What makes content truly great

By: Sorab Ghaswalla

As a content provider, and as a digital marketer, I`ve been asked this question quite often, “Can you create great content for us?” I have to dig deep within to stop myself from screaming in response, “There`s nothing called great content”.

Seriously. If you could show me the one definition of great content, I will show you the Holy Grail.

I shall explain in one sentence - it`s people who make a piece of content great, not the creator.

Think about it. The word “viral” in the world we live in today is used to describe content that has been appreciated by a large number of people/end-users. A movie, an advertisement, a 2-minute video, a social media post, a news report, a blog post, a painting, a recipe…..what makes it stand out from the rest? Why is it liked, shared, commented on by a large number of the populace? Why was it amplified? Because that piece of content stirred emotions or touched a logical chord in those many human beings.

There`s poorly crafted content, and there`s content well-done. But I repeat, content is not great at birth. It`s people who take it and make it “great” because of its value or use. Sometimes, even deficient content becomes extraordinary, thanks to people`s vote; the unfinished Mona Lisa with her missing eyebrows is a case in point.

Content has come to represent a whole lot of things in our lives today. It`s the flyer you get as snail mail or in your Inbox, it`s somebody`s post on a social network, it`s that ad for multi-colored socks on YouTube or Vimeo, it`s even the “story” that a cola company “sells” you to make you buy a bottle, or the spiel that an “influencer” pitches.

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