Build Your Own Content Engine using Trio Super Powers- Zapier + GPT + Notion(AI Productivity Hack)

Leverage the combo of Zapier, Notion and ChatGPT for Productivity and Creativity Boost

Ever wondered how to harness AI and Automation Workflows to construct a ‘Content Engine’?

I’m sharing a Personal Productivity System designed to streamline your content marketing workflow. It takes care of the routine tasks, freeing you up to focus on what you love most about content creation: strategizing, fine-tuning, and exploring the subtleties that make your work shine.

The world of AI tools is thriving, and it's exciting to see how generative AI has evolved from a playground for early adopters of GPT and Jasper to a mainstream powerhouse. Big players like Writer are making impressive strides, notably with their $100M Series B achievement.

For the power users of GPT, this evolution has been in the making since Jasper hit the scene in February 2021, this surge in AI tools is both thrilling and affirming. It reflects the growing appetite for specialized tools that cater to diverse needs across various market segments. It's a dynamic time to be part of this ever-expanding community!

But, let’s keep it real

Those in content marketing know that crafting quality content in your unique style isn’t always a walk in the park with these tools. ChatGPT is likely the most versatile tool that offers flexibility through its chat-based interface, allowing you to engineer your way through the details. It’s effective, but effectiveness doesn’t always equal efficiency. You either maintain a personal database of your most-used prompts for drafting, editing, SEO, voice adaptation, and vernacular adjustment, or you compromise on speed and revert to the old-school way of writing/editing.

On the other hand, AI writing tools like Writer, Jasper, Writesonic, and the list keep growing to serve specific use cases for specific segments, leaving little room to tinker and fine-tune.

That’s where the bespoke hacks in this article become your secret weapon. For the writers and creators out there wanting to home-brew their perfect Generative AI Content System, here’s the real deal—an authentic method to create content without compromising originality or the human touch, while fully leveraging AI to handle the manual aspects, keeping you in control even at full speed.

Our stack? Simple and mostly free. We’re using:

Notion - our repository to store all things content GPT - the brain behind content generation Google Sheets - our matrix for dynamic prompting Zapier - the maestro orchestrating everything

Version 1.0

Today, we will be building a base framework for the content engine that will help you generate foundational drafts for your content ideas at scale. You don’t need to know how to code or subscribe to expensive SaaS tools to achieve this. We will be doing this pretty much using the free version of these 4 tools that you probably are using.

You will no longer need to waste your precious time copying/pasting between ChatGPT and other apps

You can finally stop looking for ‘prompt templates’ or stop bookmarking saving a zillion LinkedIn posts that share ‘100 ChatGPT Prompts’

You don’t have to develop drafts manually in a linear fashion

Once, you get through this workflow, you can pretty much replicate the same principles to whatever type of content you want to produce from social media posts, YouTube scripts, emails, lead magnets, website copies, landing pages, and more.

Let’s dive straight in

Okay, so here’s the workflow

Step 1. Google Sheets: This is where the journey begins. We brainstorm and pin down a title, logging it into Google Sheets.

Step 2. Zapier: The addition of a title triggers a zap. This zap, in turn, activates a dynamically tailored prompt in ChatGPT, based on the title.
(note: for those who are hearing about Zapier for the first time, it's no-code automation tool like IFTTT that let's you integrate your favorite apps, and let's them talk to each other(API), and move stuff among apps)

Step 3. ChatGPT: This is where the magic happens—ChatGPT takes over and crafts the draft.

Step 4. Notion: The freshly minted draft finds its home in Notion. This is your space to review, refine, and get your content ready for the spotlight.

Step 1.

Google Sheet

Create a Google Sheet that will be our list of the blog posts we want to create. Name it something like ‘Blog Post Database’

Keep it simple, just add one column named ‘Title’

For now, we will keep this step simple and just stick with doing a 'Title' column. Once the workflow is fully setup, we will come back and improve.

Step 2.

Zapier

Now let’s create our automation workflow on Zapier.

Create a new zap, and set the trigger to a Google Sheet Event ‘New Spreadsheet Row’

Go to Zapier.com, create a free account if you don’t have one already. Free version will do fine for executing this content engine that we’re creating.

1. Create → New Zap

1. It will prompt you to choose the app for the trigger, search ‘Google Sheets’ and select it. And in the ‘Events’ dropdown, select ‘New or Update Spreadsheet Row’
   
   

   

3. It will ask you to authenticate your Google account where you’ve created the Google Sheet from Step 1.

5. Sign in and choose the correct sheet ‘Blog Post Database’

7. Now click on the ‘+’ sign to add an action step in sequence to the trigger.

9. Then search and choose the ‘ChatGPT’ app, you will need to authenticate your ChatGPT account. Once you’ve signed in, choose ‘Conversation’ as the required ‘Event’
   
   

   

11. This is the step where we set the actual prompt that ChatGPT will be using to generate the draft.

Under ‘User Message’ is where we’d want to add our prompt and include our blog post title.

In this case, I’ve used tried and tested basic prompt template from my personal library that does the job.

As you add your prompt to the ‘User Message’ textbox, you will notice a ‘Insert Data’ pop-up dialog that shows you the columns from the Google Sheet we created in Step 1.

Move the cursor within the prompt where you’d want to dynamically include the title, and choose the ‘Title’ column from the Google Sheet

As you can see in the screenshot below, we’ve added the dynamic variable for our title.

1. Advanced GPT settings. Make sure to keep the tokens to 8192. I’m leaving the rest of the parameters to default values, but feel free to modify if you want to adjust the Temperature and Top P settings.
   
   

   

3. Now let’s do our final step in Zapier, which is to store the ChatGPT response(draft) in a Notion page for convenience.

5. Let’s added a third action to our Zap by clicking on the ‘+’ button, and let’s choose ‘Notion’. Again, similar to the previous steps you will need to authenticate you Notion account.

And under ‘Events’t we will be choosing ‘Create Page’

1. Now this will ask you to choose a master page where this page will need to link to. So you’ll need to create a page in Notion beforehand.

3. Voila, we are done with the setup. Time for testing.

5. Make sure to turn ‘On’ your Zap, and Hit ‘Publish’.

1. Now, go to the Google Sheet, and add a new title to the ‘Title’ column, and watch your draft auto-created on the Notion page.

And There you have it

Now all you need to do is work on crafting the list of titles and your tailor-made Content Engine will then whip up foundational drafts that you can refine and get ready for publication. 

For content marketer, this is convenience.

If you’re a content marketer with a penchant for big-picture strategies, laying out core topics, and architecting your content plans like a maestro at the onset of a quarter, project, or new product/version release, this setup is a game-changer.

You just go about strategizing from your customers’ pain points, creating relevant topic clusters and titles for your blog posts. Then, leverage AI on the spot to start churning out draft versions for you—no extra effort required!

Once everything is humming along like a well-oiled machine, your role is to step in for the human touch—making the calls, making the choices, and giving the approvals. Like a boss.

Now there are some caveats to this.

• Token Limits

• API Call Limits

• Customization

GPT-4 comes with an 8192 token limit, so keep this in mind. For more extensive long-form blog posts (5K words or more), you’ll need to step outside this system. ChatGPT-4 operates on a paid subscription with $20/month pricing. Running API calls are a bargain, costing only a few cents—this example took about 4 cents. It’s significantly more cost-effective compared to traditional methods, but it’s worth mentioning.

If you found this helpful, and see yourself building your own AI productivity system based on this tactic, read on to Version 2 where we go about refining this workflow further.

Version 2

Now that we have a basic setup in place and working from start to finish, it’s time to delve deeper and refine the process further.

From this point on you can pretty much adapt the workflow based on your unique needs.

The objective of Version 2 is to make the output more deterministic, more reflective of your unique style, richer in quality. Additionally, adapt the workflow to accommodate diverse types of blog posts more effectively.

And we’ll accomplish this by doing three things

Transitioning from Version 1 to Version 2 involves:

• Enhancing Prompts

• Transitioning from Single to Multiple Variables

• Refining the Workflow

Enhancing Prompts

The output of ChatGPT is only as good as the input. So, it’s time to fine-tune the prompt you’re going to feed.

Here’s the current prompt:

🧠 I want you to act as a exceptional writer for editorial magazines, and online niche websites with a highly compelling and persuasive writing skills to write engaging content that people love to read. You are an exceptional writer who has 15 years of experience writing articles that rank high on Google and Medium. You have a strong command of language, grammar, and punctuation, as well as an excellent understanding of the structure and flow of written content. You have a keen eye for detail and can identify inconsistencies, errors, and gaps in logic. I want you to write a captivating and engaging article for the title "Build a Content Engine using Trio Super Powers Zapier + GPT + Notion". Develop an outstanding article that's so persuasive and hard to resist reading it.

It's not bad, but this can be refined a bit further. Before that let’s break down what a good prompt looks like.

Prompts that deliver the best outputs most commonly have these details in them:

1. Role

3. Context

5. Exceptionally Detailed Task Requirement*

7. Method

9. Structure / Format

11. Examples

The essence of the prompt lies in the task requirement, with the remaining elements being relatively straightforward to define. There’s no secret sauce - you simply need to be effective at using the English language!

The key however is to use relevant adjectives and adverbs insistently. Get as granular as you can with your descriptions. Avoid keyword stuffing and unnecessary verbosity, as they count toward the token limit.

Given the token limitations with Zapier and GPT-4, it’s essential to ensure your prompt details fit within the 8192 token limit, leaving ample room for the actual output.

Now, let’s revise our prompt based on what we’ve seen above. And here’s our breakdown of our prompt for V2

Role:

Assume the role of a seasoned Technical Marketing Writer with over 15 years of experience, renowned for crafting compelling content on cutting-edge technology within the marketing ecosystem, particularly focusing on AI-Led Productivity. Your writing, characterized by a persuasive and engaging style, has earned a substantial following on Medium.

Context:

Craft a non-branded, educational blog post for a San Francisco-based productivity software brand, aiming to enlighten the audience about AI-Led Productivity.

Task:

Compose an engaging ‘How-to Guide’ article titled "Build a Content Engine using Trio Super Powers Zapier + GPT + Notion", breaking down complex technical content into digestible, actionable steps for beginners and non-techies.

Method:

Create a coherent, in-depth article inspired by the style of Tim Urban, incorporating a conversational tone, emotional arcs, engaging storytelling, and relatable scenarios. Maintain originality and avoid plagiarism. The narrative should be dynamic, coherent, and human-like, ensuring the core message is conveyed compellingly.

Structure:

Initiate the article with context and a persuasive hook within the first 50 words, followed by a concise outline. Conclude by reaffirming the value promised in the hook. The article should be under 2000 words, respecting a 5000-word limit.

Keywords:

Integrate keywords such as ‘AI Productivity Tool’, ‘AI Automation Workflow’, ‘ChatGPT Automation’, ‘AI Writing’, ‘ChatGPT Zapier Automation’, and ‘AI Blog Post’ throughout the article, emphasizing the main keywords in each section and at least two sub-headings.

And here’s the final prompt for V2

🧠 Assume the role of a seasoned Technical Marketing Writer with over 15 years of experience, renowned for crafting compelling content on cutting-edge technology within the marketing ecosystem, particularly focusing on AI-Led Productivity. Your writing, characterized by a persuasive and engaging style, has earned a substantial following on Medium. Craft a non-branded, educational blog post for a San Francisco-based productivity software brand, aiming to enlighten the audience about AI-Led Productivity. Compose an engaging ‘How-to Guide’ article titled "Build a Content Engine using Trio Super Powers Zapier + GPT + Notion", breaking down complex technical content into digestible, actionable steps for beginners and non-techies. Create a coherent, in-depth article inspired by the style of Tim Urban, incorporating a conversational tone, emotional arcs, engaging storytelling, and relatable scenarios. Maintain originality and avoid plagiarism. The narrative should be dynamic, coherent, and human-like, ensuring the core message is conveyed compellingly. Initiate the article with context and a persuasive hook within the first 50 words, followed by a concise outline. Conclude by reaffirming the value promised in the hook. The article should be under 2000 words, respecting a 5000-word limit. Integrate keywords such as ‘AI Productivity Tool’, ‘AI Automation Workflow’, ‘ChatGPT Automation’, ‘AI Writing’, ‘ChatGPT Zapier Automation’, and ‘AI Blog Post’ throughout the article, emphasizing the main keywords in each section and at least two sub-headings.

Transitioning from Single to Multiple Variables

Now that we have our prompt enhanced, let’s look at setting this up on Zapier.

If you think that we’re going to simply replace our old prompt with the new one, think again.

As you may see, our new and improved prompt has several terms that are now emphasized in bold.

These represent variables that can be dynamically inserted into our prompt utilizing Zapier.

This enhancement allows for a more flexible and adaptable approach, enabling the creation of content that is more aligned with specific needs and preferences.

So far from the above prompt the text in bold are:

Text in Bold Seasoned Technical Marketing Writer AI-Led Productivity Educational San Francisco-based productivity software brand How-to Guide Build a Content Engine using Trio Super Powers Zapier + GPT + Notion Tim Urban 'AI Productivity Tool', 'AI Automation Workflow', 'ChatGPT Automation', 'AI Writing', 'ChatGPT Zapier Automation', 'AI Blog Post'

We can categorize them as:

Text in Bold Variable Seasoned Technical Marketing Writer Writer Role AI-Led Productivity Topic Educational Writing Style San Francisco-based productivity software brand Company How-to Guide Type Build a Content Engine using Trio Super Powers Zapier + GPT + Notion Title Tim Urban Author/Writer Inspiration 'AI Productivity Tool', 'AI Automation Workflow', 'ChatGPT Automation', 'AI Writing', 'ChatGPT Zapier Automation', 'AI Blog Post' Keywords

So, the variables on the right columns are the ones that need to be dynamically added.

So what we need to do is make room for adding them to our Google Sheet.

We will go into our Google sheet, and add new columns for each variable. In this example, I went ahead and added a few relevant values for each column and made them drop-down.

Consequently, our blog post repository would manifest somewhat as follows:

And now we will modify our Zap to include all our new variables.

We will go into our existing zap, and then go to the step that contains ChatGPT.

Then, go to User Message, and paste our new prompt.

You will then need to go in and replace the actual values(bold text) with the appropriate Column names from the Google Sheet.

(note: you will need to refresh the fields to see the new columns you’ve created)

Here’s a side-by-side comparison.

As you can see, what we have done here is go into our Zap, and replace the values with the variable column from our Google Sheet. This may look complex, but we are not doing anything more complex than what we did in Version 1. In V1 we included just the title, in V2 we included the new columns in their appropriate locations within the prompt.

When you’re working on this zap, having the actual prompt side-by-side similar to the above helps.

If you think this is cumbersome, remember you will need to do this only once. Once it is set as needed you will be saving a ton of time and hassle as everything is automated.

Workflow Refinement

Now, one last yet important step in this process is to add a qualifier.

Because our Zap runs in the background and checks the Google sheet every once in a while, and we don’t want our Zap to pick up stuff that’s half done, sometimes if you leave the sheet in edit mode, the Zap is going to run with the info on there.

So we can add another status column that Zapier can check for before executing the task.

In our Zapier Setup, we will want to include a new step in between our 1st and 2nd steps. And we will want to pick ‘Filter’ as the Action

In the ‘Filter’ action dialog, choose ‘Only continue if…’ our new column ‘OK to Execute’ equals to ‘Yes’. It should look something like this.

And there we have it, Version 2 is wrapped up!

We’ve now got more grip and a deterministic article that’s being crafted in the background and will auto-populate on our Notion page.

Make sure to turn on the zap, and hit publish.

Go ahead, and add a title to the Google sheet, and choose the values for the variables we created. Since I created pick lists for each, its super easy. And once you like what you see, make sure to mark ‘Yes’ on the ‘OK to Execute’ column.

Boom! Your custom-brewed article based on your unique requirements is neatly seated on Notion waiting for you.

Your role hereafter? Strategize, cook up some titles (which, by the way, is a breeze with ChatGPT), pop them into the Google Sheet, and watch your drafts spring to life, all automated.

You can clone this exact blueprint to whip up social media posts, emails, YouTube scripts, and more. Just tweak the prompts and variables, and you’re golden.

So, here’s your sleek, minimal, yet potent Automatic Content Engine to ramp up your content game.

You can stop here, or if your intellectual curiosity wants to go further, you can look into other aspects that can be automated. Drafting is only the first step in the content pipeline before editing, optimizing for SEO, formatting it in HTML if needed, creating tags, meta descriptions, copy-editing, publishing, and distribution. If you’re keen and savvy you can pretty much clone your content brain provided you build a system that works for you. The tools are out there, it's a matter of curiosity, creativity and the sheer joy of tinkering with this new toy AI.

Curious about Version 3? Or have any suggestions/improvements/questions? Hit up the comments section.

In Version 3,

Static to Dynamic Prompting

We’re taking it from static to dynamic prompting. We’ll craft a ‘meta’ prompt to spawn our actual content generation prompt. Instead of feeding our Google Sheet variables directly into the actual prompt, we’ll leverage a ‘meta’ prompt to concoct a dynamic prompt for each article ‘on-the-fly’, allowing for more nuanced and tailored content.

Single-step to Multi-step

In Version 3, we’re evolving from a one-step to a multi-step prompting, introducing user input/edits to the outline before the drafting begins, offering more control and direction. Plus, working in segments optimizes token usage, bypassing any word count constraints.

Draw from your second brain

In Version 3, we’ll explore strategies to extract insights and inspiration from your second brain—your personal knowledge base on Notion, published content, and the vast expanse of the internet.

Hope you find this piece helpful! Drop your thoughts and feedback in the comments for the scoop on Version 3.

If you’re intrigued by the idea of AI as a seamless extension of your skills, give Metaflow a look. In this article, we’ve explored the possibilities of AI content generation by duct-taping a bunch of powerful tools. Metaflow is a streamlined, no-code platform designed to weave AI-powered automation seamlessly into your workflows. Accomplish everything we’ve discussed, but more efficiently, and without the tool-juggling hassle.

So, if you’re all about elevating your game and letting AI amplify your skills, it’s time to sign up and explore the realms of possibilities with Metaflow. Discover how you can seamlessly integrate AI into your workflow, creating a symphony of productivity and innovation with Metaflow.