Have you tried ChatGPT, Google Bard, or a similar AI content generation tool and weren’t happy with the results? You’re not alone. A common complaint is that results are too vague, too generic, or didn’t read like something you’d write. While AI still has room for improvement, it may not be the tool’s fault—it could be your prompts.

What’s in a prompt?

A prompt is the request you give to the AI tool to receive content. However, asking the tool to write about something is not enough. Adding specifics will help optimize your results—saving you time and frustration.

Answer these six questions (listed in order of importance) to produce a prompt that will give you content you can actually use:

  1. What do you want the tool to do? Guide the prompt with an action verb, such as develop, describe, outline, rewrite, or expand. To get the best results, always include this step.
  2. What’s the context? Give some background on the subject (who you are, the type of project, etc.), the environment (business, location, area), and goals. For example, I am a commercial real estate broker in Plano, Texas, wanting to promote a new retail center.
  3. Do you have a rough draft or a sample? Paste the example in the tool and specify if you’d like to have it improved or used as a guide.
  4. Who is your audience? Include who will be receiving the information. Is it going to your boss, a new client, YouTube viewers, or a contractor?
  5. How do you want it to look? Besides specifying whether you want an email, report, blog post, or text message, you can instruct the tool to include certain formatting elements, such as the length, bullet points, bold headers, or other guidelines.
  6. What do you want it to sound like? Set the tone. Is your content meant to sound catchy, professional, compelling, or amusing?

Not all the components need to be used in a prompt, but the more details you add, the higher your chances of receiving your desired output.

Examples of prompts

  • Write a blog post about the top five staging features that help sell homes in today’s Liberty Hill market.
  • I am a residential real estate agent; create a Facebook caption that showcases my excitement about my clients standing in front of their first home.
  • I’m a new REALTOR® at X company in Houston looking to gain leads. Generate a professional email with five bullet points based on the example below to send to clients looking to buy a home.

Modify and enhance to get even better results

Is it still not exactly what you want? You don’t need to accept the first or even second draft. Fine-tune your prompt. Change the tone, expand or delete something from your context, or add more details about your audience. Remember, prompting is a skill. The more you practice, the better you’ll get at defining the right parameters. When you have a successful prompt, save it. That way, you can reuse it and streamline the process in the future.

What else can you do? Pull out parts of an AI draft to complement your writing. Ask the AI tool to improve your grammar, offer other edits, or brainstorm topics to spark your creativity.

And, of course, just because you can doesn’t mean you always should. Sometimes you may get a better result by not using AI at all.

Be the fact-checker

Sure, it’s coming from a computer, but that doesn’t mean it’s error-free or the facts are entirely accurate. You should always review your content before using it. In your prompt, ask the tool to cite references so you can ensure the information is current and coming from reliable sources.

AI-generated content can save you time, provide creative solutions, and polish your writing. When you give the application good input, you are more likely to receive a valuable output in return.

Put AI to Work

Now that you know how to create effective prompts to get great content, what will you do with it?

What You Can Ask Your Digital Assistant to Do

You’re busy. You’d probably love to have an assistant. Good news: You can! Delegate your day-to-day projects to AI. Here are some of the tasks to consider working on with the help of an AI tool:

  • Listing descriptions
  • Marketing material copy
  • Subject lines
  • Email or newsletter copy
  • Bios
  • Template for asking for reviews and testimonials
  • Organizing reports
  • Creating training material
  • Text messages
  • Letters asking for referrals
  • Scripts for videos or phone calls
  • Articles for your website
  • Social captions
  • Virtual chats (Zoom recently released the Zoom AI Companion feature)
  • Responses to property inquiries from new leads.

Explore the possibilities beyond writing

AI is not just for writing. Transform other areas of your real estate business. Whether creating visual content or wanting to automate day-to-day tasks, AI tools can boost your productivity.

Marketing: Get computer assistance creating videos, graphics, presentations, reports, and infographics

Administrative: Use tools for meeting transcription, phone message recaps, and coordinating schedules

Customer service: Rely on language translation tools and chatbots to help you communicate

As AI tools grow in popularity, more programs will integrate the functionality, so be on the lookout for those that may save you time or improve your output.

Beware the legal risks of using AI

It’s up to you to ensure that material created by the AI tool does not put your business at risk. Improper use of AI can lead to claims of bias, intellectual property violations, and fraud, and can harm your reputation. Always review materials created by an AI tool to ensure there is no violation of your brokerage’s policies or rules and state and federal laws, such as fair-housing laws, The Real Estate License Act, TREC rules, and the NAR Code of Ethics.