Why I Almost Hit Publish on a Caption That Didn't Sound Like Me

If your posts feel flat lately, this might be the reason your content stopped converting.

I sat down last week to write a caption for social media. I was properly caffeinated and everything. It was actually a simple one and something I’ve probably written a hundred versions of over the last 16 years.

You’ll NEVER guess what I did before I typed a single word. I opened ChatGPT and Claude.

What made me feel weirdly pathetic now that I think about was that I didn’t even think about it. I’ve been showing women how to leverage AI as a thought partner or idea accelerator for years. Three years ago at Social Media Day Halifax was the first time I presented how to start using AI responsibly in your business.

Now, what you need to know is that at that time, the majority of my income was coming from actually writing the words for my clients that would help them convert more clients. As a StoryBrand Certified Marketing Guide, I was using their framework to help my clients clarify their messages so that could grow their income. I believed in the power of the human mind (I even developed a policy on how I was using generative AI in my business AND I was open to exploring how AI could make my life easier.

Back to last week: Honestly? It was muscle memory at this point.

I’d unknowingly actually developed a SOP (standard operating procedure) for my business that involved consulting ChatGPT or Claude for validation of my thought/idea before I published a damn word.

AI helped me grow my business and I have the numbers to back that up and I also have the numbers that show what happened when I stopped writing in my own voice and let the tool take over. The engagement tanked. When I went back to writing like myself (like I’m doing in this post), it comes back.

So…last week. Here’s what I did: I dropped in a prompt to both Chat and Claude, split tested which gave me better results, got the drafts back, read them over, and almost hit post on the winner.

The truth: the caption was fine. It was grammatically correct, it hit the notes I wanted to hit, it had a call to action at the end, and it sounded like a caption. But something stopped me. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it initially. Then the realization hit me like a ton of bricks: It just didn’t sound like me.

I was starting to sound like every other strategist out there filled with performative pauses and list-y beats that are the definition of an AI written piece of work.

That was the moment I realized how far I’d drifted. Somewhere along the way I stopped writing my own content and started letting a tool do it for me and the tool writes for everybody which means it doesn’t really write for anybody.

So I did what any reasonable middle aged woman does when she has an a-ha realization: I called my best friend to debrief. She shared with me what she does when she’s teaching persuasive writing to her middle school students and it helped me see what was going on. It was in the conversation I realized she could actually help me solve this.

I know I’m not the only one doing this. I hear it from women in my Academy all the time. They tell me their posts aren’t landing, their engagement is flat, and they can’t figure out why, and when I ask them to send me something they wrote recently, it’s a ChatGPT draft with a few words swapped out.

So I’m running a free workshop.

Back to Basics: Writing Workshop for Women 40+

Thursday, April 29 5:00–7:00 PM ET Live + Free, with a 48-hour recording

We’re going back to the part everybody skipped.

When we learned to write as kids, we weren’t writing for an algorithm. We were writing to be understood. We were learning how to put a thought together in a way that would land with a reader, hold their attention, and get them to agree with us by the end. That’s still the skill that makes a caption work. That’s still the skill that makes an email get opened. That’s still the skill AI can’t actually do for you, because AI doesn’t know what you mean to say until you already know it yourself.

Here’s what I’ve noticed about the women I talk to who are leaning hard on AI right now. They’re smart and experienced and they’ve built things in their lives and careers that required them to write plenty. Reports, college essays, proposals, PTA fund raising letters, emails, condolence cards, cover letters, the whole range. They know how to write. What they don’t know is how to feel confident writing for an audience of strangers on the internet with the goal of having those strangers hire them, which is a different skill set that you had no idea you’d ever need.

Now, if you’re ANYTHING like me or the ladies I work with, you probably did what any reasonable person would do when they’re handed a task nobody taught them. You reached for the tool that could do it for you.

The problem is that the tool (ChatGPT or Claude or whatever AI you’re using) does the task and skips the skill building and now we’re two or three years into a lot of women outsourcing the one thing that was supposed to become their actual advantage. Their own unique point of view.

The truth is that it’s one thing to have a business. It’s another to be able to write about it in a way that makes people want what you’re selling.

Now I’m a former teacher. My parents spent a lot of money sending me to university to get my education degree in the 90’s. I KNOW how to write. Heck I know how to TEACH writing (I’ve got a degree in it!). AND, I love technology so when AI became a solid tool I could teach my audience how to use to get better results, I was ALL IN.

What I’m reading and seeing online has made me curious about how I can help you feel more confident in your writing. My bestie of 40 years, Lisa Morgan, (we met in grade ten in case you’re trying to do the math) retired from teaching middle school last year. She spent her career teaching literacy and English Language Arts. I’ve asked her to partner with me (since it’s been a hot minute since I’ve been in the classroom!) and create a FREE writing workshop.

We’re calling it Back to Basics.

It’s two hours. It’s live. It’s experiential, meaning you’re writing with us in real time and not watching a slideshow. There are two of us teaching it, which means you’re going to get more hands-on guidance than you’d get from a workshop with one person trying to cover it all.

You’ll walk out of it feeling confident that you know how to craft an engaging piece of writing, without having to consult a chatbot first.

Here are the details:

Back to Basics: Writing Workshop for Women 40+
Thursday, April 29
5:00–7:00 PM ET
Live + Free, with a 48-hour recording

You already know how to write. You just forgot that yours is the one worth reading. If you’ve been feeling the drift I was feeling last week, this is the FREE workshop to come to.