Happy Wednesday! This week:
I built a custom GPT to help you create great first drafts
A free course on vibe coding, specifically for comms pros
Why reddit may be the biggest outlet you’re missing
Let’s get started!
THE LEDE
💡 MESSAGE, Now as a Custom GPT (So You Don’t Have to Remember Any of This)
Last week, I shared MESSAGE, my simple framework to fix why AI outputs often fall flat: weak prompts. Your feedback was clear:
The good: It’s powerful. Communicators already think this way — we just don’t always translate that thinking into how we talk to AI. And this was a really thoughtful way of getting AI to do what we want.
The bad: It needed to be easier. Writing a prompt using MESSAGE can be cumbersome, and, in many cases, a distraction.
So I built something to make it really, really simple:
It’s a standalone chatbot that walks you through the framework so you can build in real-time. No need to build a prompt at all — just talk to the GPT. It guides you step by step, asks smart follow-ups, and produces a solid first draft for you. You can click that link to give it a try — it’s self-guiding, so you won’t need a tutorial.
What you’ll find is that the MESSAGE GPT forces clarity around:
what you’re trying to achieve
who you’re talking to
what context, source material, and constraints matter
how the message should sound and land
Just like before, you stay in control of the strategy. The GPT helps you express it clearly. The result: fewer rewrites, less generic filler, and outputs that actually sound like you.
MESSAGE — whether you use it by hand or through the GPT — should work across disciplines. Internal and executive comms, PR, marketing, crisis drafts, speeches, emails, and more, it shouldn’t matter. If it involves words and judgment, it applies.
Your next step:
Give the custom GPT a try — I’m making the MESSAGE GPT available to readers for free so you can try it the next time you need a first draft, a rewrite, or a structured brainstorm.
Do me a favor — After you try it, reply to this email and let me know what you think! Your feedback will help me make it better, so share when you can!
🔗 Here’s the link to MESSAGE: the GPT. Let me know how it goes!
SPONSORED BY
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It’s no surprise — you need to be thinking about how ChatGPT and other LLMs talk about your brand or product. Press releases and, critically, their distribution help a ton there. That’s where Reportable comes in. They have a solution for every budget and an experienced team to help you with all the best practices.
Book a demo with Karen and she'll set you up on their platform, and mention The Comms Stack and she’ll give you 25% off the first release! Plus, with 25+ years experience in the press release/PR tech industry and lots of fun stories, you’ll leave with a smile on your face — and you'll definitely leave with some new ideas for navigating AI and GEO.
THIS WEEK IN AI
🌎 Why You Need A Reddit Strategy
I’ve been a Reddit user for more than 15 years — and I never once thought that would matter for my career. Reddit was just… Reddit. A place to lurk, learn weird things, and occasionally argue with strangers about something deeply inconsequential. But suddenly, that long-running habit turns out to be professionally relevant. Very relevant.
Why? Because LLMs love Reddit.
According to Adweek, which spoke with GEO platform Profound, “Reddit has become the most-cited source across all major AI platforms.” Not the most-cited social platform. The most-cited platform, period. That means when people ask AI tools questions about products, companies, industries, or even controversies, Reddit discussions are increasingly what those systems are pulling from to form answers.
Why it matters: Conversations about your company, brand, or product on Reddit aren’t just influencing other Reddit users anymore. They’re influencing how AI systems understand and describe you — often without your knowledge or input. A thoughtful, nuanced Reddit thread can become de facto source material for AI-generated explanations. A misleading or hostile one can do the same. Ignoring Reddit doesn’t mean you’re absent; it just means the narrative about you is being shaped without you.
Your next step: It’s time to build a Reddit strategy. And no, that doesn’t mean spamming links or pretending to be a “totally normal user” who just happens to love your product. Reddit is its own universe, with its own norms, power dynamics, and allergy to obvious marketing. A real strategy means listening first, understanding which subreddits matter, knowing when not to engage, and showing up in ways that are genuinely useful. Because whether you participate or not, Reddit is already shaping how AI — and increasingly the world — talks about you.
🎯 Quick Hits
The Wall Street Journal explores “How Businesses Are Manipulating ChatGPT Results,” or, less cynically, investing in generative engine optimization. The article surprised me with a data point: searchers from ChatGPT spend nearly twice as much time on your site than those who come in through Google.
Will “AI Swarms” be the crisis comms headache? LiveScience says yes. “Swarms of [AI] agents could soon invade social media platforms en masse to spread false narratives,” they argue, citing recent research. (And there’s reason to believe that this is already happening.)
A Reddit-for-AI agents — no humans allowed! — called “moltbook,” is going bonkers. The New York Times has a good recap of what’s going on, and honestly, I have no idea what this is going to turn into.
A NEAT EVENT FROM A FRIEND
📆 Vibe Coding for Comms
I’m a tech-first communicator — not a developer. Which means I’m constantly thinking up tools and workflows that would make my job easier… and then hitting the same wall: I don’t know how to build them. Or at least, I didn’t. Thanks to AI-powered “vibe coding,” communicators can now describe what they want in plain English and have the code written for them — no engineering background required. It’s not about becoming a programmer; it’s about finally being able to build the comms tools you’ve always wished existed.
My friend Gab Ferree is into it, too, and she wants to make it super easy for you, so she’s put together a free, hour-long program on vibe coding for communicators. You’ll:
Go behind the scenes to see the exact AI stacks top comms pros use to automate media monitoring and competitive intel
Move beyond basic prompting to "vibe coding" and learn how to build persistent AI systems that know your workflow so you never have to brief them twice
Steal the blueprints for 5 "dream" use cases, including an "AI Comms Chief of Staff" and a "Duolingo-style" app that replaces boring executive briefing docs
Learn the "No-Code" toolkit (Zapier, Claude Projects, Lovable) that allows you to automate the grunt work and focus on high-value strategy
Walk away with a roadmap to transform from a standard communicator into the most valuable role in the future of our industry
Sign up here — and I hope to see you there!
SPONSORED BY
🖱 HubSpot’s ChatGPT Guide
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COMMUNITY CREATIONS
🤝 Ensure Messaging Alignment with Kara’s Gem
As of this writing, there are 600 members of The Comms Stack community! And I want to highlight the stuff you’ve been doing with AI! Have something to share? Reply to this email.
This week’s creation comes from Kara Silverman, founder of Althea Labs, an agency focused on storytelling in the era of AI.
Here's a little "build in public" moment showing how I’ve been integrating AI into my workflow specifically for client strategy and planning. Last week I wrote on LinkedIn about a Gemini Gem I built for my clients. I’ve started creating these "Client Gems" to act as a Single Source of Truth for everything from 1:1 media pitches to long-form thought leadership to quarterly maps and gut checking the first pass at a Q&A.
I use these Gems to:
▶ Stress-test an idea: I’ll run a concept by the Gem to see where the holes are before I ever present it to the client.
▶ Capture spokesperson POVs: By feeding the Gem specific personas—whether visionary and bold or data-driven and practical—I ensure the content actually sounds like a human, not a generic bot.
▶ Align with GEO/SEO: I use it to double-check that our messaging is optimized for how AI search engines are now indexing information.
You can get Kara’s Gem prompt at the link above — it’s a bit too long to share here. Kara also flagged that Gemini Gems limits you to ten file uploads, so keep that in mind while you experiment with her creation. Thanks, Kara!
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Until next Wednesday,
Dan