Many moons ago, mine was an active website. I’d publish new content regularly, talking about whatever I was doing or thinking about. I started doing this before it became widely known as blogging. Back then, it was just us nerds doing it. My first content management system was Notepad and a shareware FTP client, and I proudly wrote my html 4 with CSS styling – zero tables, baby! It was considered borderline reckless at the time.
Along the way, tools were upgraded and it became easier to focus on the content itself. Things were humming along – but then I just sort of stopped posting. What happened?
Social media came along, and eventually all my content ended up there. Spread out on every platform under the sun – because I’m curious and want to try everything. Though my initial plan was to use social as a way to amplify my content – the old hub and spoke approach – I started slipping.
I lost focus and ended up convincing myself that posting content to my own site was pointless. “No one is going to read it”, I told myself. “Skip the post and just do a thread on Twitter? Saves me some effort, and no one has to leave their social media app.” Seems like an easy win, right?
So, I have decided to go back to hosting my own content, reviving my personal site as the main platform – and all the other channels once again become more like spokes in a wheel, pointing back to the center. Like the original plan.
Of course, this move was partially inspired by the recent developments on Twitter, which reminded me that I have no control over all the content I have shared there, over the course of more than a decade and a half. That’s a lot of content.
Don’t get me wrong, I haven’t suddenly turned into a social media hater. Social media is great for silly memes and networking, it really is. Direct conversation with peers, idols and opponents alike can lead to all sorts of opportunity. Like any tool, it comes down to using it right, and I was being lazy.
So, welcome (back) to my personal site and the renewed commitment to taking control of my content. If you want to stay up to date, there’s an email box nearby – and of course, you can find me on Instagram, Twitter and Mastodon, too. I hope to see you around.
Header image: created using Midjourney and combining a few prompts around the theme of taking back content and archival.
Definitely the best strategy. Have you downloaded your Twitter data yet? I’ll be using this plugin to drag it all into my blog and then I’ll display it somehow.
https://github.com/shawnhooper/twitter-archive-to-wp
Good point on the Twitter data. I did request mine, but haven’t downloaded it yet. Oops.
Rasmus, taking back your content is, I think, a great direction for anyone, and especially for someone as creative as you.
I recommend taking a look at indieweb.org, and the plugins for WordPress that supports syndicating your content, from your site, to social media platforms (I think there’s one simply called Indieweb). And then, take a look at brid.gy, which allows you to pull back interactions with your self-owned syndicated content on social media platforms, and add it to your own site.