The Pursuit of Evergreen

Taking back ownership of my content

I wrote a post on LinkedIn recently that disappeared moments after I published it. Most people probably wouldn’t care but I have a tendency to write long-form posts, some which take up to an hour or so to write, so when this post vanished naturally I was p*ssed off. At first my anger was aimed towards LinkedIn, but I soon realised I was angry at myself.

Angry because over the past year, I’ve been writing a lot of my best work on posts that would disappear into the abyss of a social media timeline.

Angry because I’ve been saying I want to get back to creating “evergreen” content and I haven’t done anything about it!

I didn’t join a writing club for the instant gratification of some measly likes. I did it to articulate my thoughts and ideas on platforms that would get indexed by Google so my work could live on for the few (or many) that might be searching for it.

The worst part about all of this is that I’m constantly telling people to use long-form documents to structure their thoughts first and then trim down for powerpoint/slides, one pagers and emails, and not vice-versa. This advice is just as valid for sharing on social media. Write long-form work on Google Docs, Medium, Substack or a note taking app on your phone and then trim it for LinkedIn, Twitter or maybe even a YouTube video. The point is, when you’ve done the critical thinking part first, editing for the platform is easy.

Personally, I’ve learned my lesson about the consequences of renting space on someone else’s platform and I won’t be making that mistake again. I’ll still post here, but I’ll put my thoughts somewhere more permanent first. The hard part right now is figuring out where I store my content? Substack, Medium, LinkedIn Newsletter, CrapTalks, Causl or something fresh. I’m stretched a bit thin now across different products and sites. My online profile is having an identity crisis! But at the same time, I’ve already been burned by Twitter when they purchased and eventually shut down Revue, their newsletter product, and I lost all my subscribers and content.

Ultimately, I know it’s going to be a balancing act between total ownership and reach. Writing on platforms like LinkedIn, Medium and Substack provide audiences but I’m always going to be renting their space. I can only hope that they survive long enough for me to have a big enough following to migrate to my own platform. In the meantime, I’ll probably share my work everywhere and pray that Google doesn’t punish me for content duplication.

If you want to support my writing, please consider following me here or preferably on Substack: https://causl.substack.com/.

About me: Director of Analytics and Experimentation at LeanConvert . Previously Director / Head of Product Analytics and Experimentation at Hopin, Gousto, Moo and PhotoBox. Founder of CRAP Talks - A cross-discipline tech community in London/Manchester.