Earlier this week I ran an experiment by sharing what I did to improve my 5km/parkrun personal best, both here in the form of a blog and on Twitter as a thread and was surprised by the result.
I’d seen lots of people’s new year’s goals included running, so I thought I’d share what I did to run my best, and to see 718 views on Substack vs 37,000 on Twitter for basically the same content (presented differently) was interesting.
I started writing this blog as an open journal to organise my thoughts and to improve my communicating, but as I approach the 3-year mark of writing publicly, I’m thinking about where to take it next.
Where do I write? Substack or Twitter? Or both?
What do I write about? Rugby? Alfred? Mental Health?
Do I turn on paid subscriptions so I can generate some revenue which will enable me to write more?
These are all questions circling inside my head, and while I didn’t start writing for the views, getting my message out there to help people who are struggling how I was, is now why I keep this up.
I want people to know they can beat depression. I want people to know they can lose weight and enjoy their food at the same time. I want athletes to know the retirement is tough, but many struggles can be avoided. I want to write more about the game I love and help rebuild the love of Rugby Union that has died in this country.
One thing’s for sure is that I won’t run out of things to write about, as I’ve got dozens of nearly completed blogs and over 50 ideas on things I want to write about.
But where, what, and in what order do I write?
Please help.
I was also going to suggest link sharing to Twitter. Ultimately, it's your space to do as you wish and should be for your benefit. The fact that it can help others is a positive but not necessarily a guarantee. I enjoy reading your posts, and would be very interested in your ideas on how to revive rugby union.
You haven't been on Substack for very long, so I'm not sure that metric comparison works. If you consider the shelf-life and engagement value of tweets vs long form it may help you work out the return on effort for each. Personally, I'd be using Substack for the legacy archive and Twitter to direct people to it.