Go ahead, make some content someone could hate

This is not about ragebait (please, no more ragebait).

This IS about content that is too good.

When I’m helping brands figure out what kind of content to create, I like to lean on an idea Priya Parker calls “generous exclusion.”

If you’re not familiar with Priya Parker, she wrote the very popular (and great read), The Art of Gathering, and is a facilitator, speaker, author, etc. focused on helping people gather well, have sustained dialogues, and connect better.

Which makes it all the more interesting that she is such a big proponent of generous exclusion.

Generous exclusion: “the intentional drawing of a temporary line for the good of the guests and to help activate and fulfill a gathering’s purpose.” (her words)

Basically: if you want to decide who your gathering is for, you also have to decide who is it not for. And if you hold that line, it actually benefits your guests more and creates a more purposeful and effective gathering… because it’s been designed specifically for those people.

Back to the point:

Good content is also a kind of gathering.

Content — any kind of show, writing, art, online content, YouTube channel, what-have-you — says “hey, come here, look at this thing!”

And good content tends to gather a little group of people around it and says “hey, this thing was made for people like you.”

We almost always talk about who our content is for. But rarely (if ever?) do I hear teams talk about who their content is not for. The problem is that if we don’t decide who our content is not for, we can’t serve well the people who our content is for.

• If our email newsletter is for people who already use our product… but we don’t want to exclude people who don’t… then our email newsletter isn’t really for our product users. It just becomes a bland mashup of whatever feels relevant to our product that week.
• If our blog content is for experienced HR professionals… but also kind of for any HR professional… and their bosses, and their bosses boss, maybe, if they forward it to him, and the CFO, since they might make decisions too… then the blog isn’t really for HR professionals. It’s for SEO.

When we forget to practice generous exclusion with our content (and content strategies), we end up making bland, haphazard, or surface-level content that tries to be everywhere at once, doing everything for everyone who might be kinda maybe interested.

Instead, we could decide exactly who our content is and isn’t for, and serve that one group really, really well. It’s okay if some people think our content is too boring, or too high-level, or too in-the-weeds, or whatever — because those people that our content is for will be really, really grateful.

So go ahead, make something that someone could hate. 

Because if your content can’t really be hated (or at least disliked) by anyone… it’s probably not really enjoyed by anyone, either 🙃