🤳What is "Content Quality" on Social Media?

Why our content isn't working — and what ‘quality’ really means in 2025?

Mar 30, 2025

👋 Hola! Welcome to Out of Singapore.
This is Shan, and I’m building Xandro Lab, a longevity science brand.
In this weekly newsletter, I share my raw, unfiltered experiences of building businesses, navigating challenges, and testing marketing and business strategies.

One of the things I say almost every day — whether it’s in a creator meeting, a social media review, or while scrolling Instagram — is:

👉 "This content quality is bad."

My team often asks — What does that even mean? Can you give us examples? What’s your inspiration for good quality content?

Is it about 4K cameras? Fancy editing?
A trending sound? A viral meme?
Professional voiceover? Celebrity actors? Authority figures?

After two years of building a health & wellness business, creating content almost daily, and collaborating with creators — I’ve realised:
Content quality is not one thing. It's a messy, evolving mix of many things.

And unless you understand what’s broken, you can’t fix it.

Here’s a simple, no-nonsense breakdown of what "content quality" really means.

🚀 1. Technical Quality — The Surface Layer

a man is looking through a camera with rd btc written on it

This is what most people assume when they hear "content quality":

Good lighting, colour, framing
Smooth editing & transitions
4K, 8K resolution
Storyboarding & scripting

Yes, this helps.
But technical quality alone doesn’t guarantee good content.
Some of the best-performing content today is shot on phones, in low light, by amateurs.

📖 2. What’s the Outcome? The Takeaway?

A big part of content quality is: What’s in it for the audience?
Is there an outcome, a message, a learning, or even a laugh?

Ask yourself:

Why should someone watch this?
What will they take away after watching it?
Will they feel informed, entertained, inspired, or understood?

A beautiful video without a clear takeaway is like an empty gift box — looks good, but there’s nothing inside.

The takeaway has to be simple and crisp.
If it’s a long-winded, complicated thing — you’ve already lost your audience.

For example: ✅ Does magnesium glycinate relieve stress? (Answer is yes, and here are the 3 reasons. That’s it. Simple and clear.)
❌ Why is magnesium glycinate so good? (Bad takeaway. No focus. You’ll end up listing everything and lose the audience.)

Good content always gives something back — one clear message.
It could be value, knowledge, entertainment, or even just a smile.

🎬 3. Storytelling — How You’re Saying It

Even with a clear message or outcome, how you tell the story makes all the difference.
We’ve struggled in this segment. Here’s what I’ve learned (always the hard way) while building our brand:

🚀 The first 3 seconds decide everything

People scroll fast.
If your content doesn’t hook them in the first 3 seconds, they’ve already moved on.

What works:

Curiosity hook → "Nobody tells you this about supplements…"
Something unexpected → Someone falls off a chair or gets smacked in the face
Relatable question → "Have you ever wondered why your workout isn’t working?"

What doesn’t work:

Long intros
Slow build-up
Too much branding upfront

🎯 Keep it simple, relatable, and clear

Good storytelling = clarity + relatability.
I’ve seen our content perform better when:

We keep the message simple
Use real-life examples
Speak in the language of our audience

🔥 Use proven storytelling formats

These structures almost always work:

Problem → Solution → Call to Action
Before → After → How we got here
Myth → Truth → Takeaway
Hook → Value → Surprise → CTA

We started applying these formats systematically last year — and immediately saw improvements in watch time and shares.

🌏 4. Localisation — Is It For Your Audience?

This is one of the most ignored pieces.

a man in a red shirt is dancing in front of a sign that says punggol

Is your content relevant to your audience?
Will they get it? Feel connected?

A Singapore-specific joke may flop in Dubai.
A Gen Z meme may confuse a 50-year-old audience.

Here’s how you can localise content:

Accent & Language: Use local slang, accents, phrases.
People: Are the actors or faces local? Are they your employees or creators from the community?
Places: Include local buildings, cafes, parks, malls, areas your audience knows.
Cultural references: Mention events, seasons, habits like CNY, Hari Raya, a Black Pink concert, or MRT behaviour memes.
Local problems: Talk about things like cost of living, health concerns of seniors, gym culture, CPF, run clubs, etc.

We stay updated with local viral sounds, hashtags, news, and use them in our content.
What’s trending in the US is not always trending in Singapore or Jakarta.

Localisation = Relevance = Quality.
Good content feels like it was made for you.

📊 5. Performance Metrics — The Audience is the Judge

No matter how good your content looks — if no one is watching, clicking, or sharing… is it really quality?

Look at your numbers:

🟢 Thumbstop ratio — Are people stopping to watch?
🟢 Watch time — Are they staying till the end?
🟢 Click-through rate — Are they interested?
🟢 Shares & comments — Are they reacting?
🟢 Saves — Do they find it valuable?

The audience decides what’s "quality."

On this, I am personally struggling to find a good, easy-to-use social media analytics system to measure content performance properly.
More on this some other time.

💰 6. Final Goal — Does It Move the Business?

For brand content, the ultimate definition of quality is simple:

Did it do what you wanted?

Bring traffic? (I don’t like this metric — vanity)
Get you followers? (okay-ish)
Build trust? (good metric)
Get prospective customer leads? (good metric)
Drive sales or paid event sign-ups? (best metric)

If not — no amount of fancy editing matters.

Of course, some people just want to be famous with more followers.
I’ll repeat this again — vanity metrics are useless. Quite stupid, in my opinion.

🔄 7. Quality is Dynamic — And That’s The Hardest Part

Here’s one of the biggest lessons I’ve learned in two years of daily grind:

There is no fixed definition of content quality.

Some days, low-quality phone-shot videos perform the best.
Other days, high-production aesthetic reels win.

And as your brand or creator profile grows, the definition of quality itself starts to shift.

👉 When you’re starting out, niche, localised content — specific to your city, culture, or community — tends to work well.
It feels personal, relatable, and close to home.

But as you try to reach new audiences and scale globally, the content quality bar changes.
You’ll need to make your content more universal, polished, and relevant for a wider, more diverse audience.

We are now on this journey to make more global content.

Trends change. Platforms evolve. Algorithms shift.
What worked yesterday may flop tomorrow.

👇 Your Turn — What’s Your Take?

I’d love to hear what you’ve observed about content quality in your space.

💬 What’s working for you right now?
💬 What do you think "quality" even means today?

Drop a comment or DM me — I learn more from real conversations than any "expert" on LinkedIn.

Also — we’re hiring.
If you love content, storytelling, brand building, and want to help us grow and take this business global — reach out.

Thank You for Reading 😍

If you made it till here — thank you for reading.
I hope this gave you a fresh, practical perspective on what "content quality" actually means (and what it doesn’t).

If you found this post useful, do me a favour: Like it, share it with your friends, or forward it to someone who’s building content or a brand.

Also — I’d love to know what you want me to write about next.
Send me your suggestions, questions, or any topics you'd like me to cover in future posts.

Note: You might have noticed more polished and formatted writings from me in past few weeks. I have been using ChatGPT to work on my draft ideas and format versions. I don’t like the polished version entirely. However, maybe more users prefer crisper and more formatted version? Maybe.

I would also like to add more personal stories.

At the moment, it has helped me write faster. I can churn out a blog in 2-3 hours time from the usual 5-6 hours. There is less time spent wondering - I put down all my thoughts in rough format and then write with ChatGPT. Maybe I should have started doing this earlier!

Jisoo’s first EP - Amortage

Here are the two songs from Jisoo’s first EP (extended play - not a full album). They didn’t resonate with me - let me know you if liked them?

That’s it for this week.

Thanks a lot for reading again! Have a safe and relaxed week ahead 🥛🥛🥛🥛🥛