If you love to write, and do so on a regular basis, it seems peculiar that you would eschew hosting your own content in favor of dumping all of your stuff into social networks. Social networking sites do give you the ability to share ideas, activities, events, and interests within your personal networks.
I use social networks, more than most, and I have seen an increasing trend of people using it as a blogging platform. So, is that a good or bad thing? Keep reading.
I admit to not being a huge Google+ user but the time I have spent there has revealed the same issues found on Facebook: blogging via social networks.
I see the appeal in it, you get real-time commenting and a high level of engagement. That being said, there’s no reason why you can’t make changes to your own blog with Disqus commenting to get the same kind of features and results. There is almost always an alternative.
The money argument.
Hosting your own content can cost you money, but when you look at the benefits you should consider it over all others. First – owning your own content. With social networking platforms you’re giving away your valuable content to a service that will analyze your data to create targeted ads. Now there have been many advances to user privacy but why even bother in the first place?
If you can’t afford even basic hosting for say Squarespace or WordPress, you can run your own statically generated site using something like Jekyll, and host it on Amazon S3 for pennies.
Of course Facebook is a vital part of my online life, but the only place where I’ll even think of sharing my lengthy thoughts are on my own site — which I manage, control and curate.
I’m sure many of you reading my site are probably running your own sites, but if you are thinking of starting your own blog, please host your own content. Keep the pithy comments and sharing of your sites posts for disposable social networking sites.