I really only need two places on the internet. A home base (personal website) where all the important stuff is. And a broadcast channel (something like social media) to tell people about the stuff on home base.
The home base is straightforward. Set up a simple website or a blog and boom, you’re done.
The broadcast channel is tricky for a few reasons.
- The broadcast channel needs to reach people you want to connect with. This includes people you know and people you don’t know but have common interests with. So you need to choose a broadcast channel where your people are.
- But also, the broadcast channel needs to work for you. The type of content you want to post should fit on the platform you choose. And the platform should be easy for you to use.
- The broadcast channel cannot become a distraction. It needs to be a place to tell people about your work and to find out about other people’s work. Not a place you waste time.
Social media makes #3 difficult because social media platforms are designed for you to check in often and spend lots of time there. A broadcast channel that becomes a time sink (because you get sucked into watching videos or doomscrolling) works against you.
Twitter was a good broadcast channel a decade ago. It was easy to make a quick text post about whatever you were working on. It was easy to follow topics you were interested in and gather a lot of updates quickly.
But Twitter isn’t like that anymore for a lot of people (including me).
So…what now?
I don’t have a solution. I’m going to keep trying to find a broadcast channel that works for me.
Probably, we are in a stage of the internet where you need more than one broadcast channel. We are splintered into different places. Because, for example, some people will be on Instagram and some will be on Facebook (but not both). Maybe there’s a small segment on Tumblr, and they never see what you post anywhere else. Maybe you have a newsletter, but that limits someone new discovering your work.
I don’t think current social media platforms and newsletters do the job of a broadcast channel. I think it needs to be something a little different. Something that isn’t so isolated online.