Being Consistent vs. Pivoting
I don't know if you noticed, but I skipped my weekly update email last week. I was mulling over a question that had been bothering me for a while, and found it hard to find the focus needed to write.
It's been almost 3 months since I've started writing this newsletter (starting with this one). The question I'd started asking was whether I was doing the right things to build and grow Ops Hacks.
You see, I've been spending A LOT of time writing content for Ops Hacks. Each blog post takes anywhere between a day or two to write - starting with research, a lot of writing and deleting and starting over in the middle, and ending with proof-reading and cross-posting to social media channels. It's a long process.
But the truth is, I wasn't seeing the ROI on the time invested. I was hoping for some organic site visits by writing content that was relevant to ops folks, but the numbers weren't looking great...
I got 148 impressions and 27 clicks from Google search over the past 3ish weeks:
Now, I know that SEO is a marathon not a sprint and the numbers would improve if I kept at it.
But compare the chart above to the impressions I get from posting on LinkedIn:
Google: 148 impressions across a dozen posts
vs. LinkedIn: 2,960 views on one post
A pivot in growth strategy
If being in ops has taught me anything, it's that you have to really optimize your resource allocation.
Being a solopreneur, my most valuable resource is time and I wasn't allocating it very well. Yet, I'd spend a couple days writing a post and feel a false sense of productivity and accomplishment.
So I've decided to put creating long-form content on the back burner for the time being. It doesn't mean that I won't be creating any content on the Ops Hacks blog, but it won't be every week. And when I do create blog posts, it will be based on more through research on what keywords convert vs. what I want to write about.
I'm going to go all-in on LinkedIn for the next little while. I'm committing to posting content every weekday and connecting with other ops people. By consistently creating relevant content and providing value and building an efficient conversion funnel between LinkedIn and Ops Hacks, I hope to grow membership to the community.
So what does that mean for you?
You'll still get weekly updates - some will be build-in-public updates and some will be ops-relevant content. You'll see less blog posts and more content on my and Ops Hacks' LinkedIn pages.
Lesson learned
Here's the lesson I'm taking away from this experience and my views on being consistent:
Consistency is key when you're creating something from scratch. You need to show up and put in a shift everyday, because no one else will do that for you.
But apply that consistency to your effort, and not necessarily what you put the effort towards. Be consistent in trying, but be flexible in trying out different things when you're not seeing traction.
I'm feeling excited to go in this slightly new direction and see what happens. I'll continue to share updates as I try things, make mistakes, learn, and iterate.
As always, please reply to this email with your thoughts. I make sure to read and respond to every email.
Thanks and see you next week.
Joe