Story99.com is a Branding & Storytelling Consultancy for B2B, Tech & Deeptech

A writer who uses AI asks, “Can you write this?”

But an AI editor knows that a lot more context needs to be provided for AI to write well - including:

• Who is the copy for - both primary and secondary (and what do we know about them that will help us write in a way that it lands really, really well with them)

• Every single brand attribute that can be maximized even as the copy is written to serve its functional purpose (how should the copy make one feel, what brand personality should it signal, what repeatable phrases it must try to use etc)

Doing the above, creates a drastically different piece of writing. A better piece of writing.

But going beyond that, eventually a good AI editor takes over the final AI version and rewrites it to add that human touch and texture. Hope this blog helps you transition from merely being a writer who uses AI to becoming a sought after AI editor. All the best!

-Amrit, Founder, Story99.com

As an AI editor, you will have a few additional responsibilities — such as creating a long list of possible topics, and then shortlisting the articles that are actually worth writing.

These tasks take some effort in the beginning, but tend to stabilize over time. What matters more, eventually, is understanding the job each piece of copy needs to do: helping build a distinctive, recallable brand that stands out over the years.

1. Make Sure There’s a PDF with Brand Identity Points Articulated in Detail

We’ve have worked with many B2B, tech, deeptech entities - most brands don’t have this. They have parts of it, but mostly fluff. A lot of it is about operational working culture and the use of colours, logos and font. That’s useful but not enough.

Now, AI can write decent sentences without full brand context. But it just cannot create strategically useful communication unless the brand details are extensively and clearly articulated.

Before asking AI to draft anything, you need a Brand Operating System (it could be simple 10-page PDF that you can add to context window when getting any writing job done).

The Brand Operating System should include:

• Brand purpose: what future the brand wants to help create, and what work it is doing to move toward that future.

• Brand DNA: the deeper operating instinct of the brand — missionary, mechanic, mother, challenger, builder, guide, etc.

• Brand personality: what human-like traits the brand should signal through its words and actions.

• Brand civics: what the brand believes about the world, society, customers, industry, or category.

• Brand values: the principles that guide how the brand behaves.

• Brand positioning: Through positioning, we lay down the category map for the customer — showing them where our brand sits in the landscape, how it compares with other options, and the specific buying situations, use cases, contexts, triggers, constraints, and outcomes for which we are the most relevant choice.

• Brand expectation: what people should confidently expect the brand to help them achieve.

• Brand meaning: what concepts, symbols, emotions, scenarios, and words the brand should repeatedly be associated with.

• Brand affect: what people should feel when they see, hear, or think about the brand.

• Messaging pillars: repeatable lines of thought that the brand can keep coming back to.

With this, AI can be pushed to write in a way that reinforces memory, meaning, trust, and distinctiveness (otherwise the AI will just write something that sounds polished but generic - can deliver a functional message but doesn’t help build a brand).

2. Feed Detailed Context in Your Prompt

Add / upload the input content (in raw form) on which you want the post to be written (go with Claude or if ChatGPT then only its paid model not the free one - free version of chatGPT gives crappy copy full of AI cliches).

Then ask Claude (or whatever good frontier model of AI you use) to do the following (below is an example of how to create social media post - but you can extend this approach for all sorts of writing):

You are a seasoned copywriter with expertise in [XXX].

Give me a 2 paragraph copy around [the topic / raw input] that I can post on social media. Primary audience who will connect with the copy is [add]. But it should also be read and appreciated by [add].

Have a catchy opening (go through the hook playbook). Also don’t bury the lead. Come to the point right away and then use the rest of the copy to help build the brand. majority will only read 1-2 lines.

Avoid and-and-and structure and try to bring out and-but-therefore narrative structure for the copy to be more engaging to read.

Below your recommended copy, explain how it’s serving brand identity reinforcement by highlighting how:
- strategic brand meaning approach is being leveraged
- some specific brand personalities are being signaled (below the surface)
- the right brand affect is being delivered (by placing the brand-name in the copy that evokes a particular kind of emotion)
- how the copy / messaging angle is aligned with our DNA
- how brand expectation and position is aligned

Subscribe to https://learnstory99.substack.com/subscribe where we notify you when we update our existing frameworks and insights around storytelling, marketing and brand-building.

3. Take Over What AI Writes, Then Rewrite It a Few Times

After a few iterations, once you get a good copy, just take over.

Go ahead and sparkle the writing with something human. Something you. Something that can’t be explained, templatized or turned into a PDF to be shared as context. Just do your thing. Every good editor does it.

These copy-writing suggestions might help you in this manual takeover.

And oh, when the final-final version is ready, obviously don’t forget to ask the AI to spot for typos and grammar. 🙂 No, it’s not cool to insert spelling mistakes to ‘prove’ that the copy was not written by AI. It’s just not!

Alright, happy transitioning from being a writer who uses AI to becoming an AI editor. Have fun! Go, change the world!

-Amrit, Founder, Story99.com

Story99.com is a Branding & Storytelling Consultancy for B2B, Tech & Deeptech

Subscribe to https://learnstory99.substack.com/subscribe where we notify you when we update our existing frameworks and insights around storytelling, marketing and brand-building.