If you’ve ever sat staring at a blank screen wondering what on earth to post on Instagram, or if you’ve felt torn between staying “authentic” and keeping up with content creation, this episode is for you.

Vicki is joined by Helen Williams, a social media strategist who helps business owners create magnetic content on Instagram using AI – and crucially, in a way that still feels like you.

Helen’s approach is all about saving time and reducing overwhelm, while helping you show up consistently and connect with your audience. In this conversation, she shares:

• How AI can boost your creativity – from generating content ideas to writing hooks and captions that stop people scrolling.
• Why authenticity matters more than ever – and how to train AI tools like ChatGPT to write in your voice and reflect your brand personality.
• Practical, simple ways to get started with AI (even if tech makes you nervous).
• Clever ways to use AI for strategy and planning – so you’re not scrambling to create content at the last minute.
• Tips for balancing AI with your personal touch – especially when it comes to visuals, storytelling, and building real connections.

Whether you’re a product-based business owner or a creative entrepreneur, you’ll come away with a ton of ideas on how AI can save you hours of time, spark inspiration, and help you show up online without feeling robotic or salesy.

USEFUL RESOURCES

Hey Helen Williams Website https://hey-helen-williams.newzenler.com/

Hey Helen Williams Instagram https://www.instagram.com/heyhelenwilliams/

FREE MASTERCLASS How Psychology Behind How I Engineered A Viral Reel (And Turned It Into Sales) https://hey-helen-williams.newzenler.com/f/the-psychology-behind-how-i-engineered-a-viral-reel

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My membership, Amazon Made Easy is now open. It’s a membership for people who are selling on Amazon (or planning to) and want regular access to support, somewhere to ask questions and talk things through, and a bit of structure and accountability as they grow. Inside, there are live Q&A calls, optional co-working sessions and a small, supportive community. Find out more: https://vickiweinberg.com/membership

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Vicki Weinburg: 00:00:00

Welcome to the Bring youg Product Idea to Life podcast. This is the podcast for you if you're getting started selling products or if you'd like to create your own product to sell.

I'm Vicki Weinberg, a product creation coach and Amazon expert. Every week I share friendly, practical advice as well as inspirational stories from small businesses. Let's get started.

Today on the podcast, I'm speaking to Helen Williams. Helen helps people to create magnetic content on Instagram using AI trained to sound like them.

Her clients want to grow their businesses on Instagram and need help to get more visibility. So today I invited Helen back onto the podcast.

She was actually on an episode with me about a year ago, I believe, talking about how to get more visible online. And I invited her back on to talk about using AI to help with your content creation.

So whether that's using AI to help you plan and schedule your content, actually write your captions.

And by the way, in case you're worried about this, Helen has some great advice on how you can do all of this and still sound authentic, still sound like you. But she's definitely not suggesting that AI takes the place of people or anything like that.

Helen is really passionate about you using AI to help you be more visible online, sell more of your products in a way that feels authentic to you, but just is a massive time saver. So Helen has so much to share. She has lots and lots of advice and tips of ways we can use AI in our personal as well as our professional lives.

She taught me a lot of things I had no idea about, things AI can do. Definitely going to look into those. And this is, all in all, a really exciting, exciting and interesting episode.

So I would love now to reintroduce you to Helen. So, hi, Helen, thank you for joining me on the podcast again.

Helen Williams: 00:01:46

Hi, Vicki. It's so nice to be back for a second time. Thank you very much.

Vicki Weinburg: 00:01:50

Oh, thank you.

So if anyone who hasn't listened to your original episode, which we will link to in the show notes, by the way, can you please give a reintroduction to yourself, your business and what you do?

Helen Williams: 00:02:00

Absolutely, yeah. So I'm Helen Williams. My business is creatively called hey, Helen Williams. And I work on Instagram to help people to get more visibility.

So I'm a social media strategist, so I don't. I'm not a social media manager, so I don't run people's accounts for them, but I coach and train and educate people to get more visibility.

So Instagram has changed so much over the years. So I really focus on what's working now and the latest.

So not, not actually trends as such, but what's working using AI digital products to grow your account. So, yes, that is what I help people with.

Vicki Weinburg: 00:02:37

That's amazing. Thank you.

And I've invited you back today to talk about AI specifically because as we know, AI is absolutely everywhere and I would love your take on how product businesses can actually use it to support their visibility and what they're doing on social media. So before we go into, get, go into in detail, what's your thoughts on top line?

How can product businesses use it to support what they're doing already?

Helen Williams: 00:03:02

So I think the thing with AI, it's still relatively new, it's still, you know, people. I mean, I don't know how long, how long it's been around.

I remember my son first told me about ChatGPT and I kind of, I don't know, you know, when you hear these things, you think it's a bit rubbish or it's not going to take off or all these kind of concerns you have. And it. Very quickly it's become like quite mainstream chat GPT. But there are still people who feel it's, it's going to like loot, you know, from a.

If you're promoting things on Instagram or social media, there's still a lot of concern that you're losing your authenticity or your voice. And it's obviously, you know, a robot kind of overtaking you.

But really in terms of visibility and how we use it, it is, it's down to, you know, exactly that, like how you use it. So it's learning how you can use it to sound like you.

So there's, there's like anything, there's a lot of work and sort of training that needs to go into it, to set it up to make it sound like you.

So that it's, it's almost like taking you, but mixing with, you know, the whole, I mean, you know, on a, on a base level sort of what chat he does is, you know, scans the Internet for everything written about a particular subject, whatever you're searching for. So it's, it's kind of taking what's, you know, your style of what's in your brain and adding a whole load of, you know, different dimensions to it.

And it's a massive time saver.

So for promoting products and services, it's incredible because it can just give you like so many ideas and things that you just, you know, maybe you haven't got the time to think about or you just haven't, you know, you're not in the right headspace. You've got like a million things going on, like most entrepreneurs have.

So it's so good at helping people not be overwhelmed, managing their time and being able to actually do more.

Vicki Weinburg: 00:04:49

That's brilliant. Thank you. And I mean, I've heard a lot of criticism, I'm sure you've heard this as well, from people saying, oh, I can tell when a post.

In fact, I read one on LinkedIn this morning who's annoyed about all the posts that are definitely written by AI. So easy to spot the AI posts.

So are you saying, Helen, that If we use ChatGPT correctly and we train it to learn who we are, how we speak, what we're trying to get across, we can actually avoid that?

Helen Williams: 00:05:16

Yeah, absolutely, that. I mean, there's, there's quite a lot of posts like that. So I think it was one of the, one of the big clothing brands.

There was a big thing recently because somebody had noted it looked like their latest campaign was written by ChatGPT because. Because it had some of the telltale signs. And, you know, those are the. What's called an EM dash, which is like a. A dash, like a double one.

So that always sticks out like a sore thumb, that ChatGPT throws that in there. So whenever you see that, you know, and I've had, because I've done posts about that, like how to.

How to spot something that's been written by ChatGPT. And you always get these, like, English literature people who will come on and say, you know, that's not fair.

That's actually really grammatically correct, you know, you should use that EM dash like that. But the point is we don't day to day, most people don't. And you know that ChatGPT does.

So it does stand out as, you know, somebody hasn't put any effort into what they're writing and it's not coming from them. And with social media, you know, it is all about the person.

So if you're just chucking stuff into ChatGPT and taking exactly what it gives you back and using that, then, yeah, it's hard to. It's hard to say you're being authentic. But yeah, it's all about training it and getting it to sound like you. And that's just done by a lot of.

A lot of back and forth and correcting it. So I will just say to it, don't use the EM dash.

I just want a comma instead, you know, but then maybe some People do use a single dash so tell it that you know, it's, it's a two way, it's a two way thing and it will learn like very, very quickly when once you start to give it instructions.

Vicki Weinburg: 00:06:53

That's good to know and I guess also for anyone who's got this far but they're still feeling a bit like, oh, it's not, it's still not authentic. It's not something I want to do. You can also use ChatGPT for ideas. Can't use.

But it doesn't have to necessarily write every sing, blog or social media post. You could just use it to give you ideas of things you could post for example.

Helen Williams: 00:07:13

Yeah, that's right. I mean it's fantastic for that.

That's where that sort of creativity things, you know, we don't always, even the most creative person doesn't always feel, you know, you don't always feel on your A game but that doesn't mean you, you don't want to sort of show up that day or you know, if you're not feeling 100%.

So it's amazing for idea generation and as I say you don't have to take exactly what it gives you as output but it will just, you know, one idea will spark another one. So it's really good for that. But it does come down to the prompts, you know, the what, what you put into it.

That's, you know, that's kind of everything really because that's the instruction that you're feeding it. So those, those prompts have to be like multi dimensional. You know, it's.

If you're just going to say to Chat GPT, write me a post about selling my latest product which is xyz. It's going to struggle.

It's going to just come well, it'll either ask you some questions, which is great because that will sort of dig deeper but you know if you just take its output and use that it's going to be very one dimensional and that's when you won't get that connection with your ideal clients because they won't be able to really feel it. It's, you know, in social media we need to really move away from looking like an advert because it's not advertorial.

That's not the right word, is it?

Vicki Weinburg: 00:08:30

That sounds like word, does it?

Helen Williams: 00:08:33

But you know, it's more about that connection in social media and that's what people, people who like social media and scroll through and you know, the people we are ideal clients that we hope to attract. They are looking for that connection, they're looking for the person, like, you know, the backstory to something, the behind the scenes. That's.

That's where social media is now. It's not. It's not the polished end product. It's not someone who's hired a professional studio and a script and things like that. That's.

That just doesn't work anymore. It's moved on and needs to be much more real and raw. And you can get all those ideas from ChatGPT, which is just incredible.

You know, you can say, I want to be more honest. You can say, like, I want to be. I want this to be more raw, like I'm talking to an old friend, you know, it can do things like that.

So it's, it's just about learning. Don't. Don't write it off too quickly as just being a robot.

Vicki Weinburg: 00:09:27

That's brilliant. Thank you. And I am going to delve a.

Helen Williams: 00:09:29

Little in a moment a bit more.

Vicki Weinburg: 00:09:31

Into sort of how we feed ChatGPT to sound a bit more like us. But for those of us who aren't very tech savvy, how do we.

What are some really easy ways we can start using AI, whether it's ChatGPT or something else, to help with our social media?

Helen Williams: 00:09:47

Yeah, so, I mean, I always talk about ChatGPT, just because that's the one that I use. And I've also got the paid version, which is about £20amonth, just because it does more and you don't get that annoying thing where it blocks your.

You know, I think you can only do a certain number of searches a day. So I've got the paid version, so I do have extra things, but obviously, yes, there are lots of different.

There are lots of different AI tools around now. So, yeah, I keep saying chat gbt, but obviously, you know, for the listeners, there are lots of different ones.

And I know somebody is using Gemini AI and really loves it. And there's deep. What's the one that deep something. Can't remember what that was called. But yeah, there's lots of different versions around.

But with, yeah, Chat GPT. What was the question, Vicki? Just. I've gone off on a tangent. Remind me again.

Vicki Weinburg: 00:10:33

Oh, no problem at all. I just want to say, what are some easy ways to get started?

So if someone's thinking, okay, I'm not very tech savvy, don't really know what ii is, how to use it, how could we get off, how could we just start exhausting started is the hardest thing Isn't it?

Helen Williams: 00:10:47

Yeah, it is, yeah. I think it's like just playing around with it, so. And it doesn't. You don't have to start using it for work. You.

I know loads of people who use it, you know, to manage their diary better.

As in, you know, maybe you've got like three different kids who are doing lots of different things, you know, it's hard to keep on top of and just household, household chores, you know, like. Whereas I suppose, I suppose the thing to do is think, what would you normal normally, Google?

So, you know, we get so used to now, don't we, Googling everything. If you don't know the answer to a question your child is asking or something, Google it. It's just, it's just what we do and it's.

I think a good place to start is by replacing Google with ChatGPT.

So if you get very used to asking ChatGPT those questions because it gives you such, such a fuller answer and you can, you know, you're not just putting a search term in and getting an answer from one page, you're getting this, like, huge array of answers, but not that you have to sit and trawl through them all, you know, actually like pulls them all together into a summary for you. So it's such, it's such a deeper response that you get.

And I think if you start to use it and you'd get used to it from just doing it for your, you know, for your personal life or booking a holiday, I mean, I haven't done that, but people say, you know, it can act as a travel agent. So, you know, it's incredible for like sweeping the Internet and finding, you know, the best time, you know, prices, things like that.

It's, there's, there's really not any sort of limits on it.

So I would say just as a good way, like before you delve into it for work, if that seems a bit scary and you're not really sure, so what output you're going to get, or if you'll go down a rabbit hole with it and just start using it for your personal life, things that you maybe struggle with.

If you're not very good with timekeeping, you know, you can ask it to suggest a schedule for you and tell it the, you know, your daily tasks, things that are taking you longer than you want them to, something like that. And I think you'd be surprised with what it comes out with because it's.

Yeah, it's really creative, you know, things that you just wouldn't have Thought of as responses.

Vicki Weinburg: 00:12:48

That's brilliant. Thank you. And I have said I've seen people, examples of people using it for all types of things.

Helen Williams: 00:12:54

Yeah, it's amazing, isn't it? I mean, I follow quite a lot of accounts, so I use threads. Well, Instagram's got threads, which is a bit like Twitter X.

And I don't use it an awful lot for posting, but I do find it good for ideas. And just because it's more work, you know, it's no pictures, it's just words on there. So you do get a lot of ideas from them.

There's quite a lot of ChatGPT accounts on there that will give, like, really good prompts, but. But not, you know, not the prompts that I would use, but prompts for things that I haven't even thought of.

You know, like that, that toy action figure thing that went around, that was like a big, like a big craze that went around, you know, recently. It's like creating a version of yourself, like a Barbie doll in a packet.

You know, I saw that, yeah, I saw that first on, on threads, and that, like, went huge. You know, people just come up with these kind of, these ideas because it can, of course, create pictures now as well.

It's evolving, like, so, so fast.

So, you know, what it, what it used to do, if you said, create a, you know, a version of me, I don't know, on a beach or whatever, it would look like nothing. Like you would have, like a very distorted face. It used to be very, very basic.

And now, you know, if you tell it your tool with blonde hair, it's, you know, and whatever other features, it's very, very clever. Now with the images, that's definitely come on, like, very, very quickly.

Vicki Weinburg: 00:14:13

Well, that's brilliant. And speaking of images, this is an aside. I hadn't planned to ask you this question, but since we are, how good is it at helping create images?

Whether that's actually the image creation or coming up with ideas, because that's enough. Obviously, we're talking about Instagram. There's the visual, there's the tech side and then there's the visual side.

How good is Chat GPT at that side of things?

Helen Williams: 00:14:36

I think it's amazing. Yeah, I, I think that side of it has grown, like, really, really quickly. So I, I saw a prompt the other day that, that you put in.

It's quite a long prompt, but it's basically saying from all of the questions that I've asked you, like Chat GPT from, you know, everything I've put in, give me a, you know, a picture of like a photo of what you think I look like and it's incredible. So I, you know, I got a pretty accurate photo of me out.

It can actually look at what you've asked it and kind of work out what kind of person you are and you know, and create like a photo like picture which is amazing. So it's not, you know, it's not just like images as in sort of cartoons or whatever.

It can actually create things that look, you know, not far off real.

Vicki Weinburg: 00:15:24

That's amazing. I know. You know, I'm do that soon so first thing I'm going to go and do. Really curious about that now.

So I've seen that inside ChatGPT and I think we'll stick with talking about that one for now.

And as you said, I know there are lots out there, but I think it probably makes sense to just talk about the one that you use and you're familiar with and the one I think a lot of people will have heard of. So I know that ChatGPT as an AI tool, but within Chat GPT I've noticed there are other GPTs within it, if that makes, if that makes sense.

Helen Williams: 00:16:00

Yes, yes there are.

So yeah, there's a little tab, well a sort of section that says explore GPTs and if you click on that, it's over on the left hand side, it brings up a whole, a whole host of different GPTs. So this, I only found this maybe a couple of months ago, something like that. And I don't know if it was new then or if it's one of those things.

Sometimes you don't know how long something's been there. But yeah, there's a whole host of other GPTs. So like Canva has its own one and we all know and love Canva.

So that's amazing that you can say like if you want to create a digital product or something like that, you can like it combines the two so you don't have to use Chat GPT then open up Canva, you can use the two together. So it's merged those together really well. It's got specific GPTs on there for like just about anything really. Like people can create their own.

So I've created my own one because I help people writing content for social media.

So I just thought people are asking me a lot like, you know, like how can I make this hook better or which sort of caption, you know, how long should a caption be? Or you know, things like that.

And I thought If I can just put all of my knowledge around that subject into a GPT, then they can go into that GPT and it will, you know, replicate my thought process, really. So that, that is what I've done. So I've got my own GPT.

And anyone, you know, if you're, if you're teaching people, you know, kind of similar thing, that's repeatable, you could make your own GPT, it's free to do, and you just have to have the paid version of ChatGPT, but it's free to set them up and then you can just sell it or give it to your clients. It's really good. It's really, really good. Because then you're not.

People aren't just starting from a fresh version of ChatGPT every time, they're starting from whatever you've trained it as, the sort of background knowledge you've given it.

Vicki Weinburg: 00:17:55

That's amazing. Thank you. And I was going to ask if you had any AI tools or platforms that work for when we're talking about social media.

So if you can please provide the link for your GPT. We could put that in the, in the show notes, because that sounds like a brilliant resource.

Helen Williams: 00:18:10

Oh, thank you. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I did before I created mine, I.

One of my freebies I was giving out to people were like different types of GPTs that I sort of recommended that I found, because there's, there's all sorts. There's like hook generators, there's.

I can't remember the other ones, but I just had a look through and there were just some that sort of, like, stood out that would be really helpful for social media. So there's like, loads on there, but, yeah, mine, because I've kind of studied Instagram and, you know, I really understand it and know what works.

I just, you know, put all of my learnings really into my GPT. So it's really good.

You know, if there's a particular area you're struggling with, like, like writing a hook, you know, if you're sort of like, hooks are the most important thing with social media. You know, you. Your reel has to have a strong hook. It's, you know, that's a kind of make it or break it in the first three seconds, that's.

That's kind of the hook is everything.

So if you really struggle with hooks or you're not quite sure, you know, what a good hook looks like, then my GPT or any of the others on there, you know, it's really good to find, like a specialist that can just help you with those.

Vicki Weinburg: 00:19:12

Definitely. And when we talk about hooks, just to be really clear for everyone, are we talking about.

So if it's a reel, for example, the piece of text that would be on the reel that's visible to everyone, that encourages them to either keep watching or click through or, or not.

Helen Williams: 00:19:27

Yeah, that's it exactly. It's the on screen text and then the, the longer form text underneath is referred to as caption.

Vicki Weinburg: 00:19:35

Perfect, thank you.

So you've talked a little bit about training a GPT and we also spoke a bit about the beginning, about how we want to make sure that any content we use ChatGPT to help us with sounds authentic. How can we do this? What are some of the ways we can train ChatGPT to start talking like us?

And I know it won't be an exact match, but I'm assuming that when you start using ChatGPT, it's very generic, it sounds the same for everyone. How can we personalize it?

Helen Williams: 00:20:07

So there's some settings which you can go to. So to use Chat GPT, you have to sign up for it. You have to, you know, even the free version, you can't just go on, you have to like log into it.

So that's how it works. It remember, you know, it's got, it's got a memory and it will remember your conversations because you've logged in.

So over on, I think it's like in the right hand side, it's under the settings, there's, what do they call? Custom instructions? So custom instructions. There's about three different fields there and it prompts you, it says like, who do you help?

You know, what do you do? Give me some more guidelines. So there's about three different spaces that you can actually put.

So you know, I would say like I work with female entrepreneurs, I help people to make their content magnetic. I'm from the UK because that's another important thing.

You don't want all the, if you're in the uk, you don't want all the Z spellings in your content. Whereas prioritise with a Z, you know, an English person wouldn't spell it that way.

We use the S. So there's a whole, there's a whole host of things or even just terminology.

Like if you're asking it to write quite conversationally for you, it might say things like hello my lovelies or hello hun or things or things like that. You just wouldn't use, you know, your terminology.

So you can say to it like, you know, don't use hun or don't use whatever, you know, just the things you would and wouldn't say because then that will help. So once you've put that information in, that stays there.

And then every time you ask it a question, it will take that information and the question that you're asking it and then you can, you know, you can go back like the, you know, the EM dash, like using the double dash thing. If you put that in your custom instructions, that should get rid of it as well.

But if it doesn't, then you can, you know, if you tell it a couple of times, it will stop doing things like the bullets it does. It uses like unnecessary indentations on its bullets.

So if you want to cut and paste a load of stuff out, I always find the indentations are sort of too far in. So you can just tell it not to do that and you can tell it not to use too many emojis or no emojis or more emojis or, you know, just, just anything.

You just need to. Yeah, you just need to keep sort of working back and forth with it really. But those customers, custom instructions are the place to go.

That's just, you know, if you put as much as you can in there about what your business is, who you want to attract, you know, where you are, who you are, it just, that's, that's the bit that you will see a big, a big difference in terms of the output that it gives you because it will look at those custom instructions every time it gives you output.

Vicki Weinburg: 00:22:45

Perfect, thank you. And I assume for a product business you can also tell it about your products, your, your range.

If you've got a, if you've got a specific mission or something that makes your brand different, you can feed all of that into it.

Helen Williams: 00:22:58

Yeah, absolutely. That's the best place for it. Yeah.

And you can, you know, it doesn't mean it's going to lift everything you've put and put it into the output, but it will just cleverly pick out the bits.

You know, if you, if you were saying give me 10 ideas for a campaign or an email campaign for this particular product, you wouldn't have to say the products I'm referring to are the 10 different styles of T shirts or whatever it was. It would know what your products are already. It saves you a lot of time.

Again, by putting in the extra effort into those custom instructions, then it will just know and it will make the whole thing quicker or make your, you know, when you're putting a prompt in, you don't have to ask it so much because it's already got that sort of base, base information there that makes sense.

Vicki Weinburg: 00:23:46

And can it read website?

So I'm just thinking, for example, for a product business, could you say to it maybe not in the custom instructions, but could you say to it, this is my website, and would it be able to take more from your website about what you sell, for example?

Helen Williams: 00:24:01

Yeah, it can now. So that's a fairly recent change, actually. It can. So you can even put like somebody's Instagram address in, so they're, you know, www.instagram.com.

i don't know if it's forward or backwards. Slash. Always get confused between the two. But slash of some sort and then the name.

And you can say, you know, using this account for inspiration, please give me, you know, 10 content ideas.

So you, you know, rather than sort of scrolling through Instagram and looking for, like viral ideas or, you know, hooks at work, you can take some inspiration and it won't, it won't copy that account, but it will just look at the most, like the best performing on there and give you sort of your own versions on it for your niche and your product. So it's very good for that. That's a good question, actually, about the websites, because that's something it didn't used to do. But it can do that.

It can consume entire PDF documents now as well and summarize it or pick out the top 10 themes of a document. It can very, very quickly take a huge amount of data, give you a summary. It's. It's amazing.

Vicki Weinburg: 00:25:07

Well, that's brilliant. Wow. I didn't, I had no idea it could do all of this. So presumably you could feed your own website in.

If you were a product business and you were struggling, let's say, with what to post, because that's something I hear a lot. I'm sure you hear a lot as well, is, what on earth do I.

You could feed your website in and say, using my website for inspiration, come up with some ideas of things I could talk about. Because I'm sure we all have our own stories and things that make us different or make our products unique.

But it's really hard to think of those yourself in the moment, isn't it?

Helen Williams: 00:25:37

Yeah, it is. Yeah. I mean, and it kind of works both ways.

If you, if you find that maybe you've got like a blog on your website that you really like writing and you've, you know, that's kind of your thing that you're comfortable with, but Then you can't really think how to do short form content on Instagram, which is completely different, isn't it?

You know, if you're, if you're used to writing like loads and loads and you enjoy that and then you look at Instagram and everyone's doing like four second videos, that's, that's like probably quite terrifying. Like, how do I get my message across in sort of four or five seconds? But that's when you can use it.

So you could say, you know, look at my website, give it the address, you know, the blog, give me like 10 ideas of short form content that I could use for reels. And like, it knows, you know, it knows what a caption is, it knows what a hook is. You don't have to explain anything to it.

It knows all the terminology. So yeah, so that, that's a really, that's a massive shortcut. Being able to put a website address in there.

Vicki Weinburg: 00:26:28

Yeah, that was really good and I had no idea we could do that. Wow, that's. I think, I think that would be really helpful.

Helen Williams: 00:26:34

I don't know if it's just on the paid version. I don't think it is.

I think, I think everybody can do it now because there are some things, you know, some differences, some differences between the paid version and the free version. But I'm pretty sure that like anyone can do that now. So, yeah, don't take it 100%, but certainly have a try. I'm pretty sure that it can.

Vicki Weinburg: 00:26:55

Perfect. Thank you.

So can AI also help us with things like our content strategy and planning out our social media, or is it just for writing captions and other content?

Helen Williams: 00:27:08

Yeah, no, it's great for strategy and planning. It's, it's really good. So I mean, there's different ways of doing it.

So some people, some people do like to sort of plan their content in advance and it's really good for doing that in advance. You know, you can, you can take like, I don't know, half a day or something out of your week and plan your content for the week and schedule it all.

I'm more of a, you know, spur of the moment kind of. I just get ideas constantly for my content, but, but still I use, you know, I use chat GPT for all of my content.

But you know, you wouldn't know it because it's, it's so used to me now and I've, I've trained it so well that it's just like a, I don't know, it's kind of like, you Know it's you on your best day, isn't it really? If you get it right.

It's, you know, if you're feeling really on it and you know, really, you know exactly what you want to post and you know which posts work, you know, which, you know, like a reel did really well. So you know, that kind of style works. Like for example. So I had, I've had a few reels that have gone viral.

So I know when I look at that reel that that style does really well. That kind of video does really well. That caption does well. I know that it was a good, you know, package. Like everything just kind of worked together.

So I can put that into chat GPT and give. And say, like, give me, give me some more ideas for another post that's gonna like tickle the boxes that this one did, for example.

And it will, you know, it'll give you exactly, do exactly that.

Give you lots of ideas that are similar and you won't look at them and use them all because they'll, you know, there'll be some things that resonate and some that don't. But when you find the ones that do, you can then ask it to explain, expand on those for you.

You know, you can easily sit and plan out your content that way. I mean, that is a more efficient use of time than sort of doing it on the fly every day. Really.

If you get into a habit of kind of using it to plan out your content, then that's a really good way of doing it. So, yeah, it's great for that because it can, it can do all of that up front.

Vicki Weinburg: 00:29:02

Well, I think that will definitely one save time, but also save that thing of, I think philosophers, content planning can be quite daunting. You know, sitting down to a blank piece of paper and thinking, right, what am I going to post about next week?

Helen Williams: 00:29:15

Yeah, yeah, definitely.

And that, that's the thing, you don't ever have to sit down with a bank piece of paper anymore because you can just start talking to chat GPT and have that, you know, you can even say, I've got no idea what to post today, you know, and it will say what? I don't know what it would say actually. What would it say? Or probably it will ask you a series of questions.

It's quite good if you, if you're quite vague with it, it will come back and ask you questions. And that's really good as well because sometimes you do need that.

That's kind of like why it's good to work with a coach or in a group because there are other people asking you questions. Whereas you can use ChatGPT for that, to hold you accountable to, you know, to prod a little bit deeper.

Because if you're just working on your own and you haven't got a coach or a group that you're part of, then you are just a person sitting in a room or a coffee shop, you know, running your business. And it can be quite isolating.

So it's really good in that situation because you can say, like, act as a coach, act as a business strategist for me and it will adopt that role. So that's a really good way to do it. I mean, that's really how you should use ChatGPT.

You should assign it a role at the beginning of each time you use it. So act as a social media manager for me, act as a legal advisor for you. It can write contracts and things like that. It can, it can do all sorts.

But assigning it a role is a really good way to start the conversation.

Vicki Weinburg: 00:30:34

That's really useful. Thank you. You're giving so many ideas of ways that it can be used. I'm not writing these down.

I'll have to go back and listen to the recording and note these all down because there's definitely lots of things I want to try. I had no idea that it would ask you questions back and I hadn't considered using it in that way. So that's really useful.

Helen Williams: 00:30:54

Yeah. And you know, you can even ask it to ask you question questions. You could say, I want to prom wrote like my latest product.

Ask me 10 questions that you need to know to give me a really good output so that I can know what to post about or I can know what to write on my website. Because that by. By asking it to ask you questions. That prompt is really powerful because it's, it's asking things that you hadn't even thought of.

You know, it's kind of. Because it's quite hard, isn't it? Sometimes, like you said, it's that blank piece of paper thing. It's quite hard to know where to start.

So if you're actually asking it to ask you questions, it will come up with like lots of really insightful questions to give you the answer. So that's a really good one to use it for as well.

Vicki Weinburg: 00:31:40

That's really useful. And actually I said I didn't know it's a question. I mentioned this before we started recording. I will share it here.

But I actually did ask ChatGPT to suggest some questions for this interview based on the list of questions that I'd already prepared and actually I'm not going to say which are, which, which are mine and which GPTs, but I think some of the questions it suggested, some weren't relevant, but. And I haven't used those, but some I think were very insightful.

Helen Williams: 00:32:09

Yeah, it's incredible, isn't it? It. It is just. It gives another sort of layer to. Because, you know, we've only. We've all got sort of certain knowledge on subjects, haven't we?

But it will give you. It will not only give you sort of extra knowledge, but it will give you. Because of how it gathers its, its data and information.

It's other people's opinions and it's just such sort of rounded view of things. You know, you get all of those opinions but kind of rolled into one.

And the thing I find amazing is like the speed of it, you know, if you ask it to summarize a large document, there's no kind of waiting. The only thing I think takes a while is images.

If you're asking it to, like that Barbie doll thing, you know, create me as a Barbie doll in a box and, you know, with a PVC screen over the front or whatever, the generating an image does take time, which is understandable. I mean, I have no idea how that works, but. But yeah, the actual, like written stuff comes back in like, I don't know, milliseconds. It's.

Yeah, it's incredible.

Vicki Weinburg: 00:33:07

It's amazing. But this leads me on to.

And this actually, I will be honest, this actually was an AI question, but I think it's a good one and I think it's interesting think AI is asking me this. What kind of things do you think are better handled by AI and what do you think should still be done by an actual person? Oh.

Helen Williams: 00:33:27

So, I mean, I think definitely we always need to, you know, like, take the. Take what you're getting and, you know, run a human eye over it, for example. So, yeah, I would say never, you know, never take its first answer.

So definitely the human touch is needed. It's needed for that side of things. But I mean, in terms of like, yeah, ideas generation, you know, you could sit there trying to.

It's like the brainstorming, isn't it? You know, in people, in meetings, in corporate life, it would be, yeah, brainstorming something.

You would be literally sitting in a room with a group of people coming up with ideas and it would, you know, I've been in that position myself where you're just sitting there thinking, oh God, come on brain, come on brain, give me some ideas. And you know that that's really hard to do. Whereas if you've got that starting point from AI, you don't have to start from scratch.

So I would, I would say things like brainstorming. I think that's really good for AI to kick off a discussion.

But then, you know, then that human interaction is needed to feed into the, you know, how does that work in the real world? Like what emotions are involved? I suppose it's that emotional side, isn't it?

Which is perhaps not done so well by AI, because it can't be at the moment. It can, it can learn and maybe there will be a time when it's completely there.

I mean, you can ask ChatGPT to sort of act as a psychologist and things, but it's, it's all very sort of theory based, isn't it? Whereas I think that sort of personal touch has to some still be done by a person.

And to put, to put a real personal spin on something needs to be a person. So it's. Yeah, it's the personality side of things, isn't it, that it, that it can't do or that it's like important for you to do yourself?

Vicki Weinburg: 00:35:11

I think so. And the lived experiences as well.

Say, for example, I sometimes use chat for GBC to help me for my podcast episodes, my solo podcast episodes, to kind of help me bullet point out what I might cover some sort of structure, but I always flesh it out myself because I like to use examples from things that I've done or examples from my clients. And of course it's not me and it's not in my brain so it wouldn't know any of that.

I find it great for structure, but sort of filling in the details is something that I think that, you know, we can't be replaced.

Helen Williams: 00:35:45

Yeah, of course, that's right. But I guess over time, you know, the more you feed into it, the more people get used to using it, it will sort of keep those memories, won't it?

And it will. I mean there's some device which is completely terrifying.

I read about it a while ago and I think these are only available in the States at the moment. And it had actually sold out. When I looked at it, it was like a watch that you wear and it records constantly.

So at the end of the day before you go to bed, this is terrifying. This is like, you know, a black mirror kind of thing. I was thinking exactly that you can say to it like, give me a summary of my day.

And it would say, oh, remember you told Vicky you'd send her that PDF. And remember you promised your best friend to take her out for coffee soon? You know, it, it would do that for you.

And, you know, is that, is that a good thing? I don't know.

I mean, it's very scary from a data point of view, because who on earth is going to get, you know, recording of, like, literally every phone call you've made, every. Everything. It's listening all day.

But this is actually, you know, for sale in countries not here yet, but I guess that will come, you know, if it started somewhere, it will come to us, won't it?

Vicki Weinburg: 00:36:56

Probably, yeah.

I find that terrifying also from a data perspective, but data protection perspective as well, is that if I like, we're obviously recording this podcast interview, you know, that I'm recording the interview. I've told you that I'm recording it and you've given your permission for me to record this and then for me to share it, but with devices like that.

And I know we're getting completely off track, but that's terrifying because I could be, let's say, recording a conversation with somebody that we're having in confidence, and I haven't asked their permission to record that. And, you know, how do I then use it? I just think, gosh, I don't want one of those I'm putting out here that.

Helen Williams: 00:37:36

I know it's, it is crazy. It's. But that's the speed that AI is running at, isn't it?

You know, I think like, we're using it for content and ideas generation and things like that. But that's, that's come on very quickly, like maybe in the last year or something, hasn't it?

You know, if you think in another year, is it going to be very normal that we just will have our whole.

I mean, I used to wear a watch, I don't wear it anymore, but like a sleep tracker watch and you know, that will tell you in the morning, like, what your quality of sleep has been like and things like that. So I guess, I mean that there's no privacy or anything around in that because it's just yours.

But there does come a point, doesn't there, where your whole, your whole day, like 24 hours is being analyzed and mapped and the data from it and then conclusions being drawn from it as well. So AI is definitely scary, but there's, there's like no stopping it, is there? It's, it's definitely the future and I.

And, you know, that's, that's why I do think it's important to keep up with these things rather than be resistant, because it is.

It's like when, I mean, you know, I'm old enough to remember life before mobile phones and, you know, when they first came out, people saying, I've never have a mobile phone. I don't want someone be able to get hold of me wherever I am. Like, even my sister, you know, and. And of course, everyone's got them.

You know, people's grandparents have them sort of, you know, even the older generations have. Everyone has. Like most people have a smartphone now.

And it wasn't that long ago when people were sort of terrified of that because they, they didn't think they'd be able to get any peace and quiet because people could contact them anywhere. But now, of course, we want to be available, don't we, for some weird reason, you know, and we're kind of.

Most people day to day are quite happy to be contactable 24 7. And that's really happened in a very short amount of time. So I think it's.

Yeah, I think we just kind of need to stay open to it and, and just, you know, keep, keep up with the speed that it's moving. Because it's a terrifying thought to kind of get lost, left behind with technology, isn't it?

Vicki Weinburg: 00:39:28

Yeah. And I think also there's something about being aware of it as well and be aware of what it's, what it's doing. Like, I remember this.

I think, I think this is AI or some sort of automation. The first time I realized that ads would follow me around the Internet. Do you know what I mean by that?

Like, I'd go to a website and then wherever I went after that, whether it was Facebook or whatever it was, I would see an ad for products I'd be looking at somewhere else, like in another context. And it took me a while to realize that was happening. And I don't, I don't mean like in the last six months. I mean, this was quite.

We were talking quite a while ago, but sort of just realizing that was happening and the ways were being marketed to was useful to know, I think. Yeah, as a consumer.

Helen Williams: 00:40:09

Yeah, I think it's important we do understand that. And like, if these watches do become commonplace, you'd have to really change the way you communicate with people, wouldn't you?

You'd have to give your consent at the beginning of conversation with your friend. Maybe, you know, it's just. But without that awareness that Things like that are out there, then you. You just wouldn't know.

And then suddenly I think you'd wake up if you were sort of like, no, I don't want to know anything about AI. It's all rubbish, blah, blah. And then one day it would hit you, wouldn't it? And there'd be so much to learn.

I kind of think it's good to just keep up with how people are using it and what the capabilities are.

Vicki Weinburg: 00:40:41

You're right, because it's happening whether any of us like it or not.

Helen Williams: 00:40:44

It's.

Vicki Weinburg: 00:40:44

It's coming for us.

Helen Williams: 00:40:46

It is, it is. It's. It exactly is. There. There's just know. I mean, you don't. Obviously don't have to use it and things, but like you said, it's good to know what.

What other people are using and how they're using it. And, you know, I think that the purpose is really, it can help you if you use it in the right way. It can. You know, we're all very, very busy.

You know, life's not getting quieter or, you know, less busy, is it? It's kind of like there's more and more for us to keep up with. And, you know, lives are busy.

So when you find a tool that can actually alleviate that and help you and support you, then, you know, like, even it doesn't. It's kind of like. Sounds as if it's all sort of, like, bad or, you know, to manage kind of work.

But on a personal level, you know, you can ask it to create a meditation for you. You know, a nighttime meditation, personalized just to you. You know, you could say, I tend to worry about xyz.

Could you create a meditation for me to listen to? You know, we'll do that as well. So there's just all sorts of things you can use it for.

Vicki Weinburg: 00:41:46

And what about, you know, if anyone's listening now and they're still feeling a bit nervous about using AI, or maybe they even feel like it's cheating to use it to help with content, for example. Let's come back to content. What would you say to someone who's still sort of on the fence about it?

Helen Williams: 00:42:00

Yeah, I think there is still stigma about it. And I kind of say it's like Botox. It's like everybody has it, but nobody wants to talk about it or admit it. You know, it's. It's. And.

But even, like, cosmetic surgery is becoming more easily, like, talked about now, whereas to start with, it was. It was such a shameful thing for a woman. To go and have a little bit of Botox or whatever. But it's more commonplace now.

Whereas, you know, Chat GPT, it was a bit like, oh God, don't use ChatGPT for your. You know, people are using it for their content as if there was a real shame about it.

But it is just, it's making people's lives easier and I think it's just time to embrace it. And you know, obviously, like I said, you know, don't.

If you cut and paste something with loads of the dashes all over the place and it just looks very robotic and you know, like, like everybody else's.

But if you really train it to sound like you with your ideas, with your terminology and you're happy with it, you know, you've since checked it and read it over and you're happy that it's, it's good, you know, it's like, sounds, sounds like something you would say, but a better version, then that's a really good place to go with it.

You know, if you're just saying write me 10 pieces of content and then auto scheduling them and not really even reading them, you know, that's quite a lazy way.

I would kind of think that that sort of content probably wouldn't land with your ideal clients because I think people can see through it, you know, and as I said with Instagram and other social media, it is social.

It's about connection, it's about people buying into something about you, whether that's, you know, I mean, I don't really talk to camera much on my reels, but you know, people, there's something about me and my words and my energy that people like, you know, and we see, you know, there's loads of different coaches, there's loads of different everybody, but you gravitate towards, you know, certain people for certain reasons and the more you sort of show yourself through your social media that comes across and if you're, if you're just using ChatGPT and making it very sort of static and very same y, then you're losing, you're losing that sort of, that edge really, of showing.

Vicki Weinburg: 00:43:59

More of yourself that makes sense. So we can definitely use ChatGPT and have a personal touch as well.

Helen Williams: 00:44:06

Yeah, definitely.

It's just using them in, you know, in combination together, but making sure it has that, you know, that, that sense check at the end that it does actually sound like something you would say.

Vicki Weinburg: 00:44:16

To somebody that makes sense. And what's one small step someone could take today to start using AI for their content in A way that feels helpful. Helpful.

So what's one thing somebody could go and try.

Helen Williams: 00:44:31

I would say, to ask ChatGPT to come up with, come up with like 10 ideas for an Instagram or, you know, LinkedIn or whichever social media platform you use. Come up with 10 ideas that will really connect with my audience on all my ideal client on a deeper level.

And if, and ask it that question, you know, please ask me questions if you're not sure who my ideal client is. You know, make sure that bit is cleared up first. But I would ask it. Yeah, I always use the word deep. So I always say like, please go deeper on this.

Please. Yeah, please think of my ideal client and their struggles, things like that. So that, so that you are getting like a layer underneath.

Because that's what you need to do with Chat GPT, really. You need to go deeper all the time and you need to just tell it that. Else it will just give you a surface level response.

So I would say just start to play around with it and ask it those questions like, yeah, what's my ideal client struggling with and how can my product help them? How can you position me as the expert? You know, questions like that just start to have that dialogue.

Not maybe not specifically for creating content, but just to open the dialogue and then that even that conversation with ChatGPT will give you ideas and then maybe you can ask it to refine it into content after that. But just start to have a conversation.

I mean, you can, you know, you can voice record into it so it can feel like a conversation and it can speak back to you.

There's a, you know, one of the buttons is a voice that comes out so you can start to just get used to talking to it, I think, you know, so it gets used to you and the type of questions you're asking.

Vicki Weinburg: 00:46:11

That's really helpful. And I didn't know it could talk back to you. I've actually just started recently talking to it because I feel like when you're talking, it's more of.

It's more for me, I feel like my own voice is more authentic when I'm talking than when I'm writing. So I've taken to talking to it because I feel like it's getting a better sense of me because it's more the word I would use, perhaps. I have no idea.

It can talk back to me?

Helen Williams: 00:46:35

Yes, yes, it can. It's one of the buttons where you can, like, you know, there's a thumbs up and a thumbs down.

That's always good to Tell it if it's a good response as well. That's part of the training that you should do. Once it gives you a response, give it a thumbs up or thumbs down.

And then there's a copy button there where you can copy it and put it across into your notes and refine it.

And there's also the, it's like a, you know, a loudspeaker picture, I think, which, which is the talking out loud response, which is really nice because I think you can choose a male or a female voice. I think you can choose a voice. Yeah. And it just, it does make you feel like it's more of a two way thing, which is, which is good.

Vicki Weinburg: 00:47:10

Well, thank you. That's really useful to know. Honestly, I'm learning so much.

Thank you so much for your time and for everything you've shared because this has been incredible. I think a lot of us might need to listen to this more than once to kind of pick up all the different things we can try.

So I have one final question before we finish. That's okay, Helen. And that's what would be your number one piece of advice if we're going to look at using AI to support our content?

Helen Williams: 00:47:37

I would say for me at the moment, I think it's really important that the visuals are still you. So if you're showing yourself, if you're showing a product, then, you know, show the actual product because it's really good for giving.

Like, you know, you could, you could take a photo of your product, but you could have AI do the background for it, so you don't need it like a professional studio photo. It's very good for images like that.

But I think with visuals it's really important to have your actual product or your actual self because it, AI is doing people now as well. You know, a lot of people are using AI versions of themselves for their content and I think that's a real like, turn off for your ideal client.

Because I still think visual, you know, Instagram is all about the visuals. You know, if you want words, you'd go to, I don't know, anywhere else really, LinkedIn or, you know, wherever.

But Instagram is still for people that are usually creative. You know, they like the visuals and the aesthetic side of it. So I would say don't let AI, you know, take over your, your visual side of your feed.

But, but definitely for the captions and for the hooks. It's really, really good.

But, but you know, make sure you've properly read it and properly like read it out loud and think, is this, you know, is there a. Like, does, does this appeal to my ideal client? Is it solving a problem for them or giving them some value?

You know, what, what's in it for the client? And is it a way that I would talk to my friend, you know, in a. In a sort of friendly, informative tone as well?

Because that's very good for building connections.

Vicki Weinburg: 00:49:04

Amazing. Thank you so much.

Helen Williams: 00:49:06

You're welcome. I really enjoyed that chat. They were a great question. Thanks to you and chatgpt in combination.

Vicki Weinburg: 00:49:14

Thank you. I think using it in partnership is the best way to use it or for me, I'm finding.

Helen Williams: 00:49:19

Absolutely, yeah. No, you're right.

Vicki Weinburg: 00:49:22

Well, thank you so much, Helen and we will link to everything we've mentioned in the show notes and thank you again for your time.

Helen Williams: 00:49:27

Amazing. Thanks so much, Vicky.

Vicki Weinburg: 00:49:29

Thank you. Thank you so much for listening. Right to the end of this episode.

Do remember that you can get the full back catalogue and lots of free visitors resources on my website, vickyweinberg. Com. Please do remember to rate and review this episode if you've enjoyed it and also share it with a friend who you think might find it useful.

Thank you again and see you next week.