I began posting to my own site in earnest on March 6th of this year. I wrote:
So, starting tonight that is what I’m going to try again to do with a goal of sticking with it in perpetuity. This doesn’t mean that I won’t be posting to Twitter or Facebook or Instagram, but that everything that I post there will originate here on my site. I may still craft those messages manually (since each network is so nuanced) but like Jeremy and Manton I will have to figure that out as I go too.
More or less this is what has happened over the last three months. It has been fantastic.
I’ve redesigned my site, added a few new post formats (more on that here), and have published a slew of status updates, photos, blog posts, and even a few audio bits — which I hope to do more of. I’ve switched platforms, tweaked my settings to no end, and tried a menagerie of plugins to get the site working as I would like.
I’m far from finished and perhaps I never will be. I feel like personal web sites change as often as people do. I’ve had some sort of online presence since the mid-90s and I’ve been tweaking and adjusting everything ever since.
As I wrote above, I have ended up sharing to each network in different ways. I do not publish here and syndicate everywhere. It isn’t all or nothing for me. It is a mixed bag. I find the nuances between the services too numerous to be able to do so. Others do a far better job. So, I reply to tweets directly on Twitter, I post things to Instagram that I do not post elsewhere (and I’m OK with that, even if it all goes away some day) and I post photos to my site that may or may not end up on Instagram or Twitter or Facebook, and I pick and choose which status updates end up being syndicated as well. It’s a bit of a mess but it is my mess.
But there is one important rule I have… anything that I want to live forever lives here.
I’m beginning to think of these networks as microphones with giant logos on them. Imagine someone giving a speech and there being a microphone for each news network in front of them. My blog is the lectern and the microphones are for Twitter and Facebook. When I want to speak into both microphones I do, when I want to speak into one I do, and when I don’t want to speak to either of them I cover them with my hand. Instagram is at a different lectern altogether because I want it to be. When I want to say something there I walk over to it.
This approach is working for me. I think one of the biggest drawbacks to only publishing on these platforms is that at any moment it can all go up in flames and you’ll have no way to recover your data or your audience (if that is important to you). By publishing the things I want to live on to my site I have control over that. For the stuff I decide to post directly to those networks I do so knowing it can (and likely will) disappear. I have peace-of-mind knowing I have a copy for myself.
I’ve mentioned before that I enjoy the fact that I’m treating Twitter so differently. That I’m sharing things that I typically wouldn’t have (example). And that I’m publishing longer posts as well.
I love my web site!