For years I’ve been repeating the same mantra to clients and anyone who will listen:
You don’t control Facebook, Instagram, Medium, LinkedIn or any other third-party site.
Or how their algorithms decide who sees your content.
Own your content. Publish on your own website.
You control your content, when it’s on your own website.
I know people and organizations use Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, or Medium to publish their content and photos, thinking it will increase readership and encourage interaction.
And in many cases, it does.
However, Medium (and other third-party sites) is best used for syndication.
And redirecting your readers to your website.
How I Learned (the Hard Way, Twice) to Own My Content
Like many people, I’m drawn to new publishing platforms.
After publishing content on multiple platforms that shut down, I learned the hard way what it’s like to become dependent on platforms I can’t control.
I love to try out new apps and platforms, especially when their appealing features draw me in.
That’s how I first started using Posterous, in 2008.
A publishing platform that allowed you to email your post, Posterous made it quick for me to capture and publish my thoughts.
Without worrying about formatting or learning platform-specific steps for publishing.
When Posterous was bought by Twitter and eventually closed down in 2013, I scrambled to learn how to export my content (hundreds of posts) and import into another platform (WordPress).
You would think I would have learned from that experience, right?
No.
When Storify launched in 2011, I jumped into the new platform.
You could combine text with photos and social media posts to create a timeline.
What a great way to capture content from conferences, meetups, or webinars!
It all worked well.
Until Storify closed down.
Again, I was trying to learn how to migrate my Storify content to another platform.
Or risk losing it forever. (If only I knew about Authory before Storify closed down.)
After publishing content on platforms that shut down, I learned my lesson:
Always publish content on your own website. Syndicate to other platforms.
What Facebook’s Outage Taught Us
This week’s Facebook outage made it clear how much people around the world rely on Facebook and its family of apps.
For many Americans, the Facebook outage impacted their business and the products and services they sell.
It was inconvenient to Americans to have Facebook down, since it’s used for logging in to websites, apps, and web-connected products.
Instagram is used by many small businesses to reach out to current and prospective customers.
For other people around the world, especially those who live in Asia, Africa, and South America, Facebook is the Internet.
When it went down, they lost their only free connection to talk with friends and families on Facebook and WhatsApp.
Businesses in Asia, Africa, and South America relying on WhatsApp to message their employees and customers were left scrambling.
For anyone that depended on Facebook and its apps, the Facebook outage meant they couldn’t connect to the Internet.
Many lost the ability to sell their products and communicate with customers.
For almost six hours, people turned to other platforms to complain and comment. Or used the phone or SMS to interact with others.
Finally, Facebook announced it was back up. Slowly, people returned to Facebook and its apps.
What did we learn?
Relying on Facebook and their apps puts you at risk.
When Facebook goes down:
- You can’t publish your content on their apps
- Your readers and customers can’t find you or your content
- You disappear off the Internet if all you have is a Facebook page. Or an Instagram or WhatsApp presence.
What option do you have?
My recommendation: publish on your own website.
Wrapping Up
Own your content. Your own website is the best place to publish your content and build relationships with your audience.
When you depend on a third-party platform to publish your content, you don’t really own your content. The platform is only a distribution channel for your posts.
If you need help creating a website, contact me.
