Once your external tools are connected to StoryChief and your skills are set up, the real value kicks in: William AI can pull live data from your external platforms and follow your team's and clients' defined workflows to generate strategies, briefs and content that reflect your actual business context.
This guide shows you how to put plugins and skills into practice: from running your first data-driven strategy to applying a skill inside a brief or content piece.
🔔 Note: This article assumes you've already connected at least one plugin and created or imported a skill. If not, start with How to connect your tools to StoryChief.
In this article
1. Use a plugin with William in Strategy
When a plugin is connected, William can query it directly to inform your content strategy, pulling in keyword data, CRM signals, competitor intel, or any other live data your tool exposes.
Step 1. In the top navigation, click "Strategy", where you will see a chat panel with William AI on the middle side of the screen.
Step 2. Type your request in plain language and reference the data you want William to use. For example:
"Use our keyword research tool to find the top 10 topics our audience is searching for this month."
"Pull our latest CRM data and suggest three content angles for our mid-funnel leads."
💡 Tip: Type @ to mention a plugin and $ to mention a skill in the William chat.
Step 3. William will call the connected plugin, retrieve the relevant data, and return a response showing what was found and how it informed the suggestion.
Step 4. Review William's output. You'll see which data sources were used. Edit, refine, or discard the suggestion; nothing is saved or applied until you confirm it.
💡 Tip: The more specific your request, the better William's output. Instead of "find content ideas," try "find content ideas for SaaS buyers in the awareness stage, based on our Google Analytics data."
🔔 Note: William only uses data from tools you've explicitly connected and granted permission to access. If a plugin isn't returning data, check its permission settings under Plugins & Skills → [tool name].
2. Apply a skill in Strategy
Skills can be triggered manually in the William chat, or William may invoke them automatically when a task matches a skill's description. Here's how to use them deliberately.
Step 1. In the Strategy tab, open the William AI chat panel.
Step 2. Type the skill or $ to open your skills library.
Step 3. Select the skill you want to apply. William will run the skill's instructions against your current context (active campaign, brand data and connected plugin data), and return the output.
Step 4. Review the output carefully. William's suggestions reflect your skill's instructions and your live data, but your team makes the final call. Edit the output directly in the chat or apply it to your strategy.
💡 Tip: If a skill isn't producing the results you expect, open it in Plugins & Skills → Skills and make the instructions more specific.
Vague instructions lead to generic outputs, so tell William exactly what format, audience and goal the skill should target.
3. Inspiration: what can you do with plugins and skills?
🚀 Ready-to-go in one click
Not sure where to start? When connecting a plugin, you'll find a set of standard ready-to-go use cases for each tool directly in the app.
Click on the use case you want William to work on and he'll get straight to work, by calling the plugin, applying the right skill and returning an output you can refine, expand or turn into content right away.
See the examples for Semrush below:
🔧 Out-of-the-box workflows with copy-paste prompts
Want to think out of the box? The use cases below go beyond the defaults. Each one comes with a copy-paste ready skill prompt so you can set it up in minutes and adapt it to your brand, your tools and the way your team actually works.
🔔 Note: Are you an agency creating strategies, campaigns and content for your clients? Find out-of-the-box inspiration specifically for agencies like yours.
🎨 Repurpose your best content into a Canva social carousel
Plugin: Canva | Skill: Content-to-carousel repurposer
You've published a strong article. It got good traction, the team loved it, and it's full of ideas worth amplifying. But turning it into a carousel manually takes longer than writing the article.
This skill changes that. Connect the Canva plugin and build a skill that takes any existing article, extracts the most shareable insights, structures them as a scroll-stopping carousel and hands it off to Canva to generate the visual.
Full skill prompt example for copy/paste
Full skill prompt example for copy/paste
When prompted the skill $Content-to-carousel repurposer for an article, follow these steps:
Read the full article and identify the 6 most insightful, shareable or surprising points. Prioritise ideas that are specific, actionable or challenge a common assumption. Avoid generic statements.
Structure the carousel as follows:
Slide 1 — Hook: A single bold statement or question that makes someone stop scrolling. Draw from the most counterintuitive insight in the article. Max 10 words.
Slides 2–7 — Insight slides: One key point per slide. Each slide has a short headline (max 10 words) and an optional one-sentence supporting detail (max 20 words). Number each slide.
Slide 8 — CTA: A closing slide that tells the reader what to do next (read the full article, follow the page, leave a comment). Keep it direct and specific.
Write all copy in [your brand's tone of voice]. Use second person. Keep sentences short and punchy. No jargon.
After generating the slide copy, pass the carousel structure and the following visual brief to Canva: use [primary colour] as the background on the cover and CTA slides, [secondary colour] for insight slides, [font name] for headlines, clean minimal layout, no stock photography.
Output the slide copy first as a numbered list, followed by the Canva design request.
Example that you can ask William: "Here's our article on [topic]. Run $Content-to-carousel repurposer and create a Canva LinkedIn carousel from the best insights."
💡 Tip: Instruct the skill to lead with the most counterintuitive or surprising insight from the article, not the first one. Carousels live or die on the cover slide, so if it doesn't stop the scroll-down, nobody sees the rest.
🤝 Write content for every stage of your funnel
Plugin: HubSpot, Salesforce or any other CRM | Skill: Funnel-stage content adapter
Pull your current lead segments from your CRM and create a skill that adapts any article or campaign to a specific funnel stage (ie. awareness, consideration or decision). William can rewrite the same core message three ways, each one tailored to where that audience is in their journey.
Full skill prompt example for copy/paste
Full skill prompt example for copy/paste
When prompted with the skill $Funnel-stage content adapter for a piece of content, follow these steps:
Identify the core message of the content provided: the main argument, offer or idea the piece is built around.
Rewrite the content three times, once for each funnel stage [personalize with your own funnel stages)
Awareness: The reader doesn't know they have a problem yet. Focus on education, relevance, and curiosity. No product push. Conversational tone.
Consideration: The reader is evaluating options. Focus on differentiation, proof points, and specific benefits. Address likely objections.
Decision: The reader is ready to act. Focus on confidence, urgency, and a clear CTA. Remove anything that slows them down.
Keep the same core message across all three versions. Only the angle, emphasis, and CTA change; not the topic.
For each version, output: the rewritten copy, the funnel stage label, and a one-line note explaining the key adaptation made.
Write in [your brand's tone of voice]. Use second person. Keep it concise.
Example that you can ask William: "Use @HubSpot to pull our active mid-funnel segment, then $Funnel-stage content adapter to rewrite this brief for the consideration stage."
💡 Tip: Run all three versions in one go and share them with your team as a set. It's a fast way to brief writers on how the same topic should be approached differently depending on where it will be distributed.
🧠 Build a content brief from a sales call transcript
Plugin: Notion, HubSpot, Zoom or a transcription tool | Skill: Sales-to-content brief
Your sales team talks to prospects every day. Those calls are full of objections, questions and specific language that give you exactly what your clients need.
Connect your CRM or notes tool, build a skill that scans recent call summaries, and ask William to extract recurring themes and turn them into content briefs. The result: articles and campaigns built around what real buyers actually say, not what the marketing team assumes they care about.
Full skill prompt example for copy/paste
Full skill prompt example for copy/paste
When prompted with the skill $Sales-to-content brief for a set of call notes or transcripts, follow these steps:
Read all the call summaries or transcripts provided. Look for recurring patterns across calls, not one-off comments.
Extract and group the following:
Objections: concerns or hesitations that came up more than once
Questions: things prospects asked that weren't immediately clear
Language: specific words or phrases prospects used to describe their problem or goal
Triggers: what prompted them to look for a solution in the first place
For each recurring theme, generate a content brief containing:
A working title
The target audience and their awareness level
The core question or objection the content should answer
The recommended format (e.g. article, FAQ, case study, social post)
A suggested hook or opening line drawn from the prospect's own language
Output a maximum of 5 briefs, ranked by how frequently the theme appeared across calls.
Flag any direct quotes from prospects that could be used as hooks or subheadings and mark these clearly.
Example that you can ask William: "Use @HubSpot to pull the last 10 sales call notes, then $Sales-to-content brief to find the top content angles we should be writing about."
💡 Tip: Start with just 5 calls. The patterns William surfaces from a small sample are usually enough to brief 2–3 months of content, and they're almost always more specific than anything in a brand document.
📣 Repurpose one article into a full social campaign
Skill: Multi-channel repurposing
Create a skill that takes any published article and outputs a ready-to-schedule social campaign: a LinkedIn post, an X thread, and an Instagram caption; each adapted for the platform's tone and format, and each pointing back to the original piece. One brief, five pieces of content, zero copy-paste.
Full skill prompt example for copy/paste
Full skill prompt example for copy/paste
When prompted with the skill $Multi-channel repurposing for an article, follow these steps:
Read the full article and identify the single strongest idea worth amplifying — the most useful, surprising, or debatable point. This becomes the anchor for all platform versions.
Create the following assets:
LinkedIn post: 150–250 words. Open with a hook that works as a standalone statement. Use short paragraphs. End with a question or CTA that drives comments. Professional but human tone.
X thread: 5–7 tweets. Tweet 1 is the hook (bold and specific). Tweets 2–6 each develop one point. Tweet 7 is the CTA linking back to the article. Max 280 characters per tweet.
Instagram caption: 100–150 words. Open with a one-liner that stops the scroll. Use a slightly warmer, more conversational tone than LinkedIn. End with a CTA and 3–5 relevant hashtags.
All three versions should point back to the original article. Adapt the CTA phrasing per platform: what works on LinkedIn doesn't land the same way on Instagram.
Write in [your brand's tone of voice] throughout. Do not copy sentences from the original article; rewrite everything for the platform and format.
Output each asset clearly labelled with its platform and word/character count.
Example that you can ask William: "Use $Multi-channel repurposing on this article and generate platform-specific posts for LinkedIn, X and Instagram."
💡 Tip: Ask the skill to pull a different insight for each platform rather than adapting the same one. Your LinkedIn audience and your Instagram audience are rarely the same people.
📋 Generate agency-ready client briefs automatically
Plugin: Asana, Notion or any project management tool | Skill: Client brief generator
If you work with multiple clients, connect your project management tool and build a skill that pulls the active campaign goals for a specific client and generates a structured editorial brief, with audience, tone, keywords, format and CTA, ready to share or assign. No more starting from a blank page for every new request.
Full skill prompt example for copy/paste
Full skill prompt example for copy/paste
When prompted with the skill $Client brief generator for a client or campaign, follow these steps:
Pull the active campaign goals and any available context for the client specified: target audience, current priorities, ongoing campaigns, deadlines.
Generate a structured editorial brief containing:
Title: A working title for the piece
Objective: What this content should achieve (awareness, leads, retention, SEO)
Target audience: Who this is for, their awareness level, and their main concern or goal
Tone: How the content should feel — 3 adjectives maximum, each with a one-line explanation
Format: Recommended content type and approximate length
Key message: The single most important thing the reader should take away
Supporting points: 3–5 arguments, facts, or angles to include
Keywords: Primary keyword and 2–3 secondary keywords if SEO is relevant
CTA: What the reader should do after consuming the content
Deadline: Pulled from the project management tool if available
Flag anything missing that would be needed to complete the brief, and suggest where to find it.
Output the brief in a clean, copy-ready format that can be shared directly with a writer.
Example that you can ask William: "Use @Asana to pull the active goals for [client], then $Client brief generator to create a brief for their next blog post."
💡 Tip: Include a "what not to write" field in the skill output — topics, angles, or tones the client has explicitly ruled out. It saves the first revision round before it happens.
✍️ Apply your brand voice to any content, every time
Skill: Brand voice enforcer
Create a skill that encodes your brand's tone of voice guidelines: vocabulary to use, phrases to avoid, sentence length, formality level, etc. and apply it to any draft before it goes out. Especially useful for teams with multiple writers or agencies managing content for several brands at once.
Full skill prompt example for copy/paste
Full skill prompt example for copy/paste
When prompted with the skill $Brand voice enforcer for a piece of content, follow these steps:
Review the content provided against the brand voice rules below.
Apply the following tone of voice guidelines:
Vocabulary: Use [list of preferred words or phrases]. Avoid [list of words or phrases to never use].
Sentence length: [Short and punchy / varied / long-form]. Maximum [X] words per sentence.
Person: Always write in [first / second / third] person.
Formality: [Formal / conversational / informal]. Never use jargon unless [specific exception].
Punctuation style: [e.g. no exclamation marks, em dashes preferred over brackets, Oxford comma always].
What this brand always does: [e.g. ends with a question, opens with a bold claim, uses numbers in headlines].
What this brand never does: [e.g. uses passive voice, hedges with "might" or "could", talks about itself in third person].
Rewrite any sentences that break the guidelines. Do not change the meaning, structure, or information, only the voice.
Output the revised content followed by a short list of the changes made and why, so the writer can learn from the edits.
Example that you can ask William: "Run $Brand voice enforcer on this draft before I send it for review."
💡 Tip: The "what this brand never does" list is often more useful than the "what it always does" list. Constraints are clearer than aspirations — and they're faster for William to apply consistently.
🎨 Generate visuals that always match your brand identity
Skill: Visual brand guidelines
Build a skill that encodes your full visual identity: primary and secondary colours with HEX values, typography style, border radius, spacing, layout preferences, and the tone each visual should convey. William will apply those rules every time it generates a banner, social visual, newsletter asset, or campaign image; without you having to describe the style from scratch each time.
This is especially powerful for agencies managing multiple brands: create one skill per client, name them clearly, and switch between them with a single $ mention in the chat.
Full skill prompt example for copy/paste
Full skill prompt example for copy/paste
When prompted with the skill $Visual brand guidelines to generate a visual, follow these steps:
Apply the following visual identity rules to every asset generated:
Primary colour: [HEX value]: use for backgrounds on hero visuals, cover slides, and CTAs
Secondary colour: [HEX value]: use for supporting elements, icon fills, and alternating slide backgrounds
Accent colour: [HEX value]: use sparingly for highlights, buttons, or emphasis only
Typography: [Font name] for headlines, [font name] for body text. Headlines always [uppercase / sentence case / title case].
Layout: [Minimal / bold / editorial / illustrative]. Always [left-align / centre-align] text. Never use more than [X] words on a single visual.
Imagery style: [e.g. no stock photography, flat illustration only, always include white space, photography must be natural light]
Border and spacing: [e.g. rounded corners at 8px, consistent 24px padding, never full bleed on social formats]
Tone the visual should convey: [e.g. confident and clean, warm and approachable, bold and provocative]
Apply these rules regardless of the asset type: banner, carousel slide, social post, newsletter header, or campaign image.<
If a visual request conflicts with these guidelines (e.g. a requested colour isn't in the brand palette), flag it and suggest the closest on-brand alternative instead of ignoring the guideline.
Example that you can ask William: "Generate 3 LinkedIn banner options for our upcoming product launch using $Visual brand guidelines."
💡 Tip: If you previously set up visual brand guidelines through the 'Configure AI assistant' page, that approach still works. However, this skill gives you more flexibility, especially when you need different visual rules for different campaigns or audiences.
🎉 You're done, grab a coffee, you deserve it!
Check out the next steps below for more in-depth guides or follow-up actions.