I've been thinking about starting a newsletter.
I know, it's 2024. Not exactly the most original idea; but hear me out.
I've been posting to LinkedIn for a few months now, mostly thoughts on empathetic leadership and work-life balance, and while the short-burst posts have been helpful for my own personal growth—Ryan Holiday said his Daily Stoic and Daily Dad writings have had a similar effect on him—I've been wanting to expand a bit more on a lot of the things I write.
If you aren't familiar with it, LinkedIn's post format is unique amongst social networks. There doesn't seem to be a limit on word length, but they do only display the first few lines of content and then hide the rest under a "Read More" style link.
Because of this, LinkedIn has developed a sort of written language format that lends itself to quick-hit statements intended to inspire engagement, followed by actual content (a format often referred to as "broetry").
If you are trying to actually get your work read, it's a format you have to be mindful of. For example, here are a few of my own starters:
- "The best engineers cut corners..."
- "Performance metrics without context are pointless..."
- "You are not your impostor syndrome..."
- "Empathy is a superpower..."
Short, evocative, and (at least for me) always backed up by a thoughtful post underneath.
It's a bit formulaic, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but the post lengths are socially limited, if not physically.
Nobody wants to read a 1000 word LinkedIn post.
Nobody wants to, so nobody will.
A newsletter gives me an opportunity to create some more longform content within the same theme of empathetic leadership (a theme, mind you, that doesn't really fit well with the more personal things I post here).
I'm still working out the logistics (how often do I want to post, how long do I want each newsletter to be, how do I create synergy between the newsletter and my LinkedIn, etc.), but the idea has started to grow on me.
All of that said, though, the biggest thing I want to make sure I maintain is my personality. I'm not trying to build a following so much as creating options for my life and career (writers with an audience are more successful, layoffs are easier to weather when you have a large network, etc.), which means being authentic and true to myself has to be at the core of what I write.
While I don't intend to cross-post a ton of my professional thoughts on this blog (that would be the purview of my "look at me, I'm a professional writer" site), do say tuned. I will make sure to share updates as I continue to figure out what the hell I'm doing.
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If you like this post or one of my projects, you can buy me a coffee, or send me a note. I'd love to hear from you!
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This is post 046 of #100DaysToOffload