Is ChatGPT the new secret weapon for entrepreneurs? I think it might be. That's one of the things that we're going to be talking about today on everyday AI. This is your daily live stream podcast and newsletter bringing you the latest and what's happening in the AI world, but also how we can use all of these new developments and tools to grow our businesses and just to grow our own careers.
So that's one of the things that we're gonna be talking about today with Steven Schneider. Steven is a strategy and LinkedIn specialist. Steven, thank you for joining the show. Thanks, Jordan. Excited to be here. All right, Steven, and also Steven wins an award because he's joining us from Seattle. So this is a live show and this is 7.30 AM central. So what we're talking 5:30?
Steven [00:00:54]:
Yeah, you're right.
US Air Force Using AI Drones
Jordan [00:00:56]:
Hey, Steven is bringing it today. So if you're joining us on the live, you gotta come in with the questions. All right, so let's talk about what's going on in the world of AI news before we get back into using chat to build your business base. So this is an interesting one, Steven.
So there's been conflicting reports that the US military, the Air Force, was running an AI drone simulation in which the AI decided to kill its own operator because it determined that its own operator was keeping it from carrying out its mission, which is to destroy the enemy. I both chuckled and feared for my life when I read this. Steven, what are your thoughts on the AI technology going all the way to the US Air Force?
Steven [00:01:48]:
Pretty similar to yours. I think that we're entering that like, joked about Terminator stage of AI, you know, where it's like, they actually become so smart that they realize that they don't need us, but Hopefully they can decide it. It reminds me of like, you know, when we start mixing this sort of technology with like the Boston Dynamics robots, it's like those 2 should be as far away from each other as possible, especially now that we know what this, and then you also bring it back to like early stages with Facebook's chat bots and how they created their own language. And yeah, it's scary stuff, but I mean, it's also exciting to see that the technology has advanced that far. So it's kind of like damned if you do, damned if you don't situation.
Google's AI Search Disrupts Publishing Industry
Jordan [00:02:27]:
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Which is a great reminder. We're gonna throw something with Boston Dynamics robots in the newsletter today. We haven't shared like a little gif of that yet. If you haven't seen it, it's wild. All right, another piece, which I think we'll, like we'll get into your background a little bit more, Steven, but I think your opinion on this is, it weighs heavy.
So there's new reports detailing how Google's AI search is going to could kind of change publishing as we know it. So just real quick to explain what that means. You know, Google is starting to roll out more of an AI first search experience. So changing the way you know, the traditional search. So instead of, you know, us Googling something and looking at the top 10 results on page 1, you know, Google's just going to kind of answer our question for us, you know, taking the best of that information from all the top pages. But what that means is fewer clicks for publishers, publisher companies going, you know, up under and going out of business. But, uh, Steven, what's, what's your take on this? Because We'll get into your background later, but I'm really interested, what's your take?
Steven [00:03:33]:
Yeah, I mean, I think that just like anything, we're gonna see SEO and Google and all of these kind of top tier tools that we have available change over time. I mean, it's bound to happen. And I think that as publishers fear that their entire business is going to change, like it will, but I think that as part of it, it's really just about figuring out what you need to do to survive. And I think that you have to remember, Google makes money based on advertising.
And so they're not going to jeopardize anything that affects their revenue model because the upside of getting more advertising is always gonna be favorable to them compared to trying to get 1 extra subscription on BART, if they're even gonna charge for that or what that looks like in the future. But I would say that they're not gonna, they're pretty smart people over there and they're not gonna do anything that kind of makes people want to move away from their platform or stop publishing content.
Jordan [00:04:31]:
Yeah, and I think if anything it is, it's just going to be interesting because I think for so long, companies like specifically Google could kind of sit back and they're saying, hey, we have 93% of all search share in the US. We don't need to innovate. We don't need to improve the experience much, but now this will be interesting. Now that there's you know more people are using ChatGPT instead of Google. You know more people are using Microsoft Bing chat instead of Google, so it's going to be interesting.
So we actually have some ChatGPT news as well. So there's been a lot of reports buzzing around the Internet. So if you're on any, you know, Twitter, Reddit, so many people saying ChatGPT-4 is losing its performance. So a recent report kind of featured the response from an OpenAI team member saying that the GPT-4 API integration has not changed. So outside platforms tapping into the ChatGPT-4 API, but they didn't say anything about ChatGPT for that. You're, you know, when you're actually into the chat, they're just saying it's always evolving. Steven, have you, have you kind of seen any changes in performance? What do you think?
AI Changes Require Adaptability and Experimentation
Steven [00:05:48]:
I haven't, I think the only, I mean, the only change I've seen, which I might be out of the loop on it was the ability to kind of read the internet. I released, like, put in a blog article and, you know, get a summary of it within a couple of seconds. Now it just says, like, I'm not able to scan the internet, all that sort of stuff, which is a bummer, because that was probably one of my most used features.
But I think going back to the SEO topic, you know, it's, if anybody's ever dabbled in SEO, and they know what the feeling is like when Google rolls out an algorithm update, like, it's a scary world out there when that happens. And so I think that people have to just be susceptible to change when it comes to AI and knowing that, you know, even if they are modifying things, they're doing it with good intentions.
They're not trying to, you know, ruin the quality of their products. They might be going through, you know, some sort of experimental phases, tweaking things around, seeing what works, what doesn't work. But I don't think people should view it as such a black and white on and off good versus bad thing. I think they just have to really know that a lot of those changes are going to kind of work themselves out and could potentially come back.
Jordan [00:06:51]:
For sure. So speaking of Chat5GPT, uh, Steven, give us, give us a little bit, um, kind of on your background and, and really just how you're using ChatGPT to grow your business right now. Yeah, absolutely.
Steven's Background and How He Uses ChatGPT
Steven [00:07:06]:
So my background is in content marketing and large scale, like affiliate blogging. Uh, you still own a content marketing company with a couple of people that, uh, specialized in affiliate marketing. We own the portfolio of about 40 websites and kind of scaled that up, went through all of the fun things that have to offer there. And now since leaving the company last year, kind of focused my efforts more on LinkedIn and see the opportunity and the potential with kind of doubling down on LinkedIn right now.
And so I think that over the next like 12, 24, 36 months, my kind of focus has been on building a B2B agency for LinkedIn that can pretty much teach companies how not to write bad content. I think that company pages are 1 of the kind of few things that have yet to evolve on LinkedIn and nobody really knows how to create good content. And I think that the influencers and the content creators and like people like you have it figured out they know how to engage and know the community aspects all that sort of stuff.
But I mean I found maybe 2 or 3 company pages that can do it Well, and that's just comes down to social media training and kind of telling them, Hey, this isn't that old stuffy corporate LinkedIn that you probably created in 2010. This is now a social media platform. Here's how to use it. And so, um, yeah, kind of with that in mind is kind of where I want to kind of shift my focus in building tools and resources and kind of workshops and all the stuff that can accompany those people to get to their goals on LinkedIn.
Jordan [00:08:40]:
Yeah. So, so speaking of, I'm sure there's plenty of people listening and, you know, if you are listening live and not on the podcast, you know, feel free to drop us a comment. Naila, thank you for your comment there, just about, you know, saying they're still book lovers, just like there still will be people who, you know, want to go old school and Google things. I definitely agree with that. But Stephen, talk a little bit about, for those people out there that, you know, when they heard you say that about their LinkedIn page and putting out very dry content, you know, what's your hot quick take on, you know, what companies should be doing a little bit better with specifically with their LinkedIn content?
Engagement Key for Social Media Success
Steven [00:09:22]:
Yeah, absolutely. I think that the biggest thing comes down to engagement and the focus on building community. I think that Many social media managers or people who leverage a company page are looking at pushing content out as their main KPI and not looking at their engagement KPIs or any of the things that come around keeping your audience engaged with your content. So what I mean by that is, you know, they're looking at how many posts are we gonna get out per week? What's the best engaging type of content? What are the metrics around how these carry cells perform? All that sort of stuff.
And they're kind of aiming for impressions and likes and all that sort of stuff. But you know, when it comes back down to it, if people are replying on your content, just like you and I, you know, somebody pops in or adds a comment to our post, like we wouldn't dare just leave them hanging and not reply. And so I think that that level of care around engaging with the people who are going to come back every single day and be your ICP or your target audience, that needs to become a priority for companies.
And I think that when the focus is primarily on how do we create more content, how do we increase impressions, all this sort of stuff, which is good for advertising, don't get me wrong, you know, in terms of like growth and brand awareness, but the end of the day, people buy from those they trust and people that can come back and see that they have that genuine relationship with you. And so I think that shifting more of our focus there will probably, you know, show some pretty quick results. And it's not like it's rocket science to go in there and reply to somebody. It's not that hard. It just takes that time and consistency.
Jordan [00:10:57]:
Sure. You know, in, in talking about how ChatGPT specifically can help in that battle, right? Against just not putting content out or putting dry content out. You know, if a small business owner maybe comes up to you and says, hey, Steven, maybe I don't have the time to do this or, you know, hey, ChatGPT can't speak for my company. How do you reply to that? How do you tell them, hey, it's worth, you know, giving this a try?
ChatGPT Streamlines Editing Process and Improves Output
Steven [00:11:26]:
Yeah, I think that most of it really comes down to editing. I think that that's kind of 1 of the fewer used aspects of AI right now. I don't think it's perfect yet, but that's kind of where I'm using a lot of my stuff just because editing is 1 of those things that, you know, the writing, at least personally for me, might come a little bit natural to compare to other things, but editing is like super taxing for me. You know, I have to go in there and look at word choices. I have to go in and see how are these sentences structured? Does it make sense from the flow of their perspective, all that sort of stuff.
And so like one tool I've been using pretty often is called Unfluffer. And it's a great tool that, you know, pretty much you can pop in any sort of copy. And it will allow you to adjust the tone and the professionalism, how many different outputs you want. And from there, you can pretty much repurpose some sort of content that allows you to now have these like really quick expedited sets of copy and paragraphs to kind of regurgitate and experiment with. And so I think that it's a matter of, you know when people going back to your question ask, you know how do I kind of leverage this tool appropriately?
I think that it's just a matter of kind of seeing like, where are your pain points, where are your bottlenecks in your current content strategy? And then matching an AI tool to that specifically within chat GBT, because the prompts are so powerful on, it's just a matter of like, you know, how, how do you word your prompts in order to get the results you want? It's kind of like, you know, when an artist looks at a canvas, you know, that canvas can become anything. It's just a matter of like, how do you use that paint and the brushes and all the tools that you have at your disposal appropriately and in the correct combination is how I look at it.
Jordan [00:13:03]:
Yeah, exactly. And just as a reminder, so the tool that Steven was talking about there on Fluffer, we'll definitely put that in the newsletter. And I know Nayla, you had another question about any resources. So in our newsletter, we'll recap everything that Stephen and I are talking about here, as well as some other great resources.
Blair, thank you for your comment about this being a great convo. Meijer, engagement is something that you should give priority? Absolutely. If you do have any other questions for Stephen, please go ahead and pop them in the chat.
I did want to follow up on one thing, Stephen, that you mentioned. Kind of a use case that I think people aren't really using with ChatGPT is to improve their writing. I think, you know, people always think of it kind of like a search engine, right? You like, you have to ask a question or ask for something and get something out. But something that people don't do often enough, I think is to put their copy in. Maybe they wrote it and they're not great at copy and saying, hey, make this more engaging for this audience type or putting it in and saying, hey, cut this down and make it more succinct for this audience type. Do you have any tips for, you know, businesses or just individuals on specific ways like that, they can actually use ChatGPT to get better and more engaging copy?
Experiment with ChatGPT prompts to find what works
Steven [00:14:28]:
Yeah, I think that a lot of it is really going to come down to experimenting with your prompts and kind of finding 1 that works for you. And so like something I found that works well is to try to ask ChatGPT to assume the role of different kind of, um, expertise, all that sort of stuff. And so I think that, you know, when I go into it, I say assume the role of a LinkedIn social media manager with 10 years experience who is building an agency and working on a client onboarding questionnaire. And so the more specific you get, I think that I just saw, Gary Vee had a video like this where he did a, you know, he spoke to someone who translated this in a chat to you, but it was like this paragraph, almost like a 2 paragraph prompt.
And I think that people are with an instant need for gratification across all various aspects of life. They're looking for that prompt that can say, you know, make this sound better. Pretty much like what Blair just said. But when you look to break it, sorry Blair, but when it comes down to it, you know, the ChatGPT is only going to be as good as you tell it to be. You know, it's, it's a robot. So more information is always going to be better, more details and kind of like narrowing down on what your input will be is what output you get. So I think. Going back to the question, like how people can do this, you know, start tracking your prompts, start tweaking little phrases, start, you know, doing the little things and over time, just like anything, it's going to be really refined and kind of become, you know, a lot stronger than it was the first round.
Jordan [00:15:59]:
Yeah. You know, Steven brings up a great point. It is about proper prompting, but also priming, ChatGPT beforehand. We actually had a whole episode on this. We'll link it, because I don't want to get into it. It's episode 24. If you go to youreverydayai.com, where we talk about this process, but you know, Steven, maybe what let's let's quickly talk about some use cases, maybe specifically for businesses that maybe they don't think of that. They can use ChatGPT for, you know, I think early on when it was first released in late November, so it's been out for 6 months now, people just thought it's like, okay, this is gonna help me get from, you know, 0 to 10 or 0 to 5 in content writing. Maybe What's some use cases outside of just content writing that you think maybe businesses should pay attention to?
Steven [00:16:52]:
Yeah, I think that it's going to be actually the opposite. Going from 0 to 10 is kind of what everyone hopes for because it does all of the work. And I think that primarily what I've been using it for is going from 0 to 1. And so with the idea of building that agency, you know, a lot of the, um, kind of mundane routine PDFs or SOPs, whatever you want to call them, are very easy to knock out.
So I'm looking at it for, um, new client questionnaires, onboarding materials, frameworks, all the things that allow us to quickly gather resources and have this stockpile or library of assets on hand and kind of develop those frameworks over time is really going to expedite the process and kind of, you know, obviously they're not going to be perfect and we wouldn't dare use them as they are out of the gate from ChatGPT with clients in the future. But just getting, you know, 2 pages of copy written in 20 seconds is going to save so much time. And it's probably going to be a thousand times better than where I would even look at a blank document.
And I think that the other extra benefit there is that, you know, I'm not feeling extra guilty if I'm looking at someone's copy and trying to translate it and learn it and all this sort of stuff, because I can kind of let the robot, who's a thousand times smarter than me, take it, run with it, and then I can add my own personality to it. I can rebrand it and kind of make sure that it fits our goals. But a lot of the heavy lifting is done. Yeah.
Jordan [00:18:17]:
I wanna pull out something that you said there. I say this too, and I think people aren't giving, just whether it's the GPT technology or AI, enough credit. There's people that are too proud and they're saying, hey, this isn't smart. You know, ChatGPT or this AI doesn't, you know, get great output. I want, if you're listening to this, whether live or on the podcast, Steven ran a successful content agency dealing with hundreds, I'm sure, of pieces of content, great content written by humans a month. And he just said, these bots are smarter than me. As a former journalist, I agree.
I've written probably a million words in my life that have been published. And I know ChatGPT can write better than me, right? So, sorry, I just had to call that out because I think it's an important piece to bring up. 1 other thing that I kind of, I always say last question, Steven, we'll see where this goes. There's always people in our lives, right? So if you are like myself and you are, you know, obviously encouraging people to use ChatGPT, there's always people that are like, oh, I'm not a writer, right? What's maybe 1 kind of practical piece of advice that you can give people who maybe are on the fence and they're like, ah, you know, yeah, I'm not creating content. You know, I'm not, you know, publishing anything on the internet. What's kind of your, your case to them to say, Hey, this can still help you build your business or build your career.
AI Usage Requires Commitment and Practice
Steven [00:19:54]:
Yeah, I think, I think people who are in that mindset probably just don't have enough information to decide whether it is actually worth it or not. I think that like anything, change is scary and change is hard to kind of embrace. And so I think that as all of this technology changes and we start to see how powerful things become, I mean, when we were kind of waiting, you know, pre lobby in the show, we were talking about how old school seems like, you know, it was 2 years ago, and really, it was probably 6 weeks ago, how fast AI is changing. And I think that people are going to be left in dust, if they don't at least start experimenting with it. And just seeing what it has to offer.
And so I think that going back to kind of the idea of, you know, how do we use this properly? It's, it just comes down to practice and seeing what works and what doesn't work. But if it doesn't work the first time, you can't just say, well, this is a piece of trash. You know, it's not gonna work for me. And I think that just like anything, it's only gonna be as successful as the amount of time that you're willing to commit to master that tool because that's what it is. It's a tool. It's not a perfect, you know, script. It doesn't know how to do all the things you probably want to do immediately, but with practice and care and time, you can create some pretty amazing stuff.
Jordan [00:21:09]:
Yeah. I lied. I said last question. But Naila had a great 1 here. So speaking of using ChatGPT old school versus new school, So she's asking if the, I think this is the AI PRM Chrome extension is good, or if we should use ChatGPT without it. So I'll kind of share my screen here. Steven, what's your thoughts using all these Chrome extensions that can expand the capabilities of ChatGPT or just using it kind of out of the box?
Steven [00:21:43]:
I mean, I'm all for it. If there's a plugin or an extension that makes something that's good, great, then it's like, why wouldn't I use it? I think that, especially with how quickly things are developing and changing, there's always going to be this new plugin, all sorts of stuff. And I think that, you know, going back to anything, you know, if we even take a step back and look at Google right out of the box, before it had all these crazy Chrome extensions, look at Grammarly. I think that we start to see these technology changes.
I wouldn't imagine my life now without Grammarly, But if you're looking at the difference between Google and people not even knowing that that was going to exist and be an extension of their life, I think they're gonna see the same thing with AI and ChatGPT and all these extra Chrome extensions and plugins, they're just gonna be this natural extension of our workflow when we look back on it in 5 years or 10 years or whatever it looks like then.
Jordan [00:22:34]:
Yeah, that's a great question and such a good mind shift on how to look at ChatGPT. I love it. Well, we made it to the end. We thank you all for bringing these fantastic questions. As a reminder, please go to your everyday AI.com. We're going to link some other things that Stephen's been referencing, so you can find all of those. Also, like I said, check out episode 24. I think that's a great compliment to some of the things that Stephen was asking, Stephen was talking about here.
So Stephen, 5.30am Seattle time. I love it. Thank you. Thank you so much for joining us on the show.
Steven [00:23:00]:
Absolutely. Thanks, Jordan. Have a great time.
Jordan [00:23:10]:
All right. And just as a reminder, like I said, please go to youreverydayai.com. If you want to hear more about some of the things that Steven was talking about, we'll have it in our newsletter, so sign up. And if you're watching this live, as a reminder, you don't have to wake up at 5.30 a.m. Like Steven did. You can check us out on the podcast, Spotify, Apple, all that stuff. So we won't see you tomorrow, but we will see you Monday and every other weekday with Everyday AI. Thank you.