What Makes "Good" Content?
As someone who's spent a lot of time in both content creation tools and educational content, this is a question I get asked all the time.
It's one of those questions that's neither simple nor complicated.
The trickiest part is that "good" doesn't have a universal answer. "Good" is super subjective. What one person thinks is great, another might find too basic, too difficult, or just plain boring. And honestly, people's judgment about content gets swayed by all sorts of things – their environment, social circles, even current trends.
Basically, "good" is never a one-size-fits-all thing. It's something that really clicks with your audience and the market at a specific time and place. If you start out trying to make content that "everyone" thinks is good, you're pretty much guaranteed to fail. Because there's no such thing as "everyone."
So, what's a more reliable approach?
Don't Aim for "Good" Content, Aim for "Good for Whom?"
The first step is to stop trying to make "good" content in general, and instead focus on making content that's "good for a specific audience." You need to clearly define your target audience: Who are they? What's their knowledge level? What market are they in? What kind of content do they usually consume? What content actually works for them?
This is essentially user profiling combined with competitor analysis. Back when we were creating educational content, we'd put a ton of effort into user interviews, benchmarking against others, and even using a PBL (Project-Based Learning) approach to constantly refine our content structure. It was a lot of work, but it really paid off.
Let Go of the "Masterpiece" Obsession.
We often tend to equate "good content" with some grand, sweeping narrative: an epic movie, a hefty novel, a song that blows everyone away. But those kinds of works are either the result of industrial-scale production by huge teams, or rare flashes of genius from a select few. The average person simply can't replicate that.
But most content doesn't need to be like that. If it can give someone just a little bit of an insight on one specific point, that can absolutely count as "good." Especially in education, we're really focused on that "aha!" moment – it could be just one sentence, a single question, or a completely fresh perspective. These small "sparks" are what truly make up the bulk of "good content."
So, our goal in creating content isn't to hit one big, guaranteed success. Instead, we want to embed several little sparks that can light up someone's thinking in every piece we create. Even if it only lights up one person, it's worth it.
We believe AI can be a huge help in both of these areas, and that's exactly why we started Recap.
Recap 2.0 is launching very soon, and we hope it becomes your go-to assistant for making truly impactful content.
Replies
Dereference
Building and doing with intention makes something good, thats the only metric!
Dereference
@adi_singh5 This take is on point
This is well put, not enough people realize the need to move from the "good" to "good for whom" when designing content. This mental model changes how I approach building and storytelling.
Curious how Recap 2.0 helps surface more of those small but powerful sparks.
Agree with both points but for improvement of the content, I would give one advice:
Write down your text and revise after a few days later. You will have a little bit different perspective and will make changes that can improve the dynamic of the story :)
Recap
@busmark_w_nika right！
Phygital+
Well-put! I would say that creating content conscientiously with good intention always goes a long way. Sometimes cutting corners may help with optimising efficiency and saving time, but often it is exactly what differentiates a good piece of content from others
Clear, useful, and memorable.
Recap
@holiday_whisper thx
To gain engagements need to make content in such a way that it perform as what's on trend a kind of FOMO that has been created by oligopoly market of social media.
Good content for me is something that can get me hooked within the first 3-sec and really finish the video. For me making content that resonates not only to your audience but also yourself is also a good content. Plus points if the graphics are good too.
Good points I will remind myself of
This is one of the clearest takes I’ve seen on the “good content” question, Zhiqi especially the shift from “Is it good?” to “Good for whom?” That framing alone can unclog so many content bottlenecks.
When we were building pharmacy onboarding modules for India’s tier-2/3 retailers, we made the mistake of polishing videos that we thought were good professionally edited, sleek voiceovers, smart copy. But our retention dropped.
What worked instead? Stripped-down workflows shot on mobile, spoken in regional accents, answering one hyper-specific doubt like “What happens if I enter an expired batch in the system?”
Once we stopped chasing the ‘masterpiece’ and started tracking what triggered those “Oh, now I get it.” moments, things turned around.
Your point about small sparks > one big bang completely clicked.