07/01/2025
“Impressions aren’t the metric. Impact is.” - Steve Bartlett - Spot on! 👆🏻🙏🏻
THIS WAS NOT WRITTEN BY CHATGPT....chasing LinkedIn impressions is probably about to ruin your personal brand & brand marketing
I spend a lot of time thinking about the next big content/marketing shift
It’s the most important question in marketing - always
Being early brings real rewards.
In 2015, I started creating social content as a CEO (back when it was weird).
It turned out to be early and well-timed.
✅ The first principles that inspired this:
📱 Smartphones gave us a film crew in our pocket
🤳🏾 Social media gave us a TV channel
💁🏽♂️ People will always buy from people
In 2017, I launched a podcast - fairly early, good timing.
✅ Inspired by:
🎧 Tech made audio easy - earbuds, Spotify podcasts, YouTube, smart speakers, CarPlay, cheap data
⏱️ Behaviour shifted - people chose long-form audio, ad $$$ followed, creators responded with more & better content
🧠 Everyone chased short & viral - which created a gap for deeper, human storytelling
✅ So what’s next?
🤖 AI is eating the production process - content is now faster, cheaper, easier.
That makes it dangerously tempting to churn out generic, shallow content for easy “impressions” - and we’re all a bit lazy by nature.
BUT... chasing impressions will mess you up long term
It's an addictive drug that will lead you astray
It pulls you from your message into cliché, fluff, and forgettable
I have been guilty of this
I used to make 2-min Facebook viral videos that did tens of millions of views
They were pretty embarrassing if I'm honest
I delivered more impact when I started reading my diary for an hour to 1,000 podcast listeners
That’s when I learned: Impressions aren’t the metric. Impact is
The problem is platforms can’t measure that
So it takes first-principle thinking, a long-term view and faith.
🧠 People are lonelier than ever. They don’t want more content - they want more connection.
In a world drowning in clips and bots, the rarest thing is realness - a voice that feels like it’s speaking TO you, WITH you, not AT you.
My feed actually feels lonelier because I don’t feel like I’m talking to humans anymore.
☠️ The “Follower” is dead. Algorithms have copied TikTok, they now care about watch time and engagement, not followers.
If you can’t reach your audience directly (email, SMS, post) - they’re not really your audience.
📈 There are now 30+ platforms with 100M+ users. Audiences are splintered.
So my 2025 strategy is simple: Long, Live, IRL and Owned.
✅ LONG: Share real life. Depth > polish. 2x more time in the comments connecting.
✅ LIVE: Go live more often (Twitter Spaces, LinkedIn Live, IG Live, Twitch, YouTube Live)
✅ IRL: Meet people (events, coffee chats, run clubs etc)
✅ OWNED: Build your email list (ConvertKit, Substack). Create private digital spaces (Discord, Circle, Slack etc)
This is the time to stop broadcasting and to start connecting!
What have I missed? let me know what you're thinking / feeling and if there's anything you agree with here
