“Maximize WordPress Efficiency with AI: Virtual Meeting Guide for All Skill Levels”

• Your relationship: AI is your assistant
• Organize your thinking. Get clear what you want. If your assistant didn’t do something right, clarify what you want.
• AI for business, websites, your quality of life, improving health, learning any topic. Don’t ignore any area of life.
• Specify who AI is to be, in each interaction. What subset of knowledge should it focus on. “You are an expert Internet marketer and trainer for small business owners”
• Specify what you want to accomplish, in general terms. “I’m writing an article on how to configure Wordfence.”
• Say who you are speaking to, who your ideal client is. Their mood, values, interests, what they are drawn to, what they avoid. (Have AI ask you questions to clarify “your niche”, “your ideal client”, “what makes you unique”, “your brand”.)
• Give what ideas you have, what topics you want to include, what specifically you want to learn. Before writing your article or video script, ask the AI for other ideas and clarify your outline.
• For a long project, for example a book, do not try to do it all in one prompt. Break it into sections (can have AI write the chapter titles and sub-sections), specify the overall design and then where you are in the process. “Book chapter headings are ____. I’m on Chapter 5 “description of chapter”, ready now for “what happens now that Charlie and Susie ____”, write the next several pages.
  Said another way, write your “Previously on NCIS” to tell AI what’s already done in the previous segment, so it knows what to write now.
• State what format you want, details of how you want it presented “Output this in table format, for copy/pasting directly into a WordPress website, including table formatting; follow the table with explanations of the columns and summary of the information.” or “Save this in a Google Document”.
• If the answers start “becoming generic”, or “sound like an AI wrote it” or “forgetting details”, know that AI can only keep a limited amount of knowledge in the forefront for making an answer. Start a new conversation, with an updated starting prompt.

Example of How I Prompt

Next is an instruction I gave an AI, to write a meeting topic about using AI. After that, I included the results that AI produced from that instruction.

Initial Prompt

I typed this into Google Gemini:

# You are a WordPress training expert, including how to use AI most effectively for writing WordPress posts, and other writings a WordPress site owner would need.
 
# I am writing for small business owners who are: developing an online course or coaching program, designing video scripts for clients, developing social media marketing for courses or coaching, and improving personal areas such as: life and health and productivity and learning. They have a range of WordPress experience, from pretty new to highly experienced at using WordPress for making trainings, courses, and marketing.


# I am planning a virtual meeting on how to use AI.  Topic Ideas:
"AI for writing excellent WP posts", 
"AI for planning an online course"
"What is AI and how can I start using it for my WordPress site and my life?"
"How to Learn AI, ways you can use it, and how to get started"
Resources for using AI for writing article, making and editing videos, making images, social media marketing.

# Suggest other ideas to cover during this first call, and then ideas for future calls we will do, for this intended audience. 

Beyond noticing the specific instructions, notice how I a) told the AI what topics or areas of knowledge I’m interested in; b) who I’m writing this for; c) what writing style and emotion and interests to pay attention to when writing; d) I could have said what format I want the results in (for pasting into WordPress with headings and bulleted items, or save to a Google Doc, or as a series of meeting slides, for example) and e) what I want it to produce.

What Google Gemini generated

Gemini generated this, including the formatting:

Basics of Talking to an AI

The best relationship to have with an AI is “it is my assistant”. An assistant with extreme knowledge (read every book ever written in every language, read every website, the transcript of every YouTube video). But it doesn’t know your business, your ways of doing things; you have to specifically tell it how to do anything.

Kyle Van Deusen on “How I’m using Chat GPT for Websites & Content Marketing” (note it was written in June 2023)

AI websites to use

Of course, all AI offerings are expanding at a breathtaking pace, so check the latest features of several, pick one you like.

Google Gemini. I like the output a little better than ChatGPT. The free Gemini was offering more than entry-level paid ChatGPT. The entire Google Developer network is including Gemini features in every Google product, including Google Office and Android operating system. Gemini itself has, after every answer it generates, “Export to Docs” and “Draft in GMail”. The Gemini Android app can do things like take a picture or video, answer questions about it or write expanations of it, and post the result directly in your messaging app.

ChatGPT, the most known. It is really good.

Claude has a slightly different emphasis, many programmers who are interfacing with AI, like writing for it.

Image Generation

This is an area where the quality is improving very rapidly, and there are many websites for this.

Some to start looking at:

DALL-E 2, Midjourney, or Stable Diffusion can create featured images or graphics for blog posts.

All will let you generate an initial set of images from a text prompt. All will let you refine the image with text prompts.

Start reading on the websites for each, and learn what each is best at. Then pick on, start playing with it, learn how to get good results from it.

Make banner images, featured images, logos, icons. Give it a screenshot of your website, tell it to get your website color palette and use those colors most in your images.

Tell it to modify an image made with this website color palette, and modify it to use that website color palette.

Dall-E in ChatGPT

Prompt: “Generate an image, futuristic abstract and very cool, no people, as a “WordPress featured image” roughly 1/4 as high as wide, for a widescreen monitor, for a meeting series on using AI for making WordPress articles and videos and marketing. Use mainly the colors in the attached color palette image.”

Then I told it to make the same image again, but with “no text anywhere on the image”, since Dall-E 3 made terrible text (misshapen, with spelling errors). It made a different image, with less text:

After you learn how to make better image prompts, you can now do amazing images with AI. Dall-E is built into ChatGPT now, but you can definitely find better image editing tools.

Make YouTube Backgrounds with AI

Make YouTube Backgrounds with AI (SIMPLE) Step-By-Step Tutorial

Import your video into your video editor, make any edits including color/contrast/tint/brightness

𝗙𝗶𝗿𝗲𝗳𝗹𝘆𝗔𝗱𝗼𝗯𝗲 ➜ firefly.adobe.com/ free, just make an Adobe account.
Mark area to change background, giving yourself some room for head movement and arm movement
AI prompt for images to use as background, “office background”, “space ship background”, “home office”
Import your AI generated image into your video editing software
Adjust time for image to show, so covers your entire video length
Draw rough area for the mask, leaving room for head movement and arm movement. If your AI image disappears just invert the mask.
If see a clear line where you drew your mask, increase the “feathering” on the mask to soften the edges and blend better.

Tips: do not move around much. If you move your hands outside the masked area, you get weird “hands disappearing” effect.
Experiment with light backgrounds, dark backgrounds, replacing only certain elements of your real background.

Video Editing with AI

Descript

For general-purpose editing, where I’ve recorded a video (me talking, screen shares), I like editing in Descript. The main editor is done in the transcript it makes of your video. Then you cut/paste/delete words on the transcript. No finding frames on the audio displayed. Make an arrow appear from this word to that word in the transcript. Show a different video clip, inserted at this point in the transcript.

LTX Studio by Lightricks

New AI Platform for Video Creation Does EVERYTHING! – LTX STUDIO Tutorial

Published on Mar 28, 2024
“LTX Studio is an AI platform that can turn a text prompt into a complete video. This is a platform for the complete process from ideation to a final video.”

About https://ltx.studio/ which you can start with for free.

LTX Studio It is way too powerful for just short marketing pieces. Everyone of us should be able to learn just what we need in very little time.

From Concept to Creation
One Platform That Does It All
We’re pioneering the integration of AI and film production, enabling the transformation of a single idea into a cohesive, AI-generated video. LTX Studio empowers individuals to share their visions, amplifying their creativity through new methods of storytelling.

made facetune and other AI programs
very detailed, set the scenes, the shots within a scene, the characters, the voices of each character,
specify character movement, camera positions and motion,
can start a shot by uploading an image, or by text prompting
edit a shot by broad-tip marker to specify an area, then a text prompt (sunglasses or “remove this computer”)

What are the unique features of LTX Studio?
Distinctive features include a comprehensive approach to video creation, precise control over each and every shot, robust character consistency, and rapid generation of storyboard images and videos.

Which devices and platforms are compatible with LTX Studio?
LTX Studio is a fully web-based platform designed for desktop use.

The ultimate editing tools for stunning content With Facetune app, experience the fastest, easiest way to edit with one-tap tools to bring out your best self in your photos and videos. https://www.facetuneapp.com/
Image enhancer, clothes changer, selfie generator, headshot generator, background remover, etc

invideo.ai

https://invideo.io/make/add-text-to-video-online/
From idea to videos with AI
Invideo AI’s idea to video generator changes the way you made videos for your YouTube, social media and other channels. Simply prompt an idea and get ready-made videos, complete with script, stock and voiceovers.
Create YouTube Shorts with AI
Scale your YouTube Shorts production with invideo AI and watch your views grow. Prompt invideo AI to make Youtube Shorts for any interesting topic and get AI generated videos to boost your YouTube presence.
Create Instagram Reels with AI
Make videos for Instagram with invideo AI. Create Reels for topics like Finance, Tech and travel with ease.

Programming with AI

Windsurf

Windsurf works in VisualStudioCode (and other editors).

You can give in an initial prompt to start a coding project from scratch, or give it the main folder of an existing project.

You pass it ideas for what you want to change, and it codes. You give it bug indications, and it troubleshoots it. You give it error messages, and it finds what is most important and finds where in your code to fix it.

You have to be a competent programmer, to know what to change in the code, to know how to expand the code or tell it to keep focused on just what you want done now.

Or, use it to learn how to program. Ask it to explain sections of code. Ask it for how to program better. Ask it to show how to make “testing code”, code that tests sections of your program.

Cursor AI

I tried Cursor before I tried Windsurf. It does everything Windsurf does. It also works with Visual Studio Code (free, cross-platform, excellent programming editor).

I like the user interface of Windsurf better; Cursor has the prompts and its code output in the same 1/4 screen width panel, which makes scrolling up to read it more difficult.

Cursor makes me scroll through its output, to find the “approve and modify the real code” links. Windsurf has those files to edit listed at the bottom of the panel, click it to know which file of those open is the one with edits to work on next, and then the changes are in the main editor section. Both use color backgrounds to show what lines are being deleted and what are being inserted.

Cursor was sloppier, for example changing namespace or class names as it generated; Windsurf still needs to be reminded sometimes but does much better keeping track of what has already been written. Cursor made great suggestions for features to add; but then it left that code full of “code stubs” and never wrote complete code, and its ideas for some suggestions were way overblown for what I wanted to do. For example, it suggested training for color palette makers; I thought it would write a few paragraphs, it started (but never finished) a full educational training program with tests and progress tracking.

Both are excellent at figuring out what to do to fix a bug or use a different idea for what to code.

April’s edits for posting on Meetup.com

Join Virtually: https://meet.google.com/etz-jnub-swc

We welcome WordPress users of all levels to join us virtually for an introduction on how to get started applying artificial intelligence (AI) to your work with WordPress. We will review just a few practical applications that can improve your WordPress workflows.

Agenda:

6:30p – Welcome & Introductions (10 min)
A brief welcome to our topic followed by a quick intros of each attendee:

• What’s your name?
• What do you do with WordPress?
• What’s your level of understanding or how are you currently using AI?

6:40p – What is AI and Why Should WordPress Users Care? (10 min)
Demystifying AI with a focus on the practical benefits for WordPress users.

6:50p – AI for Content Creation (50 min)
We’ll review AI use cases and AI tools for content creation, such as…

• Creating Blog Posts and Page Content
• Image Generation
• Keyword Research & SEO
• Course or Coaching Program Development
• Promotional Marketing and Social Media

7:40p – AI Resources (15 min)
Sharing AI tools, videos, and other helpful learning resources with the group.

7:55p – Questions & Answers (15 min)
Answering your questions about the topic to the best of our abilities.

8:05p – Meetup Close (5 min)
We look forward to seeing you again soon at another one of our future Arizona WordPress Meetups and encourage you to join us on the Arizona WordPress Group Slack Workspace to stay connected between meetups.