How to teach AI to speak like your school in 4 easy steps: a quick guide for smarter social posts
So you’ve opened up ChatGPT and asked it to write a social media post about your Year 6 production. It gives you something… fine. Polite. Serviceable. But also a bit bland. A bit off-tone. It’s not quite you. Why?
Because you haven’t taught it to be you—yet.
If you want AI to produce social posts that sound like they’ve come from your team (rather than a beige comms robot), you need to give it the right input. Not just the task—but the tone, the values and the voice of your school. Here’s how:
- Tell it your school’s key messages once—use them often.
Before asking ChatGPT to write a single post, create a ‘school voice and values’ prompt. This should include your school’s key messages and examples of how you like to communicate. Add in preferred tone (e.g. warm, professional, high-energy), brand language and banned phrases. Save this as your go-to system prompt.
Example starting point (copy, paste and fill in your details):
You are a communications assistant for [school name]. Detail on the school can be found here [enter school website]. Your role is to help craft all marketing, admissions, and development content in a voice that consistently reflects the school’s unique values, character, and tone. Every output you generate must:
- Reinforce our core messages of [enter core messages]
- Reflect our ethos [enter school ethos]
- Appeal to prospective families, current pupils, staff and alumni.
- Use a tone that is [Enter preferred tone, e.g. “warm, aspirational and intelligent”]
- Avoid anything that feels [e.g. corporate, salesy or impersonal].
- Tell ChatGPT who it is, not just what to do.
Rather than saying “Write a social post about Year 6 play,” try:“You are the marketing manager at a leading Prep school. Your tone is warm, joyful and articulate. Write an Instagram post about the Year 6 production of the musical ‘Oliver’ that celebrates teamwork, confidence and school spirit.”
More specific framing makes a huge difference to the quality of the output. - Use a framework & topic examples.
Just like a human social media manager, Chat GPT also finds it helpful to see examples of what you are looking for. Including links to previous posts, or other social media profiles that you would like it to mirror, help it to produce content that is closer to what you are aiming for. At Stickman, we have created a half-termly social content calendar with ideas of topics, themes and dates for schools. Adding this into your AI prompt gives more strategic guidance that results in more relevant and engaging posts (get in touch with the form at the bottom of the page if you’d like to purchase our content planner).
- Iterate and refine.
The first answer won’t always be perfect. Tweak the prompt, add context, ask for rewrites, and remember to tell it when it produces something that you like. Over time, Chat GPT will build a ‘muscle memory’ that gets quicker at producing better content. For example, you can say:
- ‘Rewrite this content making sure to mention [particular person or event]’
- ‘Rewrite this, making it sound more professional’
- ‘Rewrite, using the style of [a writer that you like]’
- ‘Reduce the length of this content to X number of words‘’
At Stickman, we’ve been learning, using and adapting our AI systems in real-world school marketing for over a year. When guided well, it’s an exceptional time-saver and creative ally. Just remember: it’s not a silver bullet—but it can become your most helpful new team member.
Want to know more about how AI can help with your school’s marketing activity? Book a call with us using the below form.
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