Written with a strong coffee and mild concern for humanity at 9.03pm
Look, the “overlords” comment is a joke. Mostly. But here’s the truth — AI is rapidly becoming the most useful business tool that most people are completely wasting. Not because it’s hard. Not because you need to be technical. But because nobody told you how to actually talk to it.
I use AI every single day running Social, and the difference between a lazy prompt and a good one isn’t small — it’s the difference between something you’d delete and something you’d actually send to a client. That’s what this is about.
Below are some reeeeeallllllll numbers that show just how impactful AI is for businesses and why you need to know how to use its power!
Most people are using AI wrong — and it's not their fault!
You type something like “write me a Facebook post” and you get something that sounds like it was written by a very polite robot who has never met a human. So you sigh, close the tab, do it yourself, and tell everyone AI is overhyped. Sound familiar?
The problem isn’t AI. The problem is that AI responds to exactly what you give it. Vague in, vague out. Specific in, genuinely useful out. I learned this the hard way — early on I was treating it like a search engine and wondering why the results felt so hollow. The moment I started briefing it like a person, everything changed.
The people getting extraordinary results from tools like ChatGPT and Claude aren’t smarter than you — they just learned one thing: how to prompt properly. Think of it like briefing a new staff member. You wouldn’t walk up to someone on their first day and say “do some marketing.” You’d explain who the customer is, what the goal is, what tone to use, and what a good result looks like. AI is exactly the same. Incredibly capable — it just needs direction from you.
The Super Six. Six ways to get the best out of AI
Give It a Role
Start your prompt with “You are a…” — tell it to be a marketing expert, a copywriter, a business coach. It immediately shifts how it responds and the quality goes up noticeably.
Iterate - Dont Give Up!
If the first response isn’t right, don’t start over — just say “make it shorter” or “make it less formal.” Build on it like a conversation. The third or fourth version is almost always better than the first.
Give It Context
Tell it about your business. What you do, who your customers are, what makes you different. The more it knows, the better it performs. I keep a short business description I paste in whenever I start a new task.
Be Specific About The Output
Tell it exactly what you want — “write 3 options for a Facebook ad headline, each under 10 words, aimed at Christchurch tradies.” Specific briefs get specific results every single time.
Tell It The Tone
Casual? Professional? Straight-talking? Don’t leave it guessing. Say “write this in a conversational, plain English tone — no jargon” and watch the difference immediately.
Ask It To Ask YOU Questions
This one is a game changer. Start with: “Before you write anything, ask me the questions you need to do this well.” You’ll be amazed what it asks — and how much better the result is because of it.
A Prompt Done Right (And Wrong)
Nothing shows how prompting done right and wrong, than actually showing the outputs you get from really poor and generic inputs.
Here is us, prompting in real time on Claude to help us with our copywriting for a new test Facebook Ad
Main cons & pros
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