A Beginner’s Guide to Using ChatGPT for Business

If you’re intrigued to learn about ChatGPT and prefer to read an article written by a human, you’ve come to the right place! Instead of getting all technical and rigid, let’s dive straight into what the fuss is all about with ChatGPT, shall we?

Think of ChatGPT as your very own chatty & language-savvy robot buddy capable of doing some pretty cool stuff. We’re talking about engaging in chit-chats like a pro, ready to answer all your questions - just like a personalized search engine.

It can even assist you with creative writing of all kinds, from poems to programming codes. That includes proofreading, translating, summarizing, suggesting, editing and everything in between.

But before you get carried away, remember that this little language tool isn’t all perfect. We’ll get more to that later. However, fret not, ChatGPT still can truly be a wonderful aide if you know how to utilize it. Now, let’s dive in!

ChatGPT - A Basic Introduction

As of the time of this writing, ChatGPT is powered by the Generative Pre-trained Transformer model developed by OpenAI team, namely the GPT-3.5. The goal of ChatGPT as a tool is to generate human-like text, making it invaluable for various applications, from writing assistance to other creative endeavors.

How it Works

When you visit chat.openai.com and sign up or log in, you will instantly grasp the concept of ChatGPT. The interface is straightforward, featuring a chat box where you can type your questions or messages to start a conversation with the computer program.

But here's the catch: the responses generated by ChatGPT heavily depend on what you feed it, which are called "prompts". The more well-crafted, clear and specific your prompts are, the more likely it is to yield a relevant and accurate answer.

Some examples of our most favorite ChatGPT prompts to use for business purposes are:

1. The “Act As If” Prompt:

"I want you to act as an expert (position) and provide (outputs) for my (business project), aimed at (your audience/ideal clients), who are typically (description of your ideal clients)."

Or, when the brackets are filled in, it will look like:

2. The “Explain to me like” Prompt:

“Explain to me like I am (description) about (topic)”

More examples:

3. The “Create Something” Prompt:

*“Create (output) for (project/goal) that consists of (details), please write it in (your desired layout). *

More examples:

4. The “Write Something” Prompt

“Help me write (output) to (the person’s name & position) regarding ( issue). Make it sound (your wish), so that the client will (your goal).

More examples”

5. The “Direct Order” Prompt

Anything goes with this prompt, such as:

• Translate the following (paste your text) to Korean

• Check the following for any errors or typos (paste your text)

• Suggest a better writing for (paste your text)

• Summarize this (paste your text) to no more than 500 words

Note that the AI language model is still quite limited for non-English languages. You might still want to hire a professional for business documents.

Helpful Notes When Using ChatGPT

Now that you have a gist of how things work with prompts, the opportunities are endless! Simply “command” and fine-tune your prompts just so that ChatGPT will churn out the most detailed and precise answers you are looking for.

A few notes you want to remember when working with ChatGPT:

• Don't be afraid to engage in a series of back-and-forth chatting, correcting ChatGPT along the way to finally get the response you want.

• If you find the responses to be inconclusive, try refining your prompts so ChatGPT can understand the task better. For example: “Give me more information about the answer you provided and include the latest facts”

• Aim to double-check or fact-check the responses to ensure that everything you have is indeed factual.

• In addition to using it as a discussion or sounding board, there’s no harm in having a little fun or playtime with it! Ask ChatGPT for a joke, a trivia quiz, or storytelling - thank us later.

• Last but not least, treat it with respect and care. While AI language models operate solely based on queries and have no memory retention, who knows if one day it’ll be possible to train ChatGPT to mimic your preferred form of responses.

Most Favorite ChatGPT Applications for Business

Now onto the fun part! ChatGPT can be a game-changer in enhancing your work, boosting productivity, and saving you time. Here are some ways you can start using ChatGPT today to become more efficient and creative:

1. Reading and summarizing content

Have you ever found yourself in a rush, struggling to go through a mountain of reading material like news articles, emails, proposals, or other lengthy texts? With chatGPT, you can simplify this task. Just copy and paste the text into chatGPT and ask it to summarize it for you. You can even specify the desired length of the summary and provide directions on which aspects to focus on.

Please note that the free version of chatGPT can handle texts of up to about 3,000 words. So, if you have a super long research study or article, you might need to hit the "Continue Generating" button or consider opting for the paid version for smoother and faster outputs.

2. Writing ad and social media content

ChatGPT is highly effective at generating ad copy, social media posts, and captions, including emojis and hashtags. It excels in producing copy that conveys the message or promotes something in a fun, simple, and peppy way.

Take a look at this prompt example:

"I work in a cafe. Could you please generate a list of 10 ideas for an Instagram caption of a photo of our new seasonal special, an orange turmeric iced latte?”

These are some of the responses it provided:

• Zest up your day with our Orange Turmeric Iced Latte! 🍊✨ The perfect blend of warmth and coolness in every sip. #MustTry #CafeFavorites

• Say hello to summer vibes with our limited-edition Orange Turmeric Iced Latte! 🌴🍊 A burst of tropical goodness awaits. #TumericLove #SummerInACup

• Embrace the season with a twist! Our Orange Turmeric Iced Latte is here to add a zing to your summer days. 🌞🍹 #RefreshingDrinks #CafeVibes

Even if you don’t use the suggestions verbatim, ChatGPT can provide ideas to incorporate while crafting the copy yourself. In particular, phrases like "zest up your day" and "add a zing to your summer days" are really cute and spot-on for promoting an orange turmeric latte, ideas that you probably haven’t thought of before!

3. Kickstarting a brainstorm

Just like it came up with a list of ideas for an Instagram post above, ChatGPT can also generate lists of ideas for other aspects of your business. Whether you need brainstorming ideas for fundraising a project or blog article ideas for your website, ChatGPT can assist you.

For instance, when asked for fundraising ideas to support a dog walking business, it suggested doing an online pet photo contest, hosting a pet-friendly movie night, creating a doggie olympics event, and selling merchandise. Not bad, right?

An added bonus is that ChatGPT lacks ego, so it won't be ashamed to suggest any ideas that come up. Especially during those moments when you feel blocked or uninspired, facing that blank page, asking ChatGPT for ideas to kick off your brainstorm can reignite your creativity and provide you with something to build upon.

4. Basic correspondence

By now, most of us are familiar with tools like Grammarly and Gmail's predictive text feature. ChatGPT takes it a step further by composing full emails for you.

Whether you need to send a message to reschedule a meeting with your team, check the status of a deadline, or explain to a customer about a late delivery, ChatGPT can handle that for you, and you might be surprised at how much of a relief that is. Sometimes, we don't realize how much energy it takes to compose even a simple internal email discussing something straightforward. Plus, it can be distracting when you're in the middle of working on a project.

However, you don't want to outsource your humanity and have ChatGPT stand-in for you in situations where it's essential to write something yourself. Trust your intuition to know when it's appropriate to use it.

5. Creating templates

Another valuable way to use ChatGPT for your business is by creating templates. Whether it's for emails, proposals, reports, or any other type of document you frequently use, ChatGPT can help you generate standardized templates that can be easily customized for different situations.

Some of favorite templates that ChatGPT can help create are: FAQs, Meeting Agendas, Project Proposals, Sales Pitch & Presentations, Social Media Content Calendar, and Employee Onboarding Documents.

Is ChatGPT Just a Lot of Hype?

When ChatGPT was first released in November 2022 for public use, it took just 5 days to amass 1 million users. According to the latest available data, the user base has now grown to over 100 million users.

So, the short answer to that question is a resounding no.

As evidenced by its consistent and rapid growth, many users have experienced the incredible benefits of ChatGPT. It significantly enhances intelligibility, fluency, understanding capability, and thought processing.

While there have been instances of misuse, such as phishing or malware writing, malicious intents are entirely on the actions of users. That being said, the positive or negative impact of ChatGPT ultimately depends on how users choose to employ it.

Obviously, it's impossible to predict the ways and degrees in which GPTs will integrate into society, and humans may impose legal restrictions on them. However, at this point, it's undeniable that they are here to stay. ChatGPT has even been compared to massive world-changing inventions such as social media, the internet, and the steam engine.

ChatGPT and Its Limitations

Ask ChatGPT directly what its limitations are, and it will candidly list a handful of things it's incapable of. That’s one thing to like about it : the non-bias nature of it all. However, there are a few flaws that daily users of ChatGPT can verify:

• Prompt dependency: ChatGPT is only as intellectual as the person feeding it prompts. The quality of responses heavily relies on the clarity and quality of prompts given. Poorly crafted prompts can result in irrelevant, nonsensical, or even inappropriate answers, leading to frustration and time wasting.

• Misinformation: It can be wrong quite often, and it is overconfident even when uncertain. When challenged, it may provide inconclusive responses. Since ChatGPT does not provide sources (unless asked, and most of the time, it couldn't provide the answer), it's not recommended to rely too much on it for factual information - at least not at this point in time.

• Data limitations: ChatGPT's training only goes up until September 2021, and any events or developments that occurred after that date are beyond its knowledge. It should not be used as a substitute for expertise, especially in critical matters.

• Limited understanding & creativity: ChatGPT is a predictive model, generating the most likely combination of words a human would come up with in response to your prompt, rather than the most original. It often lacks context and only works on a surface-level and simplistic basis.

• Non-English language performance: Due to being extensively trained with English, ChatGPT may lack proficiency in other non-English languages.

• Slow performance : Compared to the pro version, the free ChatGPT works at a rather slow speed and in the past have gone down for several hours for maintenance.

Conclusion

When ChatGPT first blew up, many feared how it might take over the workforce and maybe even the world! But few months in, we discovered that the technology still is in its infancy phase with a lot of learning curves.

However, this does not mean that it will not grow even more adept at mimicking human communication among other skills. New features in GPT-4 and GPT-5 are poised to be even more impressive with better understanding and creativity, although only time will tell how perfect they will be.

There will always be fear around the topic of AI, but seeing as it’s here to stay, anyone might as well take a good advantage and put it to good use. As we wait and see the unleashing of more powerful versions of ChatGPT, we recommend treating it as a useful assistant whom you can rely on for streamlining your tasks.

So if you haven’t already, let’s embrace its potential and use it wisely to boost creativity and productivity!