While everyone seems to be talking about generative AI, not all know how to use these Large language models (LLMs) properly.

If you have tried one of them out yourself (maybe ChatGPT on OpenAI or our Content Generation tool) and the results weren’t quite satisfying, this could likely be due to an insufficient prompt.

Generative AI tools are able to write compelling content. However, you need to give it a little human help to experience its whole potential. Writing effective prompts will improve its output tremendously. In this article, I will let you in on all the tips for effective AI prompts so you can generate just the content you are looking for.

Ensure clarity

This one goes without saying but you need to make sure that you use clear sentences. While AI is surprisingly forgiving it can enhance your output to give clear instructions. Try to minimise typos and double-check your prompt before sending it off.

Provide context

It is crucial to provide context information as the bot doesn’t know who you are and what you are trying to do - until you let it know.

Start with providing information about what content type you are trying to generate. Instead of saying “Write about localisation”, use a more specified prompt like “Write an informative blog post about the importance of localisation for e-commerce companies”.

You can also describe the point of view or the role the bot should take on as well as the addressee of the text. Instead of requesting “Write a sales email to a customer”, request “As a salesperson for a company selling sporting goods, write an email to a customer looking for boxing equipment and explain the different types of boxing gloves there are”. Prompts such as “I manage a newsletter that teaches marketers how to succeed on social media. Give me 10 potential taglines.” have also proven to deliver inspiring content for brainstorming purposes.

In addition, you might be surprised to know how well AI can take on different writing styles. Try asking for a poem, a witty style, a formal executive style or even text in the style of Shakespeare.

Adjust the text length

It can be helpful to set the preferred length of the generated text. If you experience your outputs being cut off mid-sentence it is most likely due to setting the text length too low.

In order to get the right length you can use also prompts like “Write a 500-1000-word blog post about how to take care of Monstera deliciosa plants". Moreover, you can ask for “longer” and “shorter” versions of a text that has already been generated.

Even more convenient, our Content Generation tool lets you set the desired ‘Maximum word count’ in the settings on the right side of the tool.

Determine AI’s creative freedom

Adjusting how creatively you want AI to write will make a big difference. While ChatGPT on OpenAI refers to this setting as ‘temperature’, you can find it as ‘creativity’ in the Content Generation settings on the EasyTranslate software.

A lower score on the 0-10 scale will mean that AI is more likely to repeat the given prompt. A higher score provides more flexibility and causes the bot to create different content every time you use the same prompt. As a rule of thumb, it has been recommended to use a 0.7 score as the default.

Use other text as input

Imagine that you want to introduce a new member of your team and you would like AI to write such an introduction. What you can do is paste this person’s LinkedIn resume and ask the bot to “Write an introduction about [person’s name], based on the above information”.

Let AI summarise for you

An underrated capability of generative AI is summarisation. You can save hours of research work if you let the tool summarise other texts for you. This can come in handy if you are writing a blog post like this one for example. It can also help with avoiding plagiarism. What you need to do is simple. Just paste the text and use a prompt like “Summarise the article above with 10 bullet points”.

No URLs

Remember that current models don’t include any information past 2021, for example, the war in Ukraine. Most of all it is important to keep in mind that it doesn’t have internet access and you cannot ask about URLs.

Use templates

Now that you know how to write effective prompts, things will be easy. If you are looking for a great and simple way to reuse prompts that have already proven to be effective, you should utilise templates specifically designed for generative AI.

The template feature of the EasyTranslate Content Generation tool gives you the ability to save and reuse prompts as well as the desired style and formatting of the output.

Imagine you generated a product text that you like and that you have already formatted to fit your webshop requirements. However, you must create hundreds (or thousands) more of such product descriptions in the same style. The template feature will be a lifesaver in this scenario. You just save the effective prompt and approved output as a template and reuse it for the rest of your product descriptions.

Let AI learn from your edits

The right tool will allow artificial intelligence to learn from the edits you make to the generated content. Sometimes called “fine-tuning”, this ability is great for further improving your outputs and keep generating content that fits your style. Our Content Generation tool can be trained by your own edits and desired content outputs so that future outputs fit your needs even better.

Conclusion

The key to proper AI-generated content is effective prompts. Make sure your prompts are clear, provide context and utilise smart features that the right tools should come with. It is crucial to ensure clarity, adjust the text length and determine AI’s creative freedom. Moreover, some tips include using other text as input, letting AI summarise for you and staying away from URLs.

Do you want to generate text even faster and more effortlessly? We simplified the process of writing prompts and generating content by providing templates of effective prompts and the ability to train the AI to learn from your edits. Try it out for free here.