Paste in three of your best captions first, ask for ten versions, and pick one. AI is quick with options, and it has no idea how you talk until you show it. Choosing, and writing the first line yourself, is what keeps a post sounding like you.
Here are the three steps, what to paste, and how to choose well.
Step one: give it your own words first
What you give AI decides what you get back. Ask for "a caption for a mug" and you get the average of every mug caption online. Paste three captions that sound like you on a good day, then the facts of the product, and the drafts start from your voice instead.
A ceramics studio pastes three of its favourite captions, then the facts of the new mug: the glaze, the size, that it goes in the dishwasher. The drafts come back sounding like the studio, not like a homeware catalogue.
Step two: ask for ten, not one
One version is a coin toss. Ten show you a range, and the best line is rarely the first one. Ask for them to differ on purpose: a short one, a warm one, one that starts with a question, one that tells a small story.
A bakery asks for ten captions for its new rye and gets the whole range in seconds, from one plain line to a short story about the starter it has fed for years.
Step three: choose hard
Most of the ten will be fine and forgettable. Read them out loud and keep the one closest to how you would say it to a customer at the counter. Then cut every word you would never use.
Write the first line yourself. It is the line people read before they decide to keep reading, and it is where your voice matters most. A candle label cuts "elevate your evening" and writes its own: "We light this one at six, when the laptop closes."
AI raises the floor. The ceiling is still yours.
Keep a list of words you never use
AI has favourite words, and they are rarely yours: "elevate", "indulge", "curated", "journey". Keep a short list of the ones that do not sound like you, paste it in with your three captions, and ask for drafts without them.
A skincare shop's list is five words long. It pastes the list in every time, and stops rewriting the same openings every week.
Check the month, not only the post
Choosing well keeps each caption yours. A voice still slides slowly over weeks, so once a month look at the captions together. Checking your last twenty captions against three you are proud of takes ten minutes with the same AI tool.
A florist who runs that check finds her last few captions all start with "New in", and writes the next ones from her three favourites again. For which other jobs to give AI and which to keep, see whether AI will do your marketing for you.
What CP3® does here
Brand Scan reads your tone of voice from your website and Instagram into one brand profile, and Branded Content drafts each post from it with a visual direction, a caption direction and a date, so every draft starts from how you already sound. Choosing, cutting and writing the first line stay with you: change the caption on the draft before you approve it, or skip it.