The golden rule of prompting: if a new employee would be confused by your request, so is Claude. Vague in, average out.
The problem with "write a post about our summer special"
It's not a bad request. It's an incomplete one. Who's the post for? What should it get them to do? How should it sound? How long? Claude doesn't know, so it picks the most average possible answer to each of those questions. The result reads like every other AI post on the internet, and that's why.
Claude gives you exactly what you asked for. The skill is asking for what you actually want.
The upgrade formula
Three things turn a vague prompt into a specific one:
Who it's for. Existing customers? Strangers? Your staff?
What it's for. What should the reader do after reading it?
What good looks like. Length, tone, must-include details.
One more rule that surprises people: say what to do, not what to avoid. "Write in short, plain sentences" works better than "don't be wordy." Positive instructions give Claude a target. Negative ones just tell it where the wall is.
Before and after
Before: the vague version
Write a post about our summer special.
After: the specific version
Write a Facebook post for my lawn care company in Estero. Audience: homeowners who already follow us. Goal: get them to book our summer fertilization special before June 1. Sound helpful, not salesy. 3 sentences, then one line with the phone number: {your number}.
Run both. The first gets you a generic ad. The second gets you something you could post today.