don't borrow platform

daily blog #62

Facebook is a good place to start a blog.

It gives you instant reach to your network and their network. If you write something decent and a friend decides to share it, their friends will get to look at your stuff. The network effect is really strong.

It's a great place to build your audience. The problem is that none of this audience belongs to you.

What is that supposed to mean?

When was the last time you missed a close friend's status? When was the last time you felt like your Facebook feed is full of irrelevant stuff from meme groups and people you are not even close to? Have you ever wondered where all the cool pages you follow went?

Well, unlike Email where your content goes directly to your followers' inbox, chances are very high that your post will never reach your followers on Facebook.

Facebook thinks that a 1000-word blog post from a page with less than 1000 likes doesn't seem like a good hook (even if people actively choose to follow that page), let's put a funny meme or a film-review video there.

Facebook isn't connecting people anymore, it is connecting consumers to ads.

That's why Facebook is a borrowed platform. Followers on Facebook are also "borrowed followers". If Facebook suddenly crashes (which it did), you will forever lose these followers.

The only trustworthy connection you have with your followers is their email address. Of course, email can disappear too, so can the internet. But let's not go there, let's all panic when that day comes.

The power of an email address is that you can go directly into their inbox and scream "Hey, look at this new blog" without having to pray to the Facebook God for your content to reach 10% of your followers.

If you want to take blogging seriously, it's never too late nor too early to start building your own platform (read: website).