🟡 007 | How to use AI to brainstorm posts (that are still authentically you)

Rob Lennon here —

👋 to 465 new readers.

:)

Today, in 5 minutes 24 seconds, you'll learn about two big things holding creators back, and three pushing us forward.

It's CreatorBoost.

Before we jump in, this newsletter is brought to you by Black Magic's awesome Twitter analytics and engagement tools.

In particular, I love the Engage Dashboard, where it shows the top 100 people who interact with me the most, and who has posts I can reply to.

Worth a look. Okay. Onward!

🟡 Switch your spot

Found out this week that David Ogilvy never, ever wrote an ad in his office.

"Too many distractions," he said.

Yet most of us do all of our work, both the creative and the operational, in the same space.

If you're struggling to write in your usual place, change up your environment.

Drop the usual associations and enjoy. Your new space will also be a new mindspace.

🟡 Holding back yourself (and your $$$)

I spoke with two people last week who wanted to monetize their audiences. Both had excuses for why they needed to wait.

Response: If you build a product now, you can be selling it in perpetuity while growing your audience.

That's why you've got to pick anyway.

If this is you, these statements are more likely coming from fear and uncertainty.

• You don't want to try... and then get no sales.

• You don't want to waste time or be embarrassed.

• Or secretly you might be worried that trying to sell something might upset your audience.

Thing is, when you obsess over helping solve your audience's most pressing problems, they're more than happy to at least hear about your solution.

(And more people than you think are willing to support you financially.)

In a couple of weeks, I'll share a method of creating and monetizing products that minimizes all these downsides, while maximizing your chances of making digital dollars.

For now, your action step is to start thinking about the problems that your audience has that you're most excited to help solve. Make sure it's a specific, contained problem.

🟡 DIY AI brainstorm bot

Talking about AI sure has been the rage lately.

Many people are experimenting with the free research preview of ChatGPT, while others use AI writing assistants like Jasper more regularly.

And while writing tweets with these tools puts you at risk of posting platitudes, average content, and accidentally saying the same stuff as other people, one thing I can say for sure is that the AIs themselves are awesome with brainstorming.

Try this series of prompts:

• What are common problems people have when [performing a key activity in your niche]?

• What are the consequences of the above problems?

• How do you solve each of the above problems?

You can then use the results as inspiration for a PAS (Problem ➝ Agitate ➝ Solution) style of tweet.

For example, using the problem "building an audience online," here are some of the responses I got from GPT-3, the AI behind Jasper. (Sorry, ChatGPT was down for me all yesterday morning due to volume.)

What are common problems people have when building an audience online?

What are the consequences of the above problems?

How do you solve each of the above problems?

From here I can write tweets using a Problem > Agitate > Solution framework, and work in a bit of my own knowledge.

So yesterday I posted these.

Lack of Focus:

Unclear Messaging:

^Inspired by, but not written by, the AI's knowledge.

Keep in mind that if you use these systems, the content they suggest to you might be wholly bad.

ChatGPT suggests promoting your tweets with hashtags for better engagement, and conducting market research to gather age, gender, and interest data on your audience — both of which I would describe as a terrible advice for most creators.

But even if the output is bad, by noticing how wrong it is, you should be inspired to replace the bad with something good. Or talk about a common mistake.

Hopefully this can help you create, especially on days when you're feeling braindead or stuck.

🟡 How to write more with less

Almost exactly 4 years ago, I started a side-hustle writing spicy romance novels over winter break.

It was a blast writing as much as I could, but once I got back to work, I wrote usually less than 2 hours a day during mornings and weekends.

45 books later, I had a 5-figure business.

I got there, because I wrote prolifically despite having other obligations.

How did I do it?

I was able to publish millions of words because I hacked my output by tracking multiple variables on spreadsheets. I tried various warm-ups, dictation, and even writing on a coach or in the kitchen. These efforts increased my writing speed from ~800 words/hour to 2,000-3,000/hour.

But writing snackable content for social posts isn't just about speed and enabling creative flow. You need to write with precision and with a focus on your audience. You need a huge pile of ideas. And editing takes more time, too.

It's a similar but different problem.

That's why I've been hacking my social creativity process, and building a writing system around it too.

The results are absolutely wild.

Stay tuned.

🟡 There's money on LinkedIn

LinkedIn has bigger business accounts and more money. Twitter has more creators and building in public.

At least, that's the consensus in just about every conversation I have on this topic.

And although the cultures and algorithms are different, the core of my 4-step process for hyper-growth remains the same for both networks:

1. Find your crew

2. Appease the algos

3. Test your niche

4. Make content magic

So Tuesday, January 10, my audience building accelerator returns, but with a twist.

I'm adding optional materials, pre-recorded sessions, and a breakout on LinkedIn into the mix.

This 3-week growth accelerator is focused on live feedback, networking, and skill-building — not parroting advice that you can easily find in free Twitter threads every week.

(It's all the stuff you can't do easily on your own.)

Skip step 1 and find your crew in my next cohort. (Rated 9.7/10 by 21 students)

🟡 Milestone moment: Free $250 webcam

This is stupid, but meaningful.

It's really uncommon for Twitter influencers to be given products in the hope they'll share about them with their followers.

Still, last week I got my first "free gift." And I'm actually excited to share about the Lumina 4k AI Camera once I have cause to.

It uses AI to touch up your colors and sharpness, and you can set it follow you around as you move. (You'll see what I mean in some upcoming videos.)

That's all for now.

Let's get building.

—Rob