Rookie Numbers

Quick heads-up, I gave myself permission to be a bit less serious, polished and considered in this article, if that’s not your thing, best to skip this one.

 Last year around this time I wrote a post about the metrics behind my writing, quite brilliantly titled “Write more in 2024”. I know, my creativity and wittiness never cease to amaze me too!

 My aim was to inspire others to also start sharing their experiences, expertise and perspectives, adding their voice and ideas to our collective Change smarts.

Soon after, I noticed that quite a few people published books, started podcasts and other creative wonders, so allow me to claim half the credit for their achievement as they were probably inspired by my post. Or maybe it was just the two who told me in person. All joking aside, that’s about as cool as it gets; not one, but two people started writing because they felt I had given them the confidence to do so. That’s not how it works in my mind, but hey, free appreciation, I’ll take it!

 I gained a lot from the experience of reviewing my writings last year, including a mild case of RSI from scrolling through 130+ posts and articles and a severe case of cringe every time I spotted a typo. For those keeping score, there were 17, but that just shows how my writings are at least authentic and not AI generated… or did I instruct ChatGPT to make me look fallible and less perfect than I am? Nah, just kidding, I don’t need AI to make me look foolish, I rate my proficiency in this space as “doesn’t need any more help”.

 This is what last year's writing efforts looked like in numbers:

I find it amazing that I created all these things and that people read and use them, but to the more accomplished LinkedIn dwellers, swimming in 5-digit or even 6-digit follower bases, my problem is evident. These 2023 numbers are rookie numbers. If I want to grow my business, gain a cult-like following, become LinkedIn royalty and regain my title of Top Voice In Change Management for the 3rd time, I had to do much better. #lifegoals

I vowed to follow my own directive and write more in 2024. Let me just spoil the plot right away. I didn’t. I actually wrote less. The LinkedIn bros and bro-ettes were not impressed. A paltry 115 posts. Not even 3 times a week, while everyone knows that you need to post at least six times per day. Per day! To get anywhere close to being noticed.

 I am already very self-conscious when people tell me that I am “very active on LinkedIn”, feeling like I have to apologise for showing up in their feed to often by the sound of it. Now imagine seeing my posts 6 times per day, every day. I think I’d just stop going outside. Or when I do, wear a sign that says “I am sorry about what I did on LinkedIn today”.

Not to worry, that will never happen, I simply don’t have the digital stamina for it. I am in awe of the content schedulers and creators who can recycle, reshuffle and reinvent their content time and again, but that’s just not me.

 These are the numbers and main topics from the past year:. I couldn’t find something that rhymes with 2025 and didn’t sound like an infomercial, so you’ll have to imagine your own witty slogan for 2025 here.

The close observer would have noticed that I might have posted less than in 2023, but the average impressions went up and reactions, comments and reposts all went up too. I reckon it’s just because my network grew by some unknown number of followers to 6,670. I think I gained 800-1,000 new followers, but who really knows?! I refuse to pay LinkedIn for my own data, so it will remain a mystery. However will I manage?

What I take away from this year’s slightly shorter scroll fest:

·      I hadn’t realised that I had written 21(!) book reviews. When I checked the numbers I found it’s actually 25, because some reviews I write for CMI’s Global newsletter don’t appear on LinkedIn. That’s about 200 hours reading and reviewing time, no wonder I posted less!

·      Most of my posts were CMI-related, the ones with lots of pictures doing much better than the promos for those same events. Worth the effort in my view as our chapter membership grew by 40%. I’ll just take the credit for that too while I am at it, despite us being a committee of ten, I am sure they agree I do most of the work. Or at least do most of the talking about doing the work…

·      Third in line was promoting the work of others, or their profiles, achievements, workshops, research, initiatives or anything else I felt was in need of some extra promo. I hope that helped them, because frustratingly enough for a networking platform, promoting others doesn’t get you the impressions and reach you’d think. Worth doing all the same, because it’s the best way I know how to support the Change community.

·      I wrote about Bad Change 10x this year, which was more than I thought I had, but nowhere near enough for any serious publisher to be impressed enough to offer me a book deal. We still promote the book because the proceeds go to charity and every time I post, we sell books, so I’ll try to match the 10 posts next year once more. It seems a small thing to do to help end homelessness, despite the aversion to promoting my own work.

·      The Change Tool Kit and Change CoP Setup Guide were fun to make and very much appreciated by the community, making me think that there is an appetite for something like Better Change Academy if we play our cards right!

 To give you an idea of which posts were rated best, if impression and reactions are anything to go by, here’s my top-20:

I love the irony that the book I rated the least, ended up getting the most impressions, but fortunately Paul Gibbons’ book got double the reactions and 4x the shares, proving that there is justice in the world after all.

 I am particularly proud of the community for sharing the tool kits I created and the attention my Change articles got. Some of my change friends tell me that no one reads long form anymore, but the numbers say differently, so I’ll keep doing that in 2025.

 Another valuable lesson I learned this year is that I don’t like or do well writing for other outlets. I am happy to write book reviews, but as soon as my thinking has to go through an editing process and align with what others consider a good or well-structured read, nothing good comes of it. Tried it five times this year, none of it worked.

I haven’t put my finger on it quite yet, but it feels restrictive and like I don’t measure up intellectually and professionally. One of my worst professional traits is that I deeply dislike people ‘touching my words’, being too wedded to my content once it’s written. I always seem to land on the side of: “If you didn’t like what I wrote, write something about it yourself then”, but apparently clients feel that if they pay they get a say. Perhaps I should explain my creative process again?

Yeah, I know I sound like a 4-year old who didn’t get the memo about feedback being a gift, but I was also taught that you don’t have to accept every gift people offer you.

I feel like I have learned so much this year from reading, podcasts and conversations with people I look up to, about how much I still have to learn as a writer. The best way I know how to learn more, is to keep writing and keep half an eye on the numbers to get a sense of what works for others.

I hope you made it all the way to the end and that this (more than usual) rambling write up has inspired you to also start writing about Change Management and all its wonderful side-streets, quirks and challenges.

I promise I’ll read it if you do.

 Happy holidays, see you back here in the new year!