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?

1. 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.

1. 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.