Building your own blog vs. creating content on social media
I have read in a book that was about online writing that most probably you shouldn’t start a blog. Most probably you should start creating content on social media instead.
Why? Because that’s where people are. If you are writing on social media, you’ll naturally build a followership, whereas if you are building a blog, you’ll have to market it if you want to have traffic.
I guess that’s true. However, I believe blogs have their purposes too.
Why build your own blog?
A blog truly belongs to you. You own the domain, you own the design, you own the code. You have complete control. Which presents some opportunities.
First, you can change the content anytime you want any way you want. Which is very convenient when you’d like to make a slight career shift, apply for a new position or simply try something new.
People change. You change. If you have your own blog that can change too.
Second, there are no sounds. No paywalls, no related content, no pop-up modals. On your own blog you can truly present yourself the way you want.
A blog can be a completely individualized online representation of you. It’s a portfolio. Its purpose is not to build followership. It’s a name card for the internet.
However, whether we love it or hate it, social media has its benefits too.
Why create on social media?
Even if you are not aiming at building an audience, I believe there is a major benefit when creating content on social media, which is: feedback.
(For the record: obvously much depends on the content and when done wrong, posting on social media can have negative consequences. This article is about comparing posting work / profession / hobby related content on a blog vs. social media, like Medium or Quora)
There are numerous benefits to receiving feedback. It can serve as a reality check, encouragement and it can generate discussions and trains of thoughts.
Worst case scenario: strangers on the internet are going to tell you you are wrong. Best case scenario: you meet your wife (yeah, it happened to one of my friends).
Here’s a crazy idea: why not both?
The good news is that you don’t have to choose. You can build your own blog with your focused content AND write on social media about whatever. The two won’t inflate each other.
Here’s another one: you don’t have to maintain two mutually exclusive mediums of articles separately from each other. Content can be cross-posted because most platforms permit it. With this approach you’ll get the best from both worlds: you’ll receive feedback and might connect to people through social, but also include your content in your online focused portfolio.
