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3 Free AI tools for Teacher Sellers & How to Use Them (Ep 29)

AI Tools for Teacher Sellers

What’s something that all of us teacher sellers have in common? We’re busy, busy, busy! If you love learning new ways to streamline your business and save you time, then I have a feeling you’ll be all ears for today’s episode. I’m sharing all about how you can use AI, or artificial intelligence, to get more done in less time.

Many of these AI tools are beginning to gain traction, and for good reason. They can be used to help with customer service, social media content, podcasting, TPT product listings, blog posts, and more. In fact, you might be surprised to know that I used AI to help generate this very podcast episode!

I’m zoning in on three specific AI tools for teacher sellers and giving you examples on how you can use them. After trying them out in my own business, I’m learning what they do incredibly well, and where the gaps are.

While it would be amazing to hand over every blog post to an AI tool, we aren’t quite there yet. At the same time, there are more than enough benefits to make it worth trying out. After listening, choose one to experiment with for yourself, and let me know how it goes!

3:30 Four things that AI tools for teacher sellers can do really well

7:44 A Chat GPT trick to use for achieving the right tone in your copy

8:15 The big thing that I’m rating AI tools as “just okay” at (for now, at least!)

10:37 Areas where AI tools still need a lot of improvement

11:20 Negative SEO effects of using AI, and my recommendation to overcome them

Hey TPT sellers ready to seek growth in your business? You’re in the right place. Welcome to the savvy teacher seller. I’m Kristen Doyle, and I’m here to give you no fluff tools and strategies that will really make an impact on your sale. Let’s get started y’all.

Hey there, if you’re a teacher seller looking to streamline your business and free up some of your precious time, you are in the right place, because today, I am talking all about how you can use artificial intelligence or AI to your advantage. I’ll cover three AI tools that you can start using right away to save time in your business.

And the best part is they are all free-ish. I’ll explain that when we talk about each one. I’ll also be discussing what they do really well, what they’re just okay at, but you’ll need to give some pretty substantial input in order to use the content and what they’re not so good for. But before we dive into the specific tools, I do want to mention that while AI can be a great time saver, and I love using it in my business, it is important to be aware of its potential negative effects on SEO.

So I’ll touch on that later in the episode. But it is something to just keep in mind as you are incorporating seo into your workflow. Okay, grab a cup of coffee kickback, and let’s jump right into the top three AI tools for teacher sellers looking to save time and your business.

I want to start by just introducing the three AI tools we’ll be covering in this episode. I will put links to all of these in the show notes, and then we’ll talk in more detail about ways that you can use them throughout the episode.

The first tool is called Chat GPT. Now they call it a natural language processing tool that uses machine learning to generate responses to prompts. And what all of that fancy language means is that Chat GPT is particularly useful for writing content that is friendly and conversational.

Now it is currently in beta testing, and it is completely free right now. It has gotten extremely popular over the last few weeks. So it does occasionally go down because of too much traffic. I have found that mornings are usually fine and afternoons tend to be when it gets overloaded. So if you’re having trouble using it in the afternoon, maybe try in the morning.

The second tool we’ll be discussing is Canvas Magic Write, which you can find inside Canva docs. Now I call this one free-ish, because it is included if you’re on a paid Canva plan. And those paid Canva plans are about $10 a month. And personally I get a ton of value out of mine. So it is a no brainer for me to be on the paid plan. And this is just one more awesome thing that they have just added to it. Now, Docs is currently in beta. So you might not see it in your Canva dashboard. But anyone can sign up for the beta by going to canva.com/docs.

Now the third tool that we’re talking about today is Many Chat, which is a chat bot builder that allows you to create self serve customer service chat flows for Facebook, Instagram and your website. Now, there is a free version of mini chat available, but I personally use the Pro Plan which is $15 per month.

So now that you’ve been introduced to some AI tools, let’s talk about four things that these AI tools do really, really well. Number one, and this might be one of my favorite uses for it is making responses friendlier. If you’re like me, and you find yourself asking how do I say this nicely to yourself or your friends or whoever, then AI might be just what you need. Whether it’s a difficult email you need to write or a customer service reply that you’re not too happy about.

Chat GPT is really great for taking your short, pointed, maybe not super polite response and making it more friendly and conversational. It can help you craft personalized responses to your TPT Q and A’s or customer emails in a matter of seconds, which can be a huge time saver if you get a ton of customer question. I’ve also used it for writing emails that I know I personally would spend way too long, agonizing over choosing the right words for like, for example, ending a contract with a VA.

The second thing that they do really, really well is customer service. Many chat is amazing for creating these self service type customer chat flows. It can really help you streamline the process of answering customer questions and concerns. So if you get a lot of customer questions, whether they come in through your website or on social media, it can really help you streamline the process of answering those questions.

Now, Many Chat has the ability to answer short questions or allow people to pick from multiple choice options. But it can also create complex chat flows that pick up on keywords and provide relevant answers to questions about those keywords. So for example, if someone typed in a question with the word editable, you might send them over to a blog post or a video on how to edit an editable product through mini chat and then ask if that answered their question. And of course, they can refine their question if that didn’t answer it.

Now, that side of Many Chat is extremely helpful, but it does require a lot of upfront work to feed it all the specific information. However, it is something that can live and grow. So you could start with something fairly simple. And then just add to that chat bot, as you learn what kind of questions people are asking. You can use Many Chat on Facebook or Instagram messages. And you can also embed a chat widget right on your website. So if you’ve been on a website, like maybe mine and seen the little chat bubble at the bottom, Many Chat is one option for doing that on your site as well.

The third thing that I am finding AI tools really helpful for is compiling lists. Canvas Magic Write is my favorite for this. It is great at compiling lists of books, or websites or quotes that are sourced online, which can be super time consuming if you have to do it manually. And I know a lot of us write blog posts that include lists of things.

So for example, if you are looking for a list of recommended books or websites related to a specific standard or teaching topic, Magic Write can help you compile that list in just a few minutes. Now, you will of course need to review the content of the list to make sure it’s accurate. It’s high quality and that it’s appropriate for students. What I recommend is asking for twice as many results as you actually want. And then you can choose the best ones to include in your blog post, podcast episode or whatever content you’re creating.

The fourth thing that AI is really good for is generating social media posts. Chat GPT is my favorite for this. But Canvas Magic Write can also do a pretty good job. Because it generates this conversational content, Chat GPT can really help you craft super engaging, personalized posts that will resonate with your followers on Facebook or Instagram.

For example, you might ask Chat GPT to generate a post about the benefits of a specific product, or a post promoting a sale in your TPT store. You can also give it a specific theme or a topic to write about. For example, a series of posts about classroom management strategies. One little trick I’ve learned with chat GPT is that you can tell it what tone you want. So if you ask them to write a post about classroom management during back to school season, and they generate a post and the ideas in it are good, but it feels too stuffy for you.

Because I find a lot of times that’s where it starts a little stuffy, you can then say could you make it more casual? Or could you make it a little sassier or whatever tone you want to go for in your post. Now, when it comes to using AI tools, there’s one thing that they’re just kind of okay at and that is writing long form content.

Both Chat GPT and Canva’s Magic Write can be used for writing long content, such as blog posts, product descriptions, podcast episodes, that can help you generate ideas and get started on a draft. And for me that can be really useful when I’m struggling a little bit just to get going. Maybe have a little writer’s block. And maybe you experienced that as well. But you are likely going to need to add to or edit that content substantially to get a good solid piece of long form content out of it.

Now, this is especially true for your TPT product descriptions, where AI does a really great job of introducing the product and grabbing attention. But it doesn’t always accurately describe the contents of the product or use the correct educational terms and keywords. The same could be true for a blog post where an AI tool might do great at your introduction and your conclusion. And maybe it lays out a nice order for the post. But it really doesn’t explain for whatever teaching idea or concept or strategy you are trying to the way that you would explain it.

So you’ll definitely want to put a lot of yourself into these pieces of content after you use an AI tool to kind of kick things off. I’ll tell you a secret. I actually used AI to help generate this podcast episode. And here’s how I did it. I submitted the title and an outline of main points, and I asked Chat GPT to generate the content for the podcast episode.

Now if you looked at the original content they wrote compared to what I’m actually recording right now. You would notice a lot of changes. While the overall structure is pretty similar. I’ve added and removed some sections, shuffled some parts around and definitely injected more of myself into it and more TPT specific content for you. That said, it was definitely a good shortcut to get things started. While AI can generate some high quality content for certain things, it really is not yet at the level where it can produce polished pieces of long form content without human intervention.

So, you won’t be able to just hand off all of your blog writing to an AI tool, but it can still save you a lot of time. Now let’s talk about a couple areas where AI is not vbery good, AI tools are really not great for very specific teacher niches where there’s not a lot of other content online, because AI tools rely on being able to find similar content to model their writing after.

So if you are in a niche that doesn’t have a lot of existing content, AI may not be very effective at generating content for you. And the other thing AI is not so great at is SEO. Now, while you can ask any AI tool to generate SEO friendly content, you will have to do your own keyword research and feed those keywords into the AI tool that you’re using.

Speaking of SEO, it is important to note that there’s a potential negative effect of using AI on your SEO. Google has stated that they will penalize content that is written with AI. So it’s important for you to be aware of this as you’re incorporating AI tools into your workflow. While AI can be a great time saver, you want to make sure that you’re not sacrificing the quality of your content in the process.

My recommendation is that anytime you use AI to generate content that you want to rank well in a search engine, you edit it really heavily before publishing to make sure that it truly sounds like you and that the content is helpful and doesn’t read like it was written by a machine. After the content is written, you’ll definitely want to run it through any SEO tools you have like Rankmath or Yoast to make sure that it is SEO friendly, because they do not always do a great job at that either.

To recap, AI can be an amazing time saver for teacher sellers like us, but it is important to be aware of its limitations and the potential negative effects on SEO. The key takeaway here is that AI is best used as a tool in your toolbox to help you generate content creation, rather than to replace it entirely. It can help you come up with ideas, get started on a draft and streamline our customer service. But you will still need to put in the work to make sure your content is high quality and engaging for your audience.

As your action step for this episode, choose one of these AI tools to try out and see how it can save you some time. Start small by using Chat GPT to write a more conversational q&a response. Or try out Canva Magic Wight to compile a list of recommended books. As you get more familiar with the tools and you learn how to create the right prompts for the AI tool, then you can start exploring more ways to use them to streamline your business.

Thank you so much for listening today. I hope you’ve gotten some new ideas for how you can save time by using AI in your own teacher seller business. I would love to see how you’re using these tools. So when you try one out, send me a DM on Instagram @Kristendoyle.co with some screenshots of what you were able to create.

Don’t forget you can grab the links to all three of these AI tools in the show notes for today’s episode at Kristendoyle.co/episode29. Talk to you soon.

I hope you enjoyed today’s episode. If you did, please share it with another teacher seller who would also find it helpful. For more resources on Growing Your TPT business. Head to Kristendoyle.co/TPT. Talk to you soon.

Ready to see growth in your business? You’re in the right place.

I’m here to give you no-fluff tools and strategies that will really make an impact on your sales. We’re talking SEO, improving product listings, leveraging your website, and more. 

About Your Host

Your host, Kristen Doyle, has a decade of experience selling on TpT and has made all the mistakes so that you don’t have to! As a web designer and the go-to SEO expert in the TpT world, she loves helping TpT sellers stand out in the crowd & grow their businesses with passive income strategies.

Tune in to hear Kristen cover all aspects of running a TpT business – from leveraging SEO, to improving product listings, to effective TpT seller strategies for your store and website.