What Marketers and Small Businesses Should Know About ChatGPT

Since its launch in November 2022, ChatGPT has produced a lot of chatter among marketers and small business owners. Social media conversations, web articles, and meetings are filled with curiosity, excitement and apprehension around this new, state-of-the-art technology.

 

At Green Apple, we’re here to solve your problems through marketing strategies and tactics, and we want you to feel empowered when it comes to new trends that could impact your business. We want to equip you with knowledge around this new language processing tool, and its impact for business so that you can access and use this innovative technology. 

 

What is ChatGPT? 

ChatGPT is the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot that was released by OpenAI, an AI research and deployment company based in San Francisco, CA. Since its launch in November 2022, the chatbot has taken the technology world by storm. 

 

ChatGPT is powered by cutting-edge language processing AI models—called generative pretrained transformers—that are capable of producing human-like, conversational interactions. Because the bot was trained on a diverse array of websites, books and more, it can provide text responses to a wide range of questions and prompts. 

 

While other tech companies like Google and Meta have successfully produced their own large language models, ChatGPT is the first of its kind that allows the general public to experiment with it directly. ChatGPT can write resumes, poetry, stories, and essays. It can also solve math problems and even code an entire website based on a simple, hand-drawn sketch. 

 

ChatGPT’s Impact on Business

As with any new technology, there has been a lot of discussion surrounding how ChatGPT could impact the business world. And it can be challenging to explain this complex tool  to your colleagues in a meaningful way. Will the bot replace jobs? Should content creators be concerned? Or is it simply a new tool that can be used to streamline and simplify tasks? 

 

According to Martech Series, “ChatGPT has demonstrated the ability to build complex Python code and compose college-level essays in response to a prompt, raising concerns that such technology may probably replace human workers like journalists or programmers.”

 

But even with all of its encyclopedic knowledge, ChatGPT is limited to the information used to train its neural network. It has also produced incorrect or nonsensical—albeit convincing—answers to user prompts. This has spelled bad news for businesses who have tried to use the bot to interact with customers in real time. Additionally, the bot lacks the ability to empathize, think critically, give personalized advice or speak to future events—all key traits necessary for successful marketing professionals. 

 

Best Practices for Using ChatGPT 

Given the strides made by AI companies in recent years, ChatGPT is likely here to stay. As marketers and small business owners, there are multiple ways to embrace this tool and use it to your advantage. 

 

ChatGPT makes an efficient search engine. Content creators can ask for information on a certain event or subject matter and receive paragraphs of data within seconds. This can replace hours otherwise spent scouring various websites to find the information you need. The cost of time saved on research and outlining can be passed on to clients.

 

Similar to its use as a search engine, ChatGPT can explain complicated topics in a brief, easy-to-understand format. If you’re looking for in-depth information on specific events or subjects, the bot can help as long as the information you need was collected before 2020. 

 

ChatGPT can be a helpful starting point for writing assignments. Give it a try the next time you experience writer’s block. While ethical issues and the possibility of plagiarism prevent you from using the content “as is,” it can certainly help get your creative wheels turning. 

 

Users have also had success getting ChatGPT to produce websites, write code, and gather statistics for presentations. Working late? ChatGPT can save you a trip to the grocery store by suggesting step-by-step recipes if given a picture of what’s in your fridge, among other creative uses

 

How to Access ChatGPT 

OpenAI allows users to try ChatGPT for free via the company’s website. Each user helps provide valuable feedback that will enhance the bot’s performance. 

 

New users receive $5 worth of free tokens to use during a three month trial. All prompts and responses require the use of tokens. Different versions of the language model require a different number of tokens. Fees are also involved when using OpenAI for business purposes. Fortunately, fees are only charged by usage, and you will only pay for the version of the language model you choose and for the number of tokens, or short paragraphs, resulting from the interaction. 

 

Green Apple Can Help You Embrace New Trends

Sometimes new technology can push us out of our comfort zone. If you’re looking for an innovative way to take your marketing to the next level or simply need help managing everything that is required for reaching your goals, our team can help. Contact us to learn more about our unique approach and schedule a discovery call with our team.