Grok-2 AI for Marketers
Grok-2 is a relatively new AI platform from X, formerly known as Twitter, which can do a few different AI tasks all in one place. It does require an $8 subscription to X Premium, which has its unique benefits outside of access to Grok, which can be renewed monthly or annually.
X recently released Grok-2, which is a greatly improved AI model, which has begun to outperform ChatGPT and Claude. This newly improved model has improved everything from code output and text to image generation.
One interesting aspect about Grok that sets it apart from other AI platforms is the presence of a “Fun Mode,” which changes the results it outputs to something more loose, casual, and comedic instead of something overly sterile or academic sounding.
Where and How to Access Grok
Grok is accessible through X, formerly known as Twitter, as a part of their premium subscription plan. X currently offers three different levels of subscription plans, including Basic, Premium, and Premium+.
It’s important to note that only Premium and Premium+ users have access to Grok. If you’re heavily invested in social media marketing, you may already have an X Premium subscription, as it offers a lot of other benefits on the social media platform outside of access to Grok.
If you don’t have one, there may be benefits that interest you including access to their AI platform. You may have seen users with Premium denoted by a blue checkmark next to their name.
This symbol, previously used as a general “Verified” mark, now denotes users as Premium tier members. In addition to the checkmark and access to Grok, you can also monetize your posts, earning you a portion of the overall ad revenue generated by X.
If your posts consistently reach a large audience, you may find this to be another source of income. Premium users also receive fewer ads, though this varies between the different tiers.
Ads are unchanged for Basic members, reduced by half for Premium users, and nearly eliminated for Premium+ users. If you use X frequently, this in itself may be beneficial, as advertisements can often take up a significant portion of someone’s feed.
All tiers enjoy being able to edit posts within one hour of posting, share longer videos, and write longer posts, surpassing the usual 280-character limit. This is great for people who use X as a marketing platform and frequently need to be able to share more information or details.
Pricing
When it comes to pricing, the X subscription plans are fairly reasonable, with the choice of either a monthly or annual plan, with slightly lower monthly costs if you renew annually.
The Basic tier costs a mere $3 per month or $32 per year but doesn’t give you access to Grok. The Premium tier costs $8 per month or $84 per year, and the Premium+ tier costs $16 per month or $168 per year.
You can change your subscription tier at any time if you so choose. In most instances, if you downgrade your subscription, you’ll still have access to the features of your current tier until the next billing cycle, and if you upgrade, you’ll be able to access your new and improved features right away.
Once you have your Premium subscription, you’ll be able to use Grok by clicking on the tab for it on the left-hand side of the X website, right below the “Messages” tab. This will pull up an interface that allows you to start using Grok right away.
What Can Grok Do?
Premium users can take advantage of four primary functions in Grok-2. Namely, it can act as a text bot like ChatGPT, it can output images in a way similar to Midjourney, it can write code, and it can also help keep you up to date on various trends based on X real-time data.
Grok is convenient for so many marketers because it allows you to do so many different things in one spot, and you’re probably already using X as a marketing platform, so it’s nothing unfamiliar.
To change between writing text and generating images, you don’t need to change any settings, but rather you just need to change your prompt.
As you can see in the two images (above and below), you only need to change what you’re asking of Grok to change what kind of generation it creates.
The larger text at the top of the images is the prompt provided:
In addition to text and images, Grok is also capable of generating code.
In the image below, you can see that it generated HTML code that would present you with a buy button for an e-commerce website.
It also provided us with a helpful pointer that it would still need to be integrated with something like a JavaScript function to work properly.
Since Grok is integrated with X, it can also give you up-to-date marketing information based on what people are posting about.
In the prompt below, we asked Grok about up-and-coming fitness products that users are interested in. It recommended a product, gave a summary of it, listed what users find interesting about it, and also provided relevant popular tweets.
The marketing information might be particularly helpful for marketers who are unsure of how to break into various niches. Since the information is consistently being updated, you’ll be able to be the first one on board for any new products that people are interested in knowing more about.
Grok Prompting Basics
Like any other AI platform, much of the challenge of utilizing Grok-2 comes from knowing how to prompt it to generate the output that you’re looking for. So far, Grok appears to listen to precise instructions better than some other AI platforms, though you do still need to be particular in the way you phrase certain prompts.
The first thing you need to do is specify what kind of output you’re looking for it to make. This could be something like “write an email for me about” or “generate an image of,” but either way, you need to tell it upfront what you want it to do.
Without any guidance as to what format of output you want, Grok will have to just take an educated guess as to what you want. In the example below, you can see the difference between prompting Grok with “buy button” and “generate an image of a buy button.”
Without telling it to generate an image specifically, it just listed general information about it as a subject. But the correct prompt gets it to do what you want.
There’s no specific parameter or language that you have to use for the different formats. “Create a picture” and “Generate an image” will have the same effect, for example. As long as it’s vaguely understandable when it comes to what you’re asking it to do, it will do what you want it to do.
However, for the rest of the prompt, you may want to get more specific. Below, you can see a larger image of the earlier prompt regarding writing an email for your list. You can see that it used a list of numbered talking points and sounds a bit formal.
In the other image, we specified using a paragraph format and informal language, and it generated something that looked quite different.
Unlike some other AI models, Grok-2 doesn’t have very specific outlines available for things like parameters or language that should be used, but as long as you’re more specific and direct, it should be able to work with your prompts just fine.
There’s also the matter of utilizing the fun mode. Fun mode is something unique to Grok that takes some greater liberties with the language used to sound even more casual and relaxed.
To enable it or disable it, you just have to open up the dropdown menu at the top of the Grok page where it says the model being used, and turn the “Fun mode” switch on or off.
Here, you can see an example of the same prompt being used but with fun mode enabled.
It might be a bit much for some people, as it inserts a few jokes and slang terms, but if that’s the sort of persona you put out to your audience, it may suit you just fine.
Use Grok for Market Research
With Grok-2 being so heavily integrated with X, it’s able to show you what’s currently being talked about in various niche circles.
While this can give you generalized up-to-date news, it can certainly be used to give you more current market information. This is very useful if you don’t have the time to browse through so many different news outlets related to your niche.
With Grok, you can stay up to date on what’s happening without wasting so much time scrolling through news headlines. For example, if your niche includes wearable technology, which is a rapidly changing and growing trend, you might not have the time to sift through endless news articles that people are writing constantly.
Instead, you can ask Grok, seen in the example below, for the latest news.
There are a few different ways you can prompt Grok to give you the latest in news. In the previous prompt, we simply used “Give me the latest news”, but you can also say things like “What are the current trends in” or “What are the up and coming topics in” or anything of that sort.
One aspect of the news or trends feature is that it attaches posts at the bottom of the prompt that are currently popular and related to the prompt itself. You can view these to see more information about the topic as well as replies from other users to get even more information on your niche.
Not only is this a time saver, but it also helps immensely for people who are new to their markets and don’t fully understand them. When you first enter a niche, you can be overwhelmed by all of the different topics that people are discussing and it can be very easy to miss out on something new that pops up unless you’re paying close attention.
In this example, you can see that just by asking for upcoming trends, you can get an easy-to-understand idea of what people in your niche are most interested in, examples of those topics, and why they look towards those topics.
Do not discount Grok-2 when it comes to giving you up-to-date information on market trends. Instead of having to scour a bunch of different posts and sources without knowing if they’re popular, Grok simply uses X’s post data to see what topics are being discussed and how popular they are.
Even if you’re unaware of what niche you want to start focusing on, you can still use Grok to help you. In the example below, we asked it to grow new niches that any marketer could break into.
It provided a list of unique niches that are growing along with a brief description of each one.
This would be helpful for anyone looking to start their marketing career from the ground up, or anyone looking to break away from their current niche and branch out into something new and more popular.
Generate Images Using Grok-2
Grok is capable of generating images, much like Midjourney, and it does so with a great deal of success. This platform uses Flux for its images and the ability it has for realism is hard to compare to others.
To get the best images for your projects, you should add plenty of specificity when it comes to your prompt. For example, let’s say you wanted to generate a vector art illustration of a laptop on a desk.
If you just prompt it with “laptop on a desk”, it will default to a fairly realistic image, as seen below.
Without specifying a style, it defaulted to something very basic and realistic looking.
One small impressive detail is that the numbers on the clock are clear and legible, and all in the right positions.
Those who have used AI to generate images before know just how often it can get these small details wrong.
In the prompt below, you can see just how adding in something more specific like an art style can drastically change the image.
Flat vector illustrations are more commonly used than realistic styles for things like stock images and use in advertisements.
Now, we can try adding something more complex and difficult for AI. AI image generators notoriously mess up text in images, but Grok doesn’t seem to have that same problem. With the same prompt as before, we can simply add a request for text on the laptop screen that reads “Limited offer!”
Here you can see that, impressively, it placed the text in the correct spot, spelled everything correctly, and even included the right capitalization and punctuation. I have found that spelling and placement can be a challenge for some AI image generators.
However, it changed the image somewhat. It made the laptop placed at an angle and used a different color scheme.
With a little bit more specificity, we can fix that as well. By specifying the colors and orientation of the laptop, you can get the exact kind of image you want.
Even with the added instructions, it retained the correct spelling, placement, and punctuation.
Grok-2 can utilize a wide variety of art styles and seems to do very well with incorporating text in the images, unlike some other AI image platforms. It does lack a handful of features, such as changing the aspect ratio of the images it makes, but for most use cases, it will suit your needs very well.
Many AI tools cannot tap into real-time data. They can’t predict anything well because of it. But Grok has a direct line to what your demographic is discussing right at this very moment.
Its on-the-fly output is unparalleled and this is a strategic advantage. You can use it to analyze your audience and their behaviors, consumer sentiment, and more. So, for all the prompts you struggled with on basic tools like ChatGPT, Grok-2 can handle them with ease.
