Unlock the Power of AI: ChatGPT for Beginners

AI, or artificial intelligence, is a term used to describe machines that are capable of performing tasks that would normally require human intelligence. AI can be seen in our daily lives, from facial recognition to autonomous vehicles and digital helpers like Siri.

AI has the potential to revolutionise how businesses operate by automating mundane tasks, creating content and providing better insights into customer behavior.

AI systems use algorithms and data sets to identify patterns in large amounts of information. But here's the thing: these systems can learn from their encounters with you (the human!) and take action based on the data they have collected.

What does this mean in actual terms?



Examples of AI abound, from voice recognition software like Amazon Alexa and Google Home to automated chatbots employed by banks for customer service inquiries. Autonomous (self-driving) vehicles and drones deployed for delivery services are also examples of AI. 

Artificial Intelligence has the potential to revolutionise how small businesses operate, making operations more efficient and cost-effective. A great place to start is chatGPT. It provides a no-cost way for small businesses to leverage AI capabilities.

chatGPT is an Artificial Intelligence (AI) tool that helps small businesses create content quickly and efficiently. It processes language in a natural way to generate text from information that you input. This means you can quickly and effortlessly create a large quantity of content.

chatGPT can be employed in a range of scenarios, such as writing blog articles, writing emails or letters, writing ad copy, creating business proposals and producing social media posts.

Overview of chatGPT:

ChatGPT works by taking your written prompts (basically, your instructions) and generates responses using AI algorithms. In other words, it writes stuff for you. The generated text can then be edited or refined further by you as needed. You can save time and effort, because chatGPT learns more and more about your business over time. This means you don't need to start from scratch every time you need a new piece of content. 

How Does chatGPT Work?

The way chatGPT works is simple yet powerful; it takes your instructions – whether that’s a sentence fragment or a full paragraph – and generates written content based on those instructions using natural language processing algorithms.

For example, if you enter “I need some business name ideas for a new ice-cream shop” into the platform, it will generate several ideas for you to choose from.



You can then continue the conversation with chatGPT and it will remember what happened before. For instance, you could follow up with "I like suggestions 3 and 4. Could you please suggest 5 more similar names?" and it will give you this:



(You don't need to be super polite to chatGPT, but for some reason we humans are hard-wired to say please and thank you, even when we know we're dealing with a robot!) 

Benefits of Using chatGPT for Small Businesses:

There are so many advantages to using chatGPT in your business:



1. Firstly, it saves time because instead of manually writing an email, letter or any piece of written content yourself, you can use AI technology which automatically generates relevant text in seconds.
2. Secondly, when you need to do a lot of research quickly (ie. "give me a list of inland towns in Australia with a population over 5,000"), chatGPT can outperform human research due to its ability to process vast amounts of data quickly and easily.
3. It can generate ideas for you! Use chatGPT to help you get creative.
4. Lastly, it's free!! There are no additional costs associated with hiring writers or editors when using chatGPT - making it perfect for budget conscious business owners.

chatGPT is an incredibly capable and versatile tool that can help small businesses by writing great content, improving productivity, and saving time. Think of chatGPT as a free personal assistant in your business.

In the next section we will discuss how to set up an account with OpenAI.com in order to access chatGPT for free.

When it comes to getting the most out of chatGPT, our number 1 tip is:

Be specific.

Have a really good idea of the kind of content you'd like chatGPT to produce for you. This will help make sure that chatGPT is able to generate something useful for you and not just a jumble of words.

For instance, instead of saying:

Write a letter to potential clients

You would say:

I am a plumber. My business name is ABC Plumbing. I want to write a letter of introduction to businesses in my local area letting them know I'm available for call-outs at short notice and that I offer a 20% discount for your first job with us. This letter will be sent as an email. I want the tone of the letter to be casual and friendly.

The instructions you give to chatGPT are called "prompts". When you give it specific instructions such as what we've suggested above, you can end up with very high quality output:



You can then refine the content further by following up with instructions such as:

• "This is too long. Please re-write this and make it shorter."
• "Please include our phone number, which is 03 9744 5555."
• "Please re-write this using Australian English spelling."
• "I like this. Please keep the content the same, but re-write the email in a more formal, professional style. And take out the bit about strong relationships."
• "Please write a follow up email that we could send out a few weeks later to the same clients."

The system remembers the whole conversation and can adapt accordingly.

And one final word to keep in mind while you're exploring chatGPT:

ChatGPT does an excellent job at generating copy quickly but no algorithm can replace a human's eye for detail when it comes to fine-tuning text for maximum impact. Take some extra time to review your content carefully - especially when dealing with complex topics, facts and figures or content that requires some human personality.

When it comes to using chatGPT for creating content, there are a few limitations you need to be aware of. We're gonna go over them here, but please take particular note of the last one:

Sometimes the output from chatGPT may contain errors, biases, or incomplete information. Its answers may sometimes include information that is inconsistent with what we would consider acceptable as humans.



Always, ALWAYS check your facts and figures before using chatGPT content. 

chatGPT was trained on a vast amount of text data that only includes information up until 2021. This means any information or data that was generated or published after 2021 is not incorporated into the chatGPT knowledge base. (It can't tell you, for instance, who won the AFL Grand Final in 2022).

Only use chatGPT when you're not relying on it to come up with super-recent information.

The key here is quality. Even though Google says it won't penalise high quality website content, no matter how it was created (read the Google announcement on AI-generated content here), we don't believe it's worth the risk. As such, we don't recommend using chatGPT content on your website, because of the small chance that Google will penalise your website in search engine rankings as a result. It's just too early to say with any confidence that your website rankings won't be affected.



(We may update our recommendation on this point as new information comes to hand - things are changing fast!)

No, it doesn't cost anything to use ChatGPT. As a language model, ChatGPT is freely accessible online and can be used by anyone with an internet connection.

Yes, there are limitations to what ChatGPT can do. While ChatGPT is a powerful language model that can generate human-like responses to a wide range of questions and prompts, it isn't infallible.

chatGPT may struggle with understanding certain types of questions or contexts, and its responses may not always be accurate or appropriate. Additionally, ChatGPT has been trained on a large amount of text data only up until 2021.



Finally, ChatGPT is not a replacement for human interaction and expertise, and there may be situations where a human response or intervention is necessary.

ChatGPT's responses are generated based on patterns it has learned from a vast amount of text data, which means that its information may not always be accurate or complete. While ChatGPT strives to provide useful information, it's important to verify its responses and use common sense when evaluating the information it's giving you.

While ChatGPT has primarily been trained in English, it can understand and respond to text in multiple languages with varying degrees of accuracy. However, the quality of its responses may be lower for languages other than English, depending on the amount and quality of training data available for those languages. chatGPT will usually tell you if it's having trouble using another language.

chatGPT is a great tool to help small businesses create content and do basic research. It has many benefits such as being free to use, providing quick results and increasing productivity. However, it does have some limitations which should be taken into consideration when using this technology; namely the importance of fact checking any information before publishing or sharing it publicly.

We really encourage any small business to start playing around with chatGPT. You'll be pleasantly surprised at how useful it can be in your business.

Check the 2Brownies blog often, as this is the first in a series of articles on using chatGPT in your business. We'll be diving into more advanced information and also offering real-world examples of how chatGPT can be useful for pretty much any small business.

Are you a small business looking to build your reputation and make your mark? We create awesome websites, social media content, blog posts, SEO and Google Business profiles for small businesses across Australia. Call us on 1300 608 114 or book a chat here: https://calendly.com/2brownies/chat. Our General Manager Vanessa would be happy to answer your questions.