Reclaiming Your Digital Space: Why Independent Creators Need Their Own Corner of the Internet

What happens when the algorithm changes overnight and your digital content just poofs out of existence? The answer might be simpler than you think. And it starts with you taking over your digital landscape.

The Problem with Renting Your Digital Space

Most of the time people present themselves to their audience by posting on Facebook, Instagram, Blue Sky, or Twitter, thinking their content lives there forever. Wrong. You're posting to a place that is not your own. You don't control what happens to your content once you hit send or enter or OK. It basically lives on a rented or leased space that you have no absolute control over. It's at the whims of a large corporation or a billionaire that can really care less what happens to your content or to you at all.

Let's take Substack as an example. When you look at the URL, it's substack.com slash whatever name you set your account up with. The issue is that when people think of "I'm going to podcast XYZ," they're looking at it and thinking, "Oh, it's on Substack." They're not thinking, "I'm going to podcast XYZ's website dot com." So already you're at a disadvantage when people are associating you or your content with Substack rather than your own brand.

It's Not Your House, It's Just an Apartment

I'm not saying that Substack or Medium or Patreon aren't good places. What I'm saying is that they're places you don't have control over. It's not podcast xyz.com. It's not your home. It's just an apartment. It's an apartment that you're renting month to month or you got a six month lease on. People don't say, "Oh, we're going to your house." No, you're going to your apartment. And in six months, the management company might say, "Yeah, we're kicking you out because we're turning all these apartments into condos. Find another place to live. Sorry."

Again, it's the mind share issue. When people think of your digital home, in the case of Patreon, it's patreon.com slash whatever your name is. People are not looking at your house. It's just an apartment.

I know a lot of people get caught up and say, "Well, it's free. It's a place. I don't have to pay for server costs. I don't have to pay someone to take over and do the admin side of things." I understand that and I get it. Believe me, I do. But you need to take care of your digital space because that's pretty much all you really have. Your name is who you are as a brand, as a content creator, as a podcaster, an artist, an author, whatever.

The Professional Appearance Factor

Let's take a step back in time. Back in the day, all we really had was websites and email. We didn't have any social networks. I'm talking like the days before Facebook or even MySpace. There were people setting up accounts on AOL.com.

Fast forward a decade. When you look at someone's business card and they hand it to you and you see their email is their name at AOL.com, what goes into your mind? Either this person is really old and part of the boomer generation, or they're stuck on AOL, or they're probably still paying for AOL when they shouldn't be. The thing is, it's not a professional look when you have an AOL.com or Gmail.com email address on your business cards when you're trying to promote your business.

The same thing applies to your blog or website. Say with Substack. Yes, I understand Substack gives you a space. It's kind of like a social network for blogs. It gives you a place to help advertise your content. But at what cost? Yes, it's free, but you don't really own your home.

The Distribution Dilemma

Some people will say, "Well, Substack gives you all of this distribution network to help get your site seen by many other people." They offer podcast hosting and they're starting to get into short form video content too, because everybody's got to do that. But at what cost to your brand? When people think of your blog, the first thing they're going to say is, "Oh yeah, I saw your blog post on Substack." They're not going to say, "Oh yeah, I read your blog post on your website."

It's kind of a catch 22. There are thousands or hundreds of thousands or even millions of users on Substack who are happy with this, and you know what? That's perfectly fine. I'm not here to say using one platform over creating your own website is something you should be ashamed of. It's something you should take care of if you're very serious about your brand and creating content.

The Video Exception

For video content creators, you're either on YouTube or you host it yourself through PeerTube or Vimeo. There really isn't any other way that's low cost, because video is expensive to host. If you don't have infrastructure set up for video hosting, you're looking at thousands of dollars per month. If you have a large following or one or two videos go viral with several million views, your server cost is going to go right through the roof.

In that case, having your stuff on YouTube is an exception, because believe me when I say video hosting is very expensive.

When Platforms Make Sense

Using Substack and Medium is probably a good idea if you're just starting out your content creation and you're looking for a place and you don't have the technical know-how to create websites or blog posts. If you're listening and saying, "I have no idea what you mean by Docker containers or self-hosting a Ghost blog site," then these platforms make sense for beginners.

I want to preface this: I'm not knocking these platforms or the people who use them successfully. I'm just giving insight into what I believe and many other people believe is that if you want to build your brand, going this route is probably not the best in the long run.

The Brand Perception Issue

Your decision on creating your brand for your business requires considering how your content, clients, and viewership perceives what you make or what you want to present to the world. By using certain platforms, you have to take that into consideration.

I know there's a guy called Mike Elgin who's been in the tech space for many decades. He gave a passionate speech on why he creates his blog on Substack. He understands what some people perceive Substack as, but in his case, he hasn't seen any of those issues. We can argue that just by using the Internet, you're essentially platforming various ideologies as well. Are you going to stop using the Internet and live in a shack in Montana?

You kind of have to weigh the pros and cons really.

The Solution: Own Your Digital Real Estate

If you want to take your brand to the next level, create a domain and find a domain for your brand name. Set up your website. That's the meat and potatoes of what I'm trying to say here. If you create your website, create the content on your website, then share that content out to Blue Sky or Twitter or Facebook or wherever else to lead back to your website, that's a much better experience for yourself, your content, and eventually your members or viewers.

You can still utilize Substack if you want to have a newsletter. You can use Medium, Beehive, Ghost, Fourth Wall, or ConvertKit for creating your newsletter to send out emails once a week or once a month. But it's important to have that domain, not just for a home for your content, but for your emails too.

The Email Address Story

It's more professional to have your name at whatever.com instead of AOL.com or Gmail.com. I have a story from my line of work where we deal with firms on different projects. One person who works at a multimillion dollar firm gave us a professional email with Gmail.com. I'm sitting there like, "That's so unprofessional." You're working in this professional environment and you're giving someone a Gmail.com address.

I know some of you will probably say, "What's wrong with that? It's just an email account." But in certain aspects of corporate life, you don't want to show that by using a free account, it gives the air of laziness and that you don't really care about your work.

Having Josh at Nvidia.com or Josh at Riverside.com with the company name as the domain gives so much more weight to your email and your presence with other people in the industry, clients, and viewers.

Taking Control as an Independent Creator

As a creator, especially independent creators trying to run your own business, set up a domain so you can have an email address. I have Josh B at two tone waffle dot com and also at indie creator hub dot com. I can use that email in a professional setting instead of AOL, Gmail, Hotmail, or anything like that.

Your digital space is really all you have as a content creator. Take care of it, own it, and build your brand on a foundation that you control. That's how you create a sustainable, professional presence that grows with you instead of being at the mercy of platform changes and corporate decisions.

If you're serious about furthering your content creation journey as a business, these are decisions you have to think about as you grow your media empire. Until next time, later taters.

The Independent Creator