Make an AI Influencer [tutorial]

In this tutorial, we'll generate an AI influencer and use our avatar to rapidly test out various UGC-style ads.

What is UGC? And why use AI influencers?

User-generated content (UGC) ads are a proven marketing method for D2C brands, but collaborating with creators often takes time and resources. By using AI “actors” (or AI influencers), you can take full control of the process and create engaging ads within hours. 

Once you’ve iterated on and found a winning script, you can choose to work with real UGC creators or… just use the AI ads directly. To be honest, I’ve been seeing an increasing number of brands do this. 

I’ll walk you through each step of the ad-creation process. I’ll show you how I use AI to help write the script, how to generate high-quality AI influencers, and how to edit the talking videos to include B-roll for better engagement. 

In Part 2, I’ll cover advanced tips including: how to experiment with different hooks, different actors, and even how to translate into multiple languages to reach a global audience.

By the end of this step-by-step tutorial, you’ll have the ability to create ads for your own brand. Hopefully this saves you time in your UGC experimentation and gets you results faster.  

The Basics of Creating your Ad

Step 1. Write the script

Here's a 3-step crash course on how to write ad scripts. Copy writing is normally a whole specialization in and of itself.

1.Watch successful ads
Search for your product or similar products on TikTok. Watch the ads with the most views and engagement. Note similarities between them. Copy exact sentences that you think are effective. This research will be fed into ChatGPT.

2.Ask ChatGPT to write 3 drafts
Ask ChatGPT if it knows your product. If not, write a paragraph about the product to give it context. If it does, ask it to write 3 versions of a TikTok ad script. For example, here was my prompt:

I want you to write a TikTok influencer video script about the Embryolisse cream. It should be about 30 seconds long and have approximately these sections:
[Hook! Engaging sentence that gets people attention]
[Personal connection! I've been using this for a few months and I'm obsessed with it]
[Feature 1: Why it's good ]
[Feature 2: I like the sensitive skin one. No fragrance]
[CTA: It's on sale on TikTok shop right now]
Give me 3 different script versions. The goal of the script is to convert into paying customers.

Here are some sentences that I like:
"This is the TRUTH" [hook]
"I just found the secret makeup trick used by celebrity makeup artists."

3.Edit the best ideas together
AI is good at giving good first drafts but not final drafts. Copy the elements you like the best from each script version and add your own flair. Once you've finalized your script, it's time to generate the videos

Step 2. Generate the AI influencer videos

1. Audition your AI influencers
   We need to "audition" our AI influencers and pick our favorite. An AI influencer is a combination of a photo plus a voice. We'll generate both on Infinity.
   
   Go to studio.infinity.ai. In the image "text-to-image" section, write a prompt. It can be as simple as:

"a TikTok influencer, female, facing the camera"

In the audio "text-to-voice" section, listen to the voices in the dropdown menu and pick one you like. Write a short test script in the text box. Press "Generate" and listen to the audio.

In the video section, select the middle "250k resolution", turn crop face "off", and select "expressive" mode. Press "Submit to Queue." You should see a video pop up in the queue.

Repeat this process for multiple different AI people. Then watch the generated clips and pick your favorite.

2. Generate the entire script
   Once you've picked an AI influencer that you like, it's time to generate the entire script with them. Copy 1-3 sentences at a time and generate. Here are the video generation parameters I typically use:
   Resolution: "250k pixels" or "400k pixels" (<– less stable)
   Crop Face: OFF
   Expressiveness: Expressive or Medium (if it's a section with lots of exclamation points and excitement, I might use "Stable")
   
   I generate ~3 videos with different generation parameters for each script section. Every video generation is different. Sometimes it take several tries to get a good clip.

Tip: Use punctuation to control the delivery of your script. "-" and "..." add pauses. "!" and ALL CAPS add emphasis.

3. Select the top clips
   Watch all the clips and select your favorite. I use the emojis to keep my clips organized. I mark good ones with the number "2" and then my top choice with the number "1".

Step 3. Put it all together

Download the top clips from Infinity and then bring them into CapCut (or your favorite video editor). B-roll in the background makes these ads A LOT more engaging. I recommend getting B-roll in one (or all) of the following ways:

• Go to the product website and take a screen recording of it. If you're on Mac, use "QuickTime" >> "New screen recording"
• Take photos of the product (from the internet or on your own)
• Download videos from TikTok or YouTube. I like to use 4K Video Downloader+ (for YT) and 4k Tokit (for TT).

CapCut has a great feature to remove the background from around a person. Select your video clip and then go to "Video" >> "Remove BG" >> "Auto removal" in the right-hand editor panel.

Voila! You're done.

Advanced Tips

One of the main benefits of using AI influencers is that you can iterate and test much faster than when working with creators. The two main things you can experiment with in your ads are: the script and the actor.

Advanced Tip 1: Test the hook

The hook (aka first 1-4 seconds) is THE most important part of your ad. If you can't get people to stop scrolling, then nothing else matters. You can test out several different hooks in Infinity by changing out the script and keeping everything else if your ad the same.

Advanced Tip 2: Test the actors

Appearances matter a lot. Maybe your script is great but the AI influencer delivering your message is not. Test different actors in Infinity by generating a different face or selecting a different voice.

Advanced Tip 3: Translate into multiple languages

One benefit of AI influencers is that they are infinitely multi-lingual. Translate your ad into multiple languages so that they reach your target audience in their native tongue.

Tools used in this tutorial: TikTok (research), ChatGPT (scripting), Infinity AI (videos + actor casting), CapCut (editing), QuickTime (B-roll)

Watch the full step-by-step tutorial: https://youtu.be/66wtcXaFkbA

Ask questions on Discord: https://discord.gg/cwYV27BvhW