT gives you, man, I hope that this will allow you to save more time and start revising and editing using quick fixes instead of doing that total frustrating rewrite that just wastes your time because I agree it does.
Okay. So here are the common tropes to avoid. The first one is that Chat GPT totally goes overboard with the emojis. Okay. I don't even, there's like no avoiding this. You can tell Chat GPT, [00:08:00] my brand doesn't use emojis and it will still use. Frickin emojis. And it will like double up emojis even. And it uses the weirdest emojis all the time.
I'm like, I never use the frickin clock emoji, the rainbow emoji, the plant growing emoji. Like, no, I don't use those. Those aren't my brand emojis. That is one of those things that can be a total turnoff. And or it is one of those telltale signs of when people are just kind of copy pasting directly from Chat GPT into their social media posts.
It's like, Oh man, this person used quite a lot of emojis. It's a little overboard. It's probably just copy pasted from Chat GPT. How can you quickly fix the over usage of emojis? I just honestly delete the emojis that Chat GPT puts there, and I add emojis in my brand's style. If you don't know your brand's style when it comes to emoji usage, that might be the first step for you.
Is really think about what emojis [00:09:00] reflect my brand. How does my brand use emojis in its content? For Feel Good Social, I have my go to expressive emojis that I use to just bolster the emotions in the copy. I will use emojis as well to break up the copy visually to make it easier to read so that it's just not like a full huge block of text.
I'll also use emojis as bullet points. Instead of just a bullet point, I'll use a star emoji or I'll use the finger pointing sideways emoji to kind of like make that copy pop out. And I like that the emojis are colorful and they really stand out more than bullet points. That is my Feel Good Social and Authentic AI emoji usage.
What does that look like for your brand? And make sure that you are getting rid of the Chat GPT emojis and adding your own in a way that feels natural and reflective of your brand. The second trope to look out for is Chat GPT loves to start most [00:10:00] pieces of copy with an overly enthusiastic greeting. And maybe this is somewhat the way that I've trained Chat GPT on my brand of voice.
I have told it to use casual, friendly language, you know, and it knows Feel Good Social's brand vibe is all about inclusivity and community and all that stuff, but it tends to start every single piece of my copy with, Hey there, empowered entrepreneur. Hey there, photographer. Hey there, you know, whatever.
Oh man, if Chat GPT is starting every piece of copy with a greeting that's like, you know, hi, whatever. Here's the thing, my friend, sometimes call out greetings like that can be used in a very purposeful way. If you are speaking to a very specific person or segment of your audience, it can be awesome to be like, calling all entrepreneurs, calling all photographers, calling all gardeners.
I have several gardeners in my audience. So if I were speaking directly to them, then I might say that, but you really should not start every single piece of copy [00:11:00] with a greeting like that. It's often much better to just dive straight into the nitty gritty of your content, of your purpose, your topic, whatever it is, because that's how you'll grab their attention immediately.
And we all know that attention spans are less than minimal these days, right? So get rid of those greetings, whatever chat GPT throws your way. Just delete it. Just get it out of there. You don't need to use it. You know, use it very, very sparingly in your copy, and that will immediately make your copy sound better.
And then you get right into the nitty gritty of your content. Okay, the third trope that I want to cover is Chat GPT will often use the same common kind of like Power words, I'm using quotations, they're like these powerful words that aren't really used often in copy until Chat GPT started throwing them our way.
And now I'm seeing them way more often. And there are quite a few common kind of power words that Chat GPT uses. I'm [00:12:00] going to name a few, but just be on the lookout for words that are repeated again and again and again that don't really sound natural and or that you wouldn't normally use. But a lot of common quote unquote power words that Chat GPT will use is Unlock, Unleash.
Like it starts a lot of titles with Unlock, Unleash, you know, and it's pretty funny. I've seen it use The Power Of a lot of times, which totally fits the power word or phrase. And also another word that I've noticed it using lately is Crucial. I don't use Crucial. So many times in a row. And I'm like, Chat GPT, not everything is crucial.
And that doesn't sound natural. Like people don't use crucial as much as they use important, right? So every time I see Chat GPT use crucial in the copy that throws my way, I just. Swap it out for important because that is much more me sounding. It's much more kind of normal person sounding and common, which does end up making your coffee sound more human, [00:13:00] right?
So my quick fix for the common power words is just firstly, try to really notice what words Chat GPT does use. in your copy that it produces for you because it could look different, but just then quickly, you know, do the swap for whatever your brand would use, right? So I will sometimes use unlock or unleash or the power of, but often I'll You know, switch it up for Discover, you know, instead of unlock your brand persona for Chat GPT, it's discover your brand persona for Chat GPT or whatever that looks like for you.
Have those little flips in your back pocket and make those changes and you'll be impressed by how quickly it sounds more like your brand so that you don't have to do that total rewrite and you can just do revisions that are more quick and make sense. Okay, the fourth trope that I want to talk about is overusing certain writing style crutches in a way.
I don't know how else to describe this, but [00:14:00] there's certain, like, turns of phrase or ways that Chat GPT can write that it just kind of overuses. And this took me a while to realize because a lot of these writing style crutches are like compelling and they're a great tool to add to your writing or a great like style to add to your writing.
But when they're overused, it can get a little bit, Oh, okay, you know, this is written by Chat GPT or it can get like just a little bit repetitive, right? So one of these writing style crutches is. It's not just about X. It's also about Y. This happens all the time in my copy that I have Chat GPT write for me.
And at first I'm like, yeah, it's not just about authenticity. It's about strategy. Yeah. It's not just about writing better captions. It's about getting your captions done more quickly. You know, blah, blah, blah. I see these things in the copy that Chat GPT throws my way. I'm like, yeah, Chat GPT, [00:15:00] this is a great statement.
I love the point that you're making here. But when it is overused and just continues to say, it's not just about this. It's also about this. It's not just about this. It's also about this. It like gets boring. It gets repetitive. And it starts to feel a little bit more like a robot wrote it because it doesn't feel as like human, right?
And so start to notice those common writing crutches or tropes that it uses in the way that it writes your copy, the stylistic choices that it makes, and just make sure that you are using them sparingly or like in a
The fifth trope is kind of not really a specific trope as much as it's just Chat GPT can be very repetitive and long winded. This is one of those tips I wanted to share because this will immediately [00:16:00] GPT's copy so that you're just Spending five minutes editing and not 15 minutes of rewriting or longer.
Chat GPT will often throw out copy that's saying the same thing again and again and again, in multiple sentences. So it's being kind of long winded and repetitive and it's just kind of dragging its copy on and dragging the point it's trying to make on instead of making its point and moving on. So what I like to do is cut out things that are repetitive.
I'll say, Oh no, it's saying this in the sentence right before this. I'm just going to cut this sentence out. Oh, it's repeating itself right here? Okay, let me cut out one of those sentences. And this can be a little bit difficult because honestly, like, Chat GPT can be very compelling and it can be kind of hard to choose which sentence to cut out.
It actually does come up with a lot of great content and it can say the same thing over and over in multiple ways and it can be hard to choose which sentence you want to cut. So what I want to tell you right now is [00:17:00] to just cut out all of the repetitive crap and don't worry too much about losing a sentence that sounds good.
Like you don't need to worry about like, Oh my gosh, but this sentence is great. But this sentence is great. Which one do I choose? No, no, no. There's a phrase in like the novel writing world called like, um, what is it? Like kill your babies or kill your darlings or something. I don't know. It's not the best phrase.
Authors often get hung up on a specific sentence that they love that is not serving the purpose of the story, and they have trouble editing it out of their writing because they love that turn of phrase so much. But ultimately, when their novels go to their editors, when the writers send the novels to the editors, That is the stuff that the editors cut out because they understand that it's better to be straightforward and get to the point and use less words instead of just constantly repeating yourself and getting overly wordy and jargony.
Yes, it's an [00:18:00] awesome sentence. Yes, it sounds great, but it has to go because it's not serving the purpose of the story. And the same thing comes to your captions or your copy that Chat GPT is writing for you. Cut the crap. Get rid of the stuff where Chat GPT is just repeating itself over and over. And you'll find that you end up with a piece of copy that sounds really great and sounds more like you.
So there you have it, my friend. Make sure that you keep those in mind and look out for them whenever Chat GPT throws copy your way. And if you can edit out these common tropes first, then I promise you will actually end up with copy that you might not feel like you need to fully rewrite. And that does sound more human, more aligned.
And don't forget, if you do want to train Chat GPT on your brand, check out our mini course. It is Super quick, it's super affordable, and you will be able to hit the ground running using Chat GPT in the most aligned way for [00:19:00] your brand. It's at diywith. ai slash minicourse, diywith. ai slash minicourse.
You'll find the link in the show notes below for that. And I hope that you have a wonderful rest of your week. I will catch you next time I catch you. Thank you so much for tuning in to Authentic AI for Entrepreneurs, my friend. If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your shows.