How a content writer is using AI writing tools

Hey folks👋🏽

Happy Frida! It’s been an interesting week in social media, with lots of new rollouts and a particularly divisive one yesterday between TikTok’s CEO Shou Chew and the U.S. Congress. Are you following the developments? What are your thoughts on the future of the platform? Let us know on Twitter.

💌 In today’s email:

• 🖊️ Umber gives us some insight into her exploration of AI for writing
• 📱 Mitra recommends making your own stock footage
• 📣 What’s happening in social: IG’s latest feature test could get more eyes on your Reels, start your TikTok For You Page from scratch and put up your podcast on YouTube.
• +All our latest content from the blog

Have a great weekend, and we’ll see you next Friday!

Warmly, 

Tami & the Buffer team

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🖊️ Deep Dive: How A Content Writer Uses AI Writing Tools

Many tech companies (including Buffer) have even been implementing AI into their existing tools. I’ve written about my conflicted feelings when it comes to AI, but I’ve been making an effort to push past my hesitation and add AI to the articles I write for the Buffer blog. I hoped that by doing so, I could speed up my writing process.

So, despite my initial resistance, I went ahead and used AI when outlining and drafting blog posts. Here’s what two weeks of incorporating AI looked like and how my thoughts on AI writing tools have changed.

• When choosing which AI tools to use, I opted for convenience. I stuck with Notion AI and Buffer’s AI assistant.
  • I didn’t use ChatGPT because rather than learning how to use a new product, I wanted something that I could seamlessly embed into my existing arsenal of tools.
• I used AI for:
  • Outlines
  • Interview questions
  • Suggestions for titles
  • Brainstorming introductions
• The pros:
  • Right off the bat, I could quickly outline various topics quickly with AI because I could ask key questions and get concise answers
  • It felt like brainstorming was easier. Writing is often a solitary act for me, so it was nice to have a sounding board to bounce ideas off
  • It was helpful on days when I felt blocked
• The cons:
  • Its information isn’t always accurate — the tools I used provided the wrong answer several times
  • Even when I got back the right results, I wasn’t always happy with the final copy. As a content writer myself, I personally felt like the writing quality from these tools was good, but not great and that I needed to make several edits.

Ultimately, these tools didn’t really save me that much time as I often had to correct the AI or rewrite its output. That being said, I still found it useful. Before these two weeks, I wasn’t very comfortable integrating these tools into my everyday work routine, but now I plan to use them from time to time.

🎙️ Check out our podcast

The Science of Social Media is a weekly podcast exploring hot topics, best practices, and insights into social media from the Buffer team and top social media marketing experts.

👇🏽 The latest from the blog

• Even With 250K+ Social Media Followers, I Still Rely on "Snail Mail" for My Business: Snail mail may sound like a slow way to market a business, but career coach Kyle Elliott has found it to be instrumental to his success. Here’s why he thinks sending good old cards has helped his business grow, and how any founder can integrate this into their own marketing strategy.

• To Niche or Not To Niche: Guidance from Creators on Picking A Lane: In this article, we'll explore both sides of the argument around niching down and guide you on how to find one that works for you — with insights from creators.

📱 Social Tip of The Week from Mitra, Buffer’s Social Media Manager 

Have you seen people talking about “stock content” or “stock footage” a lot on Instagram and TikTok lately? They’re referring to video content that you can use over time and for multiple purposes - plus, it doesn’t have to be related to any specific trends. We highly recommend you build up your own stock content!

Take videos of you while you’re working - like when you’re at the computer, wrapping up packages to send to customers or a timelapse of working on your product. Save these clips to use for simple TikToks and Reels, where you can add some trending music and text over the video.

Here’s an example of how we used this exact strategy for an Instagram Reel, and be sure to check out this Reel from Shine With Natasha, where she shares some stock content ideas.

🤳 What's Happening in Social

• 👀 Instagram’s working on a new way to integrate Stories and Reels with a new experiment that sees some Reels playing for their full duration within the Stories flow. This could be great for getting more eyes on your Reels.
• 🔄 TikTok is rolling out a new option that enables you to start your TikTok feed afresh, if you no longer like the videos being recommended to you, while it’s also developing new systems to avoid repetition, and limit exposure to harmful elements.
• 🎙️ YouTube’s rolling out some new options for podcast creators, while it’s also adding new video download options, and launching a new experiment that will recommend hashtags to include in your uploads to maximize discovery.

Thanks for reading! 💟

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