AI for Small Business: Complete Beginner’s Guide

This introductory lesson on large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT and Google Bard explains how they understand and generate human language by being trained on vast amounts of text.

These AI systems are interactive, offering capabilities like answering questions, assisting in writing, translating languages, and creating content. While they're not perfect and may sometimes provide incorrect information, they can significantly benefit small businesses.

They assist in creating marketing content, automating customer support, analyzing data for insights, and providing translations, thereby saving time and enhancing business efficiency. The series promises to explore how to leverage this software for your small business.

If you already know what this software is and what it is designed to do, you can jump straight to the next video.

This lesson is a guide to using prompts with your software. Think of a prompt as your way of chatting with the software, telling it exactly what you need, whether it's information or help. The key is to keep your prompts short and sweet so the software can catch on quickly and give you just the right answer.

We dive into a simple formula for creating prompts and then expand it to add more detail.

This lesson is about unleashing the softwares potential to help you out. From jazzing up your website to making your social media pop, to creating engaging blogs, and even whipping up emails that your customers will love – it's all in there.

Once you've watched the video, use the resources to practice creating your own prompts specific to your business.

In this lesson, we're looking at how to get the software to understand your business and work for you. It's like teaching a new team member about what you do and how you do it.

You'll feed it all the stuff specific to your business – your style, your way of talking, everything. The more it knows, the better it gets at making things like blog posts and customer support chats sound just like you. Don't forget to keep the AI in the loop with updates about your business to keep it sharp. It's all about making AI a helpful part of your team!

Once you've watched the video, use the attached resources to train your software in your business and your style.

In this section, we're looking at the ways you can use your software to get creative with your content. Once you've trained these smart AIs in your business style, the possibilities are endless.

The software's already a whiz at different writing styles, so you can get it to whip up anything from formal reports to chatty blog posts. Just tell it what you want, and it'll do its thing. If the first draft isn't quite what you had in mind, no worries! Just give it some feedback, and it'll tweak things until it's spot on.

You'll learn how to guide the software by describing the style you're after, maybe giving it a sample text to follow, or explaining the tone and voice you want. Whether you're looking for something serious or light-hearted, for kids or adults, this software can handle it.

And it's not just about style. You can also play around with different formats – from bullet points to paragraphs, short social media snippets to lengthy blog posts.

By the end of this section, you’ll see how the software can be a game-changer in creating diverse and engaging content, perfectly tailored to your audience.

Once you've watched the video, use the attached resources to test out different styles and tones of voice.

In this part of the course, we're focusing on how crucial it is to give your AI software feedback. It's all about tweaking your prompts until they hit the sweet spot. Don't worry if it's not perfect at first – a little nudge here and there, and you'll get there. We'll see this in action.

You'll learn that prompts should be specific. If the AI's response is too long or too technical, no sweat – just ask it to simplify things. If it goes too casual, tell it to notch it up a bit. It's like teaching the AI to speak your language.

By the end of this section, you'll see how even broad prompts can be fine-tuned with feedback to get the exact style and format you want. And once you've got that, you're all set to create all sorts of content – from website copy to social media posts. We'll wrap up by showing you how to start with a really broad prompt and refine it step by step, showing you just what your software can do.

Once you've watched the video, try using some broad prompts and then refining the results.

This section of the course is all about using chat software to boost your social media game. You’ll learn how it can help in tons of ways, from creating catchy posts to coming up with fresh content ideas. It can even suggest hashtags to get your posts noticed and help design a content calendar to keep things organized.

We’ll especially focus on using the software for content ideas, making posts, finding images, and boosting engagement. We'll look at making posts for different platforms like Facebook and Instagram, tweaking the tone and length to fit each one. Plus, we'll dive into how to find the perfect images without spending ages searching online.

And if you’re wondering how to get more likes and comments, we’ve got that covered too. You'll learn how to use the software to come up with engaging questions, polls, and calls to action.

By the end of this video, you’ll see how chat software can be a huge help in creating awesome social media content, making your posts more engaging and way easier to manage.

In this lecture, we're looking at how to use AI software to pick out the perfect hashtags for your social media posts. We'll kick off with a quick chat about what hashtags are – those words or phrases with the "#" symbol that help categorize content on social media. They're great for making your posts more discoverable to people interested in your topics.

We'll walk through how to use AI, like Google Bard, to find hashtags that fit your content. Regardless of what you are posting about, the AI can suggest hashtags that are both popular and relevant. You'll learn to tailor your requests to the software, like asking for specific hashtags, or even asking how popular each hashtag is.

We'll also explore how to get the AI to interpret images and suggest hashtags based on them. If the software doesn't get your image right, no problem – just describe it yourself, and it'll whip up hashtags that match.

And here's a pro tip: balance using super popular hashtags with more niche ones that really speak to your business. This way, your posts can reach a wide audience but still target the people most likely to engage with your brand.

By the end of this video, you'll know how to get the AI to list hashtags in a neat format, ready for you to copy-paste into your posts. You'll be a hashtag whiz in no time!

This lecture dives deeper into using AI software for social media, focusing on crafting headlines, captions, and refining your draft posts.

Need a catchy headline for a long-winded post? No problem. We'll show you how to ask the AI to come up with something that grabs attention. For example, turning a detailed yoga post into a headline that makes people want to read more.

We'll also explore creating exciting titles for YouTube videos. You'll learn how to give the AI a video description and ask for a short, catchy title that makes people click.

Captions for images? Easy. Whether it's a one-liner for a photo or a witty caption for a funny image, the AI can handle it.

Plus, we're covering how to get feedback on your own posts. If your Instagram post doesn't feel professional enough, we'll show you how to tweak it using the AI. And if you want to change the style of several posts to be more friendly yet professional, you'll see how to do that too.

By the end of this video, you'll have a good handle on using AI for not just writing posts but also refining them to fit your style and audience.

In this lecture, we're learning how to use Google Bard to create a social media schedule for your business.

We'll start by ensuring the AI understands key details about your business, like services offered and target customers. Then, we'll show you how to instruct the AI to craft a posting schedule, mixing trending topics with specific updates about your business, including special offers.

You'll see how to modify posts to fit your needs and get tips on formatting your schedule for easy use. By the end, you'll be ready to use AI to efficiently plan and manage your social media content.

In this lecture, we're going to use AI software to create standard emails for your business, focusing on keeping customers engaged. We'll start by creating a welcome email for new customers of a yoga studio. This email will thank them for attending their first class, offer reassurance, and encourage them to return, complete with a link to the class timetable.

This lecture is all about crafting newsletters and promotional emails, with a focus on keeping content fresh and relevant. We'll start with a Black Friday promotion. We'll ensure the email is concise, under 200 words, and in the same friendly, professional tone established in previous communications.

Next, we'll show how to adapt this promotion into a snappy 100-word Facebook post, complete with emojis, to reach a wider audience.

Then, we'll tackle creating a newsletter. For regular engagement, we'll explore different topics for monthly newsletters, ensuring each edition brings something new and interesting to the subscribers.

By the end of this video, you'll see how AI can be a valuable tool in creating varied and engaging email content, tailored to your business's events and promotions.

In this final email section, we're focusing on crafting effective purchase receipts and subscription emails. We'll start with enhancing the standard email receipts sent to customers. The aim is to add a personal touch to these automated messages.

Next, we'll adapt this format for subscription payments. The email will again start with a thank you message, followed by an explanation that adds value to their subscription and encourages more frequent attendance.

Lastly, we'll write an email aimed at customers who've canceled their subscriptions. This email will express understanding, and invite them back into the community with a 10% discount code for resubscribing. We'll also include a direct link to the online store, making it easy for them to reactivate their subscription.

By adding these personalized elements to your transactional emails, you enhance customer engagement and add a warm, human touch to automated communications. This can lead to improved customer satisfaction and potentially increase retention and re-engagement rates.

In this first course creation section we will look at how to repurpose your course content through the creation of summaries and learning objectives.

Take your course content and have your AI software create multiple types of quizzes and exam questions. And provide the answers if you need them! We'll learn how to produce tones of great assessment content.

We'll take the layout of your course and use the software to design your timetable. Then, using your course content we'll  use the software to turn it into handouts with a great layout.

NotebookLM has just been released by Google and is still "experimental". It is currently only available for users in the USA.

If you are outside of the US and want to give it a go, you can use VPN software such as NordVPN in order to access NotebookLM.

I will put out a message as soon as the software is available elsewhere in the world. It looks like an incredible resources for helping you trawl through mountains of paperwork!

A quick introduction to NotebookLM that explains what the software is, how it works and how it integrates with Google Gemini.

NotebookLM can be found here: https://notebooklm.google/

1. Understanding the Interface of Notebook LM: Learn about the layout and initial screen of Notebook LM, including where to find the title, welcome message, and how to start a new notebook project.

2. Starting a Notebook: Understand the process of creating a new notebook, including giving it a title and navigating the main working areas such as the project title, sources, and the main dialogue area.

3. Importing Sources: Learn how to add sources to your notebook using different methods (Google Drive, PDF, copy text), understand the limitations regarding the number of sources and words per source, and get familiar with the process of uploading documents.

4. Creating and Organizing Notes: Discover how to create notes within the notebook, how to save and pin important information, and how to add personal notes for individual reflection or additional information.

5. Interrogating the Sources: Learn how to question the sources by typing queries, understanding how the AI responds to questions based on the sources provided, and how to interpret and utilize the answers given by the AI.

6. Using the Dialogue Box: Understand how to use the dialogue box effectively to ask questions, give commands to the AI, and how to review and select multiple sources for a single query.

7. Refining and Analyzing Information: Discover how to refine the collected information by creating summaries from pinned notes, exploring related ideas, and creating outlines for structured content such as essays or research papers.

8. Feedback and Validation: Learn the importance of giving feedback on the AI's responses and checking the validity of the information through citations and source material.

9. Exploring Key Topics and Terms: Understand how to explore key topics and terms within sources, and how to deal with limitations when certain information is not available within the provided sources.

10. Research and Expansion: Get insights into how to expand your research beyond the provided sources, especially when encountering topics or terms not covered within the initial uploads.

1. Understand how to utilize Notebook LM for content creation, including writing blog posts, essays, and social media updates.

2. Learn how to incorporate and manage large sources of information within Notebook LM, including the uploading and summarizing of extensive documents.

3. Gain familiarity with generating and refining content based on specific questions and topics related to a chosen subject, in this case, meditation.

4. Develop the ability to pin, combine, and summarize notes in Notebook LM to streamline the content creation process.

5. Explore the functionalities of Google Gemini for transforming notes and summaries into polished, formatted content suitable for different platforms and audiences.

6. Acquire skills in creating content that is engaging, professional, and tailored to different formats, such as academic essays, blog posts, and social media entries.

7. Understand how to optimize content for social media platforms, including crafting posts of appropriate lengths and styles for Facebook and Instagram.

8. Learn to utilize suggested questions within Notebook LM to enhance content depth and breadth.

9. Discover how to create comprehensive study guides and outlines from collected notes to support educational content creation.

10. Master the process of transitioning from raw research and notes to finished articles and posts by leveraging AI tools effectively.

1. Learn how to extract and summarize customer feedback from a set of emails regarding a business, in this case, an imaginary yoga studio.

2. Learn how to identify specific feedback themes such as class improvements, equipment suggestions, and yoga poses requested by customers.

3. Discover how to use Notebook LM to quickly find out what customers like about the business, identify requested improvements, and recognize requested yoga poses.

4. Learn how to ask specific questions within Notebook LM to analyze text for particular insights such as class experience, studio improvements, and teacher feedback.

5. Understand how to utilize Notebook LM to streamline the analysis of large volumes of text, making it easier to extract relevant information without having to read each email individually.

6. Discover how Notebook LM can suggest questions that help in extracting precise information from the collected data.

7. Understand how the summarized feedback can be used to inform business strategy and improvements without manually reading through extensive customer communications.

1. Learn how to use Notebook LM to enhance learning.

2. Learn how Notebook LM can assist in understanding complex concepts about a topic.

3. Discover how Notebook LM can be used as a refresher tool to recall information from articles read in the past.

4. Understand how to synthesise information from multiple sources using Notebook LM to gain a comprehensive understanding of a topic.

5. Learn how Notebook LM can pose insightful questions that help deepen understanding of a source, and how to add custom questions based on personal teaching goals or curiosity.

Unlike the rest of this course, this bonus does require that you have the paid version of ChatGPT.

The section provides a comprehensive guide on creating a personalised GPT-based ChatGPT model. Covering the benefits of customisation, efficiency, and ease of knowledge integration.