Change as a measure of relevance

Most social media platforms measure engagement in order to determine relevance. Basically, the more people interact with a piece of content and the more time these people spend on a piece of content, the more relevant the piece is considered to be (and also, the more profitable it turns out to be for the platform as they can show us more ads).

And it makes sense, right? Why would people interact with content if it wasn’t relevant? Well, maybe. But it misses the point.

Because why would I need you to interact with this piece of content for it to change how you act as a leader? Why would I need you to spend ten minutes on this piece when all I need to say can be said in two minutes?

Don’t get me wrong. I appreciate your thumbs up as much as anyone. And I’m grateful when you choose to spend your time with me. But it’s not why I’m doing this. I’m posting my thoughts because I hope that it will lead you to reflect upon the way you speak, act, and lead. If it actually does, you’ll hopefully come back to hear what else I have to say.

Change is a much more useful (albeit hard to measure) metric for the relevance of a piece of content than the time we spend together or the amount of interaction we exchanged. It’s the metric that I use in choosing the content that I consume.

Does it make me think? Does it open up a new perspective on something? Does it make me act differently? These are the things that matter much more than the time I spend on a piece.

(PS: So, from a social media platform algorithm point of view, my podcast is probably the worst thing you could do with each episode being only about two minutes long.)