344: What does "good content" look like?

"Good content" doesn't mean viral, polished or trending. It never really did.

In this episode, I'm breaking it down into three parts: the five things that actually make content good, what's working right now on each social channel, and some 101 filming and photo-taking tips, because that's one of the questions I get asked the most.

If you've ever wondered whether your content is "good enough" or found yourself chasing polish instead of connection, I got you.

If you LOVED this episode, make sure you share this on your Instagram stories and tag us @contentqueenmariah.

⁠⁠⁠⁠LEARN THE DETAILS OF A CONTENT STRATEGY WITH MY FREE AUDIO GUIDE⁠⁠⁠⁠

KEY EPISODE TAKEAWAYS 👇

✨ The five things that actually make content good (it has a role, it's intentional, it serves your audience not just your brand, it's honest not polished, and it's measured by the right things)

✨ Why "vanity metrics" like likes can trick you into pulling good content, when the real result (like link clicks) was hiding in the data

✨ What's working right now by channel, from LinkedIn's raw, personal storytelling to TikTok's FaceTime-style videos to Instagram's B-roll and text overlay formula

✨ Simple filming and photo-taking basics (lighting, mic, framing, batching, pattern interrupts) that make a bigger difference than people expect

SHOW RESOURCES 👇

If you like this episode, don't forget to share it to your Instagram stories and tag me⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ @contentqueenmariah⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠!

Other than that, enjoy - chat next week 💕

PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION

This is episode 344, and we're talking all about what does good content look like? Welcome to the Content Queen podcast. I'm your host, Mariah, entrepreneur, storyteller, digital nomad, creative content boot camp, and founder of Content Queen, with over 10 years experience in marketing. This podcast is here to help you create your ideal content marketing strategy for your business by blending storytelling and strategy.

So, let's get into it. Hello, gang. How are we? All right. This episode is broken up into three parts. The first part is the five things that make good content. Then I'm going to talk about what I'm seeing works by different, like, social channels, as per se. Obviously, we know content is quite vast. There's blogging, podcasting, but I'm just gonna soc- focus a little bit on social, and then I'm gonna do some 101 filming and photo-taking tips because, actually, this is a question I get a lot.

And if you like that, let me know, and I can do a deeper dive into that specific topic. So, this is what I see all the [00:01:00] time. We assume that good content, and if you're not watching this and you're listening, I'm doing, like, air quotations, "good content" means viral, polished, or trending. And to be fair, it's kind of none of those.

It's all about, firstly, understanding your audience to begin with. But be- different people consume differently and think things look good. Like, everyone has a definition of what looks good. If you speak to any graphic designer, over the years of them working with clients or working in, uh, in-house or working for a company, everyone has their own definition of what good or polished looks like.

So, we need to be mindful of that. And then also, it's just going back to the foundations of who is my audience? What do they engage with? What do they like? Some people literally just like a floating head talking to them, to be fair. So the first thing that makes up good content is it has a role. It knows what it's doing, or [00:02:00] more to the point, you know what it's happening, or you know what you're doing with it.

So good content isn't, "I just posted today." It's, "This piece of content is meant to do XYZ." Now, it doesn't mean that one post is going to create revenue or sales. It just means that post has a goal with other posts to collectively work towards something, right? So we can't hold one post to like, "Oh my God, I'm riding on this one piece of content to, like, drive everything," 'cause that's not realistic.

Every post should have a purpose, whether it is to build trust, uh, whether it is to educate people or move them f- closer towards a decision, closer down what we call the funnel. So really, it's understanding what is that here to do, and that's where strategy obviously comes in. Then the second one is it's intentional.

It's not just here to tick a box of I posted today, or I created a piece of content. So not like a how's your [00:03:00] weekend, or these kind of fluffy brunch posts, or even, for example, I see this in, say, hospitality, just sharing pictures of their food, which is cool when you're at a restaurant and you're like, "Ooh, I wanna see what's on the menu."

But really, some of those posts can be fluffy. They can just be for the sake of, "I've gotta get something up." Now, I'm not gonna judge you if you're like, "Well, I'm trying to be consistent. I'm trying to create a habit, and sometimes how was your weekend is all I have in me, or a quote." I'm not going to say don't do that, but I'm also gonna say don't do that.

It's better to have a strategy that is clearly aligned to what you need to post over just posting for the sake of posting, just so that you could say, "Stay consistent." So really, it's about asking, "Is this adding value, or is this just adding to the pile of content that's already out there?" Because you're here to build trust, and if an audience member or someone scrolling sees fluff all the time, they're gonna go, "This person is just here to be here.

They're not here for a specific reason [00:04:00] The third one is it serves an audience, not just your brand. So really, this is about being selfless. A lot of the times I see business owners get a little bit selfish in terms of, "Well, I wanna share my product," or, "I wanna talk about this." Which is awesome if you... And, and there's this balance between talking about things 'cause you're passionate about them, and people can feel your energy, and talking about things 'cause you wanna talk about them, and not because your audience specifically asks for them.

So sometimes your audience doesn't care about certain things. It's not that they don't care about you, and this is a really big mindset shift. Actually, people do care about you, but they don't care about you always talking about your product. They don't care about you sharing a piece of information that you think is cool, but may not be cool for them, or cool at quotations again.

So it's really about understanding what is your audience asking from you? What are questions you're getting? What are people struggling with? And I have a really cool episode coming out maybe in a month [00:05:00] or so about this and selling and, and all those things, which is amazing. But really thinking about, is it here to actually help my audience?

Is it here to give them something, or do I have an agenda that I'm just trying to get across? You gotta find that balance. The fourth thing is being honest, not polished. So, you know, we saw this in, in 2025, 2024, the ugly content, like ugly content went, you know, viral, so to speak. Everyone wanted to see that raw type of content.

You know, I'm seeing brand owners sitting on their office floor sharing launches of new collections. I'm seeing people do this really authentic, organic content that isn't these super polished campaigns. Doesn't mean we can't have polished, but they have a place. They have a purpose. Polished campaigns are for that, campaigns, when you're trying to run something for a specific reason, but your business' usual content can be raw, can be authentic, can be [00:06:00] like you're just FaceTiming them, the floating head concept.

I had a conversation with someone in my DMs talking about they didn't have the right space to film content, and they, you know, you're overthinking all these, like, right things to have to film content, when really at the end of the day, people wanna get to know you, they wanna trust you, and they wanna see what you have to offer them.

So it's not always we have a pain point that we were trying to fix 'cause some people don't even know they have a problem, and especially if you're selling products that are maybe beautiful or aesthetic or, you know, maybe aren't here to fill a specific pain point as such, but here to help people get to their next level.

Some people wanna see that, wanna see that from a l- see that from that raw, authentic lens. And we can see it now through TikTok. It's just all really raw, natural, honest conversations. And the fifth one is it's gotta be measured by the right things. So [00:07:00] really about understanding, yes, what is that purpose of that post, and am I giving it the credit it needs, right?

So just because you didn't make a sale from a post doesn't mean it didn't serve a purpose. I, I had, um, for example, I've talked about this before on the podcast, we did a LinkedIn post on a Friday, and obviously Friday everyone's probably not as engaged on LinkedIn, so... And it didn't get as many likes. And so the marketing manager sort of said to me, like, "Yeah, let's not post on a Friday anymore, it just, like, doesn't work."

But then I looked at... And we were linking to something, and I looked at the analytics, and actually people clicked through to the website. So you could argue, like, that post did actually work, it just didn't get likes. We always think of those vanity metrics as success. So understanding what success looks like in your marketing.

And then if you assign a role, you're able to measure the right things, so then you know if it's good content or not. Yes, a viral video we could say is good content, but a viral video that has backlash and is viral for the wrong [00:08:00] reasons is not actually good content. It's just going viral. And we could say all publicity is good publicity, but it also depends, right?

So that's sort of my five things to make good content. Not necessarily about what it looks like and what it is, but just comes down to knowing its purpose, being intentional when you post Being aligned with the audience in which it's here to serve and not, and trying not to be selfish and you, you, you.

Being raw, authentic, and honest, and it's being measured so you know if it's good content or not. So then if we lean into part two of this episode, 101 on what I'm seeing is working. So I can even add an extra layer of that. Blogging is still in. Now it's tailored for AI. So what we need to think about when we're creating good content for our blogs needs to have FAQs.

It needs to answer things that people are [00:09:00] asking AI or people are asking Google where Gemini answers the question. It needs to be answering specific questions so that you can come up in search. So we have all these platforms that are telling us what people are searching. We also now are seeing, you know, obviously our social media posts are being indexed.

So if you're creating a blog, good content looks like reusing that blog in your content on social media, sharing it as much as possible and showing Google, showing AI that you are a trusted source. If we look at podcasting, what makes a good podcast? I'm seeing, like since I started video, it has worked really well for me.

Not saying it'll work for everybody, but having the video it... and of course like I am lucky that we have a good camera, um, but it doesn't mean it can't be filmed on a phone, and reusing and repurposing that, trying to get it in front of as many people as possible. But also, my podcast recently come up in AI search and someone asked me like, "How did you do that?"[00:10:00] 

I was consistent, but I also ask my audience what they wanna hear. Then I tailor my episodes around what people are telling me. I listen. I'm listening to what people say, even though Mitch will argue that I don't listen enough. So maybe I'll just start listening to him a little bit more and less of everybody else.

But I listen to my audience. I have- meetings every week, all week, and I'm listening to people's concerns. I'm then able to use them as episodes or emails or all those things. So what I've found has worked as good content for podcasts is giving back to the audience, for one, and doing... trying different mediums, trying different ways to share it.

I just wanna hijack this episode to tell you about something that is generally helping and changing the game for business owners that I work with. So if you're sitting there at 5:00 PM scrambling, not sure what to do, what to post, you are not alone, and I have in fact been there, along with many other businesses that I've worked with, getting to my laptop, throwing something together, pushing it out there, throwing [00:11:00] spaghetti at the wall, and seeing what sticks.

Now, this is not strategy, and it really feels like survival. That is why I created Content Boot Camp. It is my signature program that takes you through the seven steps to create a really intentional and aligned content strategy for your business, one that is actually documented, is actually for you, and actually gets results.

So there's no more guessing, no more winging it, and no more content hamster wheel. By the end of your journey in Content Boot Camp, you'll have a clear plan on what to post, where to post it, and why, plus the confidence to actually execute it. And you're not doing it alone, because I do live calls all the time, so you'll get access to me, I can help you with your strategy, and a community of other business owners that are doing the same thing.

You'll also get lifetime access, so if your business evolves and grows and changes, it will grow and evolve and change with you. So if you are ready to stop winging it and start being intentional with your marketing, get a strategy behind you, head to contentqueenmariah.com, [00:12:00] check out boot camp, Content Boot Camp.

I would love to see you there. So if we go into social media, LinkedIn, what I've seen with LinkedIn over the years is, yes, of course, it has turned into a platform that is sometimes less about networking and also is becoming a bit more of like a Facebook, Instagram scene. What I'm seeing work well is people are saying video is in, video is in on LinkedIn I don't disagree, but I don't necessarily agree.

What I'm seeing works is those raw images, the selfies, the coffee catch-ups, the behind-the-scenes moments. That is what I'm seeing works well on LinkedIn paired with a beautiful story. And it doesn't have to be a story of what getting engaged taught me about B2B sales, 'cause I have seen a post on that. I think that's pretty much out.

People don't wanna see that anymore. But really connecting to the story and the narrative in which you wanna be known for. Thought leadership, LinkedIn newsletters that now get delivered to people's inboxes. That's what I'm seeing as good content, what is working, and just those, like, [00:13:00] personal stories, personal storytelling.

The other thing is interesting infographics. Now, I haven't seen l- what any of my clients haven't really tried this or done this because really interesting infographics take time, take work. But if that's a type of content you like to create, maybe in f- in, in Adobe or Canva or maybe not with AI because we are s- now LinkedIn has an AI slop button that you can click, and I'm not saying that Claude graphics aren't good, but they're not good.

They're repetitive. They look all the same. They're actual overload of information and chaotic and overwhelming and overstimulating. So if you're gonna create infographics that you wanna share, if that's something you wanna be known for, they do take a bit of work. But in saying that, they could be done less frequently.

They don't have to be done weekly even, and that is a really cool piece of content. That is content And then TikTok. So what we see on TikTok is [00:14:00] like FaceTime style content, the floating head, as if you are calling a friend and having a conversation with them. That is holding your phone selfie style. That is setting it up while you're doing something.

I had a client hang his washing while recording videos. He's like, "That was great. I got a chore done and work done at the same time." And it was engaging and interesting until he... Mitch was laughing so much editing this video. I'm like, "What happened?" And he'd pulled his underwear out whilst talking and then realized he'd done it.

So, you know, when we're doing tasks, we just have to make sure we don't air out our dirty laundry literally. Um, but yeah, just really that raw, as if you've just called someone up and you're sharing an idea. Yes, the hook is important, all those things, but the hook can be more casual. It doesn't have to be a, you know, an Instagram or a, or a Facebook or a LinkedIn or a YouTube style hook, which is very in your face.

It can be m- a lot more casual, and it can be a lot more suited for people that aren't naturally like to be in front of the camera, that don't wanna [00:15:00] be performative, that just wanna chat, just wanna talk. They're the things that work really well. And then if we go to Instagram, what I'm personally seeing, yes, of course, again, the floating head, the FaceTime, the stuff that works on TikTok can work well on Instagram, but also the other things that I'm seeing is like some B-roll paired with a really impactful text overlay, like an impactful statement that you're here to send with some really powerful music.

I'm seeing it across multiple different clients. I had a client go viral last year with that specific kind of formula. It's something to get people intrigued and interested. It's a thought that you have that could be a bit unhinged, right? So they're the things that I see work quite well also in picture form.

I've got one client that, that works well. Picture form, that's it, and it seems to be going outside of her audience. Carousels with general detail and substance, not fluff. Again, that's where you can embed some cool infographics, or [00:16:00] you're giving detail, you're giving insight, you're giving information. I see this work with one client.

Their topic is very educational. Their audience likes to read. I think sometimes because of the audience, maybe video is overstimulating for them, so something they could read in their own time, carousel form seems to be working really well for them, adding value and giving back and making something shareable and saveable Building trust.

And then again, as I've said, with my own personal experience, talking to the camera, um, and then you can also talk to the camera in some, like, interesting places, depending on where you are. But just that general showing up, maybe you've got a cup of tea in your hand, maybe you're sitting at your desk just chatting to the camera.

And I'm not saying that these things will specifically work for you, because you have to test, you have to trial, but these are some of the things that I'm seeing is working and what is, quote-unquote, "good content." And then part three is 101 filming and photo-taking tips, because I do think this is something that my clients struggle with the most when they're new and they're fresh.

I've done so many videos [00:17:00] of myself, some very... me in very interesting angles showing them how to use edits or, you know, the edits app from Instagram, how to save things. Like, all those sort of tips I think are really helpful. So if you wanna hear more about this, we have done some stuff on this, I'm pretty sure.

Mitch and I sat down and did, like, a video conversation, so I will link that in the show notes. But I've had so many people say to me, "You should do a mini course on this." So maybe. Let me know. I can do more detail. Basically, the first thing is lighting 101. Natural light, or as you can see as I'm filming this podcast, we have lights.

Like, if you saw the setup, there's lights everywhere. Like, I'm blinded by lights. Um, so having some lighting. If you have a ring light or you could get yourself in front of a window, it just elevates the video, makes it clear to see you. Now, often sometimes if you're posting to social media with certain camera settings or it's just, you know, not loading properly on TikTok or Instagram, some videos can look a little bit blurry at times.

It, it just happens. Uh, it could be just how the video is [00:18:00] formatted. But if you have good lighting, it makes such a difference. And then framing yourself. So, you know, depending on which angle you're filming it at, framing is really important. You know, you don't want too much text above your... uh, too much space above your head, but you, you also wanna position, "Okay, if I am gonna do a talking to camera video, do I want subtitles for accessibility?"

I think it's important. So if I'm just, like, all head and all face, where am I gonna put these subtitles? You don't want them to get cut off when you're uploading it to social media, because obviously you've got to contend with the engagement buttons, the caption buttons, all those things. So trying to have them positioned and you positioned in a good spot just helps make editing a lot easier.

Also, with editing, you know, there's a lot of AI software out there now that will do zoom-ins at dramatic moments and all those things. To remind you, I've... I saw a video recently, too many zooms-ins, too many transitions. Like, be intentional with those if you're gonna do some editing, especially if you're gonna use AI But we just wanna [00:19:00] make sure that we have good amount of space around us to play around with.

Obviously, we wanna be filming in portrait for platforms like Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Uh, for YouTube, if you're doing YouTube Shorts, of course it would be portrait. If you're doing a long form YouTube podcast like this, you would do landscape. So there's just a few things. Now we've got audio.

If you can, purchase yourself a mic. I'm just going to hold this one to camera because we are filming. If you are, um, listening to this, I'll explain what one it is. The DJI actually sells these mics separately. We have a DJI Osmo, which is a type of camera, but I have been told that you can buy these separately.

Just a s- small lapel microphone. They're about $80. You can get some cheaper ones for sure, um, depending, like Amazon, et cetera. We also use the Rode mics. We really like those. They just elevate the sound. But if you have a, an iPhone and you have the old school plug-in headphones, I [00:20:00] find AirPods not to be the best, so I wouldn't recommend, but they have a little microphone that you can talk into.

It just creates a little bit of elevation, just means you're blocking out background noise. It means that people are leaning into that conversation because they can hear you. You notice like ASMR, all those things, we lean into the camera. It creates more intimacy And then just, you know, using your iPhone.

Of course, I have so many questions about this. Should I use my front camera? Should I use my back camera? Of course, your back camera's always gonna be better. But I also understand for the sake of setting up the back camera, seeing if it works, testing it time-wise, if that's gonna prevent you from doing it, it's gonna mean you don't do it, don't worry about the back camera.

Um, if you can have a mirror, like a mirror phone screen that will show you kind of what you look like, I think that helps. But also, the front camera is fine. And there's one thing that Mitch says all the time, and it's clean your lens on the front and the back camera. You would be surprised at how many people I've had to say [00:21:00] to clean your lens.

It comes off blurry. We always have our fingers on our phone. They're in our pockets. Just a quick wipe with your, with your, um, T-shirt. Just give it a clean. Give the front camera a clean. But yeah, if, if you're hesitant about using the back camera, just use the front camera. It's fine. I use the front camera most of the time because I'm, I'm a lazy.

Um, and then batching. So I try to record quite a few videos at one time if I can, if I'm in the mood. If you are a woman, often that is linked to your energy levels. Whether you are, um, uh, menstruating or not menstruating, you will find you have different energy levels. I do think it's probably the same in males.

I c- I don't know. Um, I know obviously they work on a very different clock, but I also see moods in Mitch at different times. So, you know, there could be moments where you feel more energized and you don't. If you feel really energized, really inspired, really creative, try and smash some videos out. This is why it's good to have a strategy because when you do have a documented strategy, it's not like, "Hmm, what can I talk about?"

[00:22:00] You know what you need to talk about. You know what you need to say. It doesn't mean you have to batch a year's worth of content, but you may wanna sit down Once a week and film a vi- enough videos that will last you two weeks, and you do it in content sprints. So that's what I do really. Um, but yeah, filming, filming where you can when you have a moment.

It gets easier. It gets quicker. And the last thing I wanna mention is, uh, pattern interrupts. So a pattern interrupt is something that will interrupt... And, and I know there's a lot of, um, video, so I will go into photo in a second. A pattern interrupt is basically when you interrupt something that gets people, it piques their curiosity.

It could be, again, um, doing something while filming, you know, washing the dishes, putting clothes on the line. It could be a matter of taking your glasses off if you have glasses on. It could be doing lipstick at the same time as you're talking. Visual pattern interrupts just engages that [00:23:00] audience a little bit more.

It can be transitions, zooms, et cetera. That comes a bit more in the editing. But if you wanna do some simple cool stuff, think about ways in which you can create a visual pattern interrupt. They used to talk about on YouTube how if you're filming a YouTube video and you're doing a long form video, to try and create something every 30 seconds to keep the audience engaged.

A piece of text on the screen, a transition, and that all happened in the editing. Now we- people are doing things while they're filming, which saves time, right? So that's your visual cues, your visual... You know, it could be drink, sipping from your water. It could be... And you'll notice this now that I've said it, if you haven't before, people do it all the time.

It's not just like them going, "Oh, I'm thirsty. All of a sudden I'm gonna drink." It is calculated, right? And the big content creators do it a lot. So that's your sort of, um, your filming. With pictures and images, um, again, like the lighting stuff is really important. Um, you know, obviously we now consume a lot in portrait mode, so f- [00:24:00] taking a lot of images in portrait Using your back camera, unless it's a selfie.

You can also use, if you've got, um, more of a later smartphone, you can use 0.5, which means it zooms out a little bit more. It'll just make everything look a little bit longer, but it's really good for, like, back camera selfies, and as I'm doing this, I'm doing, like, a selfie. Um, but it just allows you to get more into the frame as well.

And yeah, get those raw shots. Get the B-roll. You know, like, if you're working, set up your phone to, to be filming you while you're working. Um, if you've got someone that can help you out, get them to come over and film a few things of you, depending on your business, right? If you're a product-based business, you packing orders.

If you are a service-based business, can you, um, film yourself while on a Zoom meeting? So just trying to get as much B-roll and footage. So when you're at an event, do those sort of panning shots we hold for 30 seconds, and we... And they say it's called the millennial pan. But it just means holding your phone and scanning across the room to get content.

Try and fill up your [00:25:00] camera roll when you can because it, it, it is better than using stock. There is a really good stock image and video platform. I mean, Canva now is getting very AI. I don't like AI photos, and I feel like that's a whole episode that I need to do. We know when your photos have been AI'd, mocked up, even if it does look like you.

We know. Um, but I'm finding one called Jupe. I'll put it in the show notes. It's free, really good, really cool stuff, um, that looks natural, doesn't look like, you know, something from Canva that's very curated, very professional. These look really raw and organic. But just filming little things in your everyday, taking pictures.

Try and encourage you to take the selfies at the networking events, even if they're cringe or uncomfortable. Like, I have one client now who's taken the selfie to a whole new level. She is selfie-ing everyone. In every Zoom meeting she has, she screenshots it. So just trying to get into that habit of getting pictures and getting your own content because that's what's going to make it look better on your Instagram, on your [00:26:00] TikTok, on your LinkedIn, is having your own footage and visuals.

So that was a big episode with what makes good content, but at the end of the day, everybody consumes differently. Everybody thinks something is good versus others. Even the person in your own home will think something's awesome, and you might go, "Oh, that's a bit weird." So we all consume differently. So unders- the more you understand your audience, what they like, what they don't like, the easier this gets, and you can't do that if you're not creating a s- consistent plan and measuring it.

But anyway, if you have any questions about any of that, please let me know. But be a content queen or king, and remember that developing your strategy and story develops your business. Thank you so much for joining me today. Please don't forget to share this with all your business and entrepreneurial friends.

You can do this by sharing it with them. You could add it on... You could do a post about it on LinkedIn, on your Facebook. You could do an Instagram story. You could talk about it. Uh, please, please do. Please share this, uh, podcast with everybody that you know that you think will get value. And if you do leave a rate [00:27:00] and review, it means so much to me.

I'm so grateful for everybody that listens to this. I'm so grateful every time I get a message. But if you want more people to enjoy this, but also you want me to continue to create content, please leave a rate or review five stars on Spotify. You can leave a comment on the episode. You can also go over to Apple and leave five stars and a comment about the show in general.

And if you follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, all the places, email me at information@contentqueanmariah.com. Tell me what you wanna know more about. If you liked this style episode, if you like those, like, 101 tips, I can do that. I can do that for you. Tell me what you need, and I'll talk to you next week.

Bye.

PodcastMariah MacInnesmarketing, marketing advice, how to be authentic online, business ownerComment