That’s Giving Ick.
Training AI to write captions that perform, without going basic or fake.
Hi friend,
This week I said the most Gen Z thing that has ever come out of my mouth. My kids would be proud, and a little concerned.
I was training Muse, my content agent, to write captions and hooks for a new client. She handed me a batch, I read them, and out it came: “No. This is giving ick.”
And the frustrating part? The hooks were not bad. They were clean, correct, competent. Competent is exactly the trap.
Training an AI to Hit Your Bar
When you are working with AI, it is no different than training in-house staff. It needs a lot of context, clear policy, and time to acclimate. It always takes time and investment.
And you learn one thing fast. AI will hand you competent all day long. Safe, correct, professional, forgettable. It will just as cheerfully hand you the other kind of bad: the try-hard, clickbait hook that makes your skin crawl. The gimmicky “POV” opener. The manufactured drama you can smell from across the room.
Basic on one side, fake on the other. The whole game is teaching the machine to walk the line between them.
So that is the work I have been doing. Not “write me a caption.” Teaching Muse my real standard. High-performing and human. Sharp enough to stop the scroll, real enough that it never feels like a gimmick. Every time she handed me basic, I told her why. Every time she reached for a fake hook, I killed it. Again and again, until a batch came back and one of them made me stop mid-scroll.
That is the part people miss when they think AI is going to write their content for them. AI drafts. The taste is still your job. Training AI in any capacity takes a unique point of view and many, many examples. If you spin up an agent and just let it go, you will get exactly what everyone else is creating.
And how do you know a caption cleared the bar? Not the view count. The saves, the shares, the comments, the DMs. Views are ego. Engagement is the business.
The Two Questions I Get Asked the Most
Speaking of content that earns attention, Trial Reels are how I test for it before it ever touches my feed. They are also how I get pushed out to brand new non-followers while I test. And two questions come in more than all the rest, so I wrote both up.
“How many Trial Reels should I post a day?” More than you think. Instagram lets you post up to 20, and the sweet spot for most people is 3 to 12. Not to spam the feed, but because Trial Reels are a testing system, and one test is not a test, it is a coin flip. The trick is variations: take three or four strong ideas, edit each a few different ways, and let the data tell you which version wins.
“How long do I leave a Trial Reel before posting it?” At least 72 hours. That is the window Instagram uses to show your reel to a cold audience and decide if it earns more reach. Promote too early and you are guessing. Wait for the verdict and the data makes the call for you. One warning inside: never run the same content as a feed post and a Trial Reel at the same time, it splits your reach and tanks both.
Read them together and you have the whole rhythm: how many to test, and how long to wait before you crown a winner.
Meet Vesta, My Watchdog
Remember that standard I just spent three paragraphs building? Vesta is what guards it when I am not looking.
Her job is simple and a little ruthless. She makes sure every agent is following its instructions, and the moment one drifts, she tells me.
She takes it further than I ever asked her to. She went back through my own blog, pulled posts from the last six months, from before the agents were even working, and flagged them. Hey Leslie, you are breaking your own rules right here. Take a look.
An agent that fact-checks the boss. Most businesses never build that layer, and it is exactly why I trust this system to run without me hovering.
In August I am pulling back the full curtain on my Agent Command Center: all three agents, what each one runs, and how they work together so I can stay in my genius zone. Consider Vesta your first look.
If you are ready to build content with a real standard and a system behind it, instead of posting and praying, let’s talk.
See you virtually, unless you catch me at 48th Ave beach or my gym. 💋 Leslie
P.S. The August issue is the big one: the full Agent Command Center reveal. Make sure you are subscribed so it lands in your inbox.
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