Introducing Prompt Engineering for Comms Professionals (Intellicomms: 1/5)
The authority on mixternal comms
What if you could reduce the time you spend writing comms by 40% so you can dedicate time to more strategic and meaningful work?
🕓 Time spent writing reports and press releases fell by up to 40% and the quality of writing improved by nearly 20% when participants used ChatGPT to do common writing tasks, according to a recent study published in Science.
Researchers gave half of 453 college-educated professionals access to ChatGPT to complete two writing tasks, including writing a press release and a short report.
“Our results show that ChatGPT substantially raised productivity,” the authors say.
“Workers exposed to ChatGPT during the experiment were two times as likely to report using it in their real job two weeks after the experiment and 1.6 times as likely two months after the experiment.”
ChatGPT and other AI-powered chatbots are here to stay. As they grow more powerful in their capabilities you can become more effective in your role.
But logging into ChatGPT and asking it to draft a memo to all employees recognizing the importance of ESG in the company’s five-year strategic plan will only get you so far.
To be truly effective at using chatbots to level up in your comms role, you need to be proficient in “prompt engineering.”
Introducing the Intellicomms Series on Prompt Engineering
This meaty five-part series is about how to use prompt engineering to be more effective, creative, efficient, and productive in your role (so you can make that money, honey).
Part 1 defines prompt engineering in easy-to-understand non-technical terms and explains why comms professionals should learn the skill.
Part 2 uses practical comms examples to explain three basic types of prompt engineering, so you can put them into practice today.
Part 3 gives real examples of how to effectively use prompt engineering for everyday comms tasks, such as writing and responding to emails, crafting blog posts and press releases, incorporating different writing styles, and more.
Part 4 provides a way for you to formalize prompt engineering for your team’s handbook or style guide.
Part 5 has a little fun and shows you how to use prompt engineering for miscellany tasks, including help with research, interview preparation, and graphics.
Parts 2-5 on how to use prompt engineering to up your comms game is reserved for Mister Editorial’s members. If you want access to this groundbreaking tutorial, as well as the entire Intellicomms archive, become a member.
What Exactly Is Prompt Engineering?
A prompt is an instruction you give to generative AI using text or other input. To engineer is to construct.
Ergo, prompt engineering.
Prompt engineering for chatbots involves designing and crafting effective instructions to achieve desired responses from the tool. It's critical for fine-tuning and controlling the chatbot’s behavior and output.
Let’s give a quick example using ChatGPT to whet your appetite.
Prompt: write a tweet thanking military service members for their service
Output:
Simple, right?
🚲 Using ChatGPT like this to up your comms game is like riding a bicycle with training wheels. Sure, it’s some sort of forward movement toward your goal, but it can be better.
With some very slight prompt engineering we can get a more meaningful output:
🏎️ Being proficient at prompt engineering is more like driving a Formula 1 race car to your finish line. Much, much faster and way, way cooler.
The more precise you are with prompt engineering, the more productive and effective you’ll be using chatbots like ChatGPT, so you can get back to doing the work that actually inspires you.
⚠️ Obligatory disclaimer: Prompt engineering is NOT…
about manipulating the chatbot to produce deceptive, malicious, or harmful outputs. Don’t be a jerk.
a foolproof method to make the chatbot perfectly accurate or error-free. Double-check your work if you think something might be off.
What’s in It for Me?
Or, Five Ways Prompt Engineering Will Make You a Better Comms Pro
Comms pros should learn the basics of prompt engineering because the skill can significantly benefit your team’s output, boost your professional development, and maybe even take your career in a direction you had not anticipated.1
Efficiency
If for no other reason, you should learn prompt engineering to make you and your team more efficient by orders of magnitude. Prompt engineering helps you optimize the chatbot's responses, making it easier to access relevant information quickly. This efficiency saves time, mental energy, and resources for you, your team, and the entire corporate comms function.
Cost efficiency is a tangible result here. Of course, this is a slippery slope. If you’re more efficient in your role your boss may see no reason to expand your headcount. But are you willing to wait around until next year’s budget cycle to see if maybe you get the money to hire one more person to join your under-resourced, overwhelmed team???
Tailored and Effective Communication
Prompt engineering allows you to craft specific and effective prompts to elicit the answers you need.
You can tailor the chatbot's responses to suit various scenarios, such as press releases, company updates, social media posts, event announcements, etc.
You can also use different kinds of prompts to elicit strategy and tactics, be more creative, help solve a problem, eliminate rote tasks, and more.
Consistent Messaging
By mastering prompt engineering, you can ensure a consistent tone and style of the chatbot’s output. This allows you to communicate the company's or executive’s message in a way that is on-brand and conforms to leadership’s style.
Professional Improvement
Becoming proficient in prompt engineering can lead you down an unexpected career path. AI is here to stay. Those who master the craft will carve out a niche that will be in demand in the future. (See footnote 1.)
Just like with any craft, the more you excel, the more enjoyable it becomes. The better you get at prompt engineering and interacting with chatbots, the smoother and more enjoyable the ride will be.
Avoiding Bias or Inappropriate Responses
Prompt engineering can be used to filter out biased or inappropriate material, très important in a field where DEI underlies all our work.
…
Understanding prompt engineering at a deep technical level is not necessary for comms pros.
By investing time, energy, and effort into learning the basics of prompt engineering, you can significantly enhance your position, streamline comms processes, and ensure the chatbot becomes your secret weapon in taking you and your team to the next level.
In part 2 I use practical comms examples to explain three basic types of prompt engineering, so you can put them into practice today.
Parts 2-5 on how to use prompt engineering to up your comms game is reserved for Mister Editorial’s members. If you want access to this groundbreaking tutorial, as well as the entire Intellicomms archive, become a member.
Being exceptional at one thing is one way to increase your corporate comms income. Why? Scarcity of exceptional talent can bring hefty rewards if there is demand. The way to be exceptional is to concentrate—niche down—on a narrow topic and hammer away at it month after month after year after year. Being a comms expert on AI is a niche ripe for picking. Learn more ($).
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Disclaimer: Besides running Mister Editorial, I am the editor-in-chief of Digital Publications at Lam Research. The views in this newsletter are my own.
Oh, you kept scrolling … You might be interested in learning more about the Intellicomms series:
