How our writers use WRITER to write for WRITER’s Room - WRITER

How our writers use WRITER to write for WRITER’s Room

(or how we use generative AI to make blog writing better)

Alaura Weaver  |  June 7, 2023

With AI headlines spewing forth from the media volcano, it’s tough for anyone to separate what’s hype vs. reality when it comes to generative AI. With overnight ChatGPT gurus monopolizing every social media platform, it’s hard not to get distracted by shiny AI articles that can claim to magically solve our content challenges. And let’s face it: tech layoffs have us all worried that our jobs will be replaced by automated counterparts.

But as many tech and business experts have observed, across every industry, people won’t be replaced by AI — they’ll be replaced by people who know how to use AI to deliver better outcomes than humans or AI working alone. Now is the time to become that AI-savvy content marketer every company will be seeking, and will likely be promoting — not replacing. While knowing one-off use cases and smart prompts for AI tools will be essential skills for a content pro, the truly valuable skillset will be in implementing AI at every step of the content production and distribution process, ensuring consistent, easy-to-edit outputs, and enabling content teams with AI best practices.

Our team at WRITER has developed the practices that actually help you create consistent workflows across your content team‌ with AI. How do I know? Because we’ve actually done it. And because our customers at companies like Intuit are actually doing it.

Even if I didn’t work for WRITER, I’d still use the generative AI platform every day. It makes my job a thousand times easier. I’ve come to treat it as a “second brain” in my role as a content marketer, and whether I’m writing content or I’m managing freelancers and agency writers, I use WRITER at every stage of the content production and distribution process. With WRITER, our small team has been able to produce content at a scale and level of quality that we’d never be capable of unless we had significant resources.

And the business outcomes are tangible: our organic traffic is solid and increasing month over month, our sales team relies on our content to spark conversations with high-value prospects, and our content has gotten the attention of decision-makers at major companies, leading to powerful partnerships and massive deals.

I’m going to give you a backstage tour of how we use WRITER to turn an idea into a blog post and more. We’ll dig into how we use our own generative AI platform for repeatable and sustainable content creation across our internal team and freelancers — and how you can do it, too.

Consider this your guide to understanding how to use WRITER to operationalize content workflows for your team.

Summarized by WRITER

Table of contents

Ideation stage: Build a backlog of inspiration

As much as we’d love to have an infinite list of content ideas, the reality is that sometimes we get stuck. We hit a creative wall. WRITER can be the ladder that leads you over the wall.

When I’m looking for inspiration for blog topics (that go beyond run-of-the-mill SEO research) I tap into the conversations my target audience is having on Slack channels, LinkedIn posts, and webinars. I tune into places where people are wrestling with challenges and are seeking guidance, support, and encouragement from experts and peers. My motto for discovering compelling content ideas: “the story is in the struggle.”

But listening, rewatching, and reading so much content can quickly become a full-time job. That’s where WRITER steps in.

How can WRITER help?

WRITER aggregates and surfaces keywords from audience conversations without spending hours scouring content manually.

In a nutshell, WRITER helps me pinpoint relevant ideas from the content that matters to my audience. And it supports me with a repeatable process, which means I can continuously stay on top of content ideation.

Tap Ask WRITER for topic ideas

Ask WRITER is a freeform generative AI writing tool that generates output based on natural language prompts. When I’m looking for my next batch of blog topics, I use the Ask WRITER tool in WRITER to scour for keyword or thought leadership ideas by providing relevant inputs like LinkedIn posts, SME video transcripts, news articles, or conversations from Slack communities.

Then, Ask WRITER sums up the most important pain points or topics. This means that I’ll end up with a targeted and relevant batch of keywords that I can add to a keyword cloud, ready to use.

Helpful tips for Ask WRITER:

For example, I could ask WRITER to come up with a few thought leadership topics based on our CEO, May Habib’s LinkedIn profile. I’d simply write a request like, “Based on this person’s LinkedIn profile, what are some example blog posts they should write about,” combined with a link to their page.

Delegation stage: Equip writers with comprehensive project briefs

Whether you’re working with an internal team or with freelancers, assigning writing projects and communicating expectations is key for successful content operations.

As writers, there’s nothing more frustrating than being tasked with writing something, but all the information given is a vague idea. It leads to confusion and missed expectations.

WRITER can help set my team up for success by providing them with all the information they need upfront.

How can WRITER help?

I use WRITER to spin up internal project management assets instantly — stuff like writing briefs, editing checklists, and content promotion plans. That way, I don’t have to start from scratch with routine tasks like blog assignments, editing drafts, and distributing content.

Create snippets to standardize the delegation process

Got text you’re constantly retyping or copy/pasting into your emails, docs, or design files? Turn it into a snippet so you only have to type it once. To set my team up for success, I created “blog briefs” snippets, which are accessible to the whole team. This means everyone follows the same framework — no opportunity for missed information.

I find snippets particularly helpful because it means that anyone — an internal writer or freelancer — can pick up the assignment and hit the ground typing. This is because the direction, expectations, and context of the project are provided beforehand.

WRITER’s blog brief:

What’s the deliverable?

Working title:

Format/length:

Target keywords (if applicable):

Who is the audience?

Persona/sample role:

ICP documents:

Why does this content need to exist?

Pain-point/desired outcome/search intent for audience:

Strategic purpose for WRITER:

How will this piece be created?

Research methods:

SME contact info:

Suggested headers (if applicable):

Timeline:

  1. 30% Outline review (due [date], feedback due by [date])
  2. 90% draft – (due [date], feedback due by [date]) – Alaura reviews/requests revisions
  3. Final draft – (due [date])

Research: Distill and extract information faster

Research can be time-consuming. But with WRITER, you can skim through articles to find valuable information with a crafted prompt.

It’s important to note that although generative AI tools are super helpful for saving time on research, they aren’t always accurate or 100% reliable. Any answer they give should always be fact-checked. Even if it sounds convincing — remember, they’re designed to sound that way.

How can WRITER help?

WRITER can help you speed up the research process. It distills information with a particular angle for your research.

And with Knowledge Graph, you can connect to your company’s information sources, like a company wiki, cloud storage, and public chat channels to help fact-check outputs and ask questions in real-time.

Gather research and develop insights with Ask WRITER

I use Ask WRITER to analyze, research, and generate answers based on a particular angle I’d like my article to focus on. This is where the art of prompt crafting comes into play. The more direct and specific the prompt, the better.

For example, I can ask WRITER to summarize the findings of a new report. I can also generate a list of insightful questions for my next subject matter expert interview based on their LinkedIn profile or a webinar transcript.

Use recaps to capture SME thoughts

At WRITER, we collaborate with so many wonderful subject matter experts, and we end up with a wealth of insightful content that we can be reused in a multitude of ways. I use recaps to browse through past recordings of interviews, webinars, and panel discussions featuring subject matter experts and find valuable quotes, thoughts, and opinions for my next article.

Best practices for blog outlines in WRITER:

How we use Ask WRITER to fast-track outlines for thought leadership

At WRITER, we consider thought leadership to be content that starts or contributes to the important conversations shaping how businesses think about AI and the role of AI in work.

While we sometimes structure thought leadership content for search optimization, the priority is on optimizing for engagement first.

Drafting: Improve the writing process

WRITER helps teams streamline the writing process by generating content from prompts and materials.

How can WRITER help?

WRITER can help speed up the writing process by creating an outline and generating draft content, so you can create a strong writing foundation for any article.

Use Blog Builder to write engaging search-optimized blogs

Blog Builder supports your team by generating a solid blog draft with the information you provide.