Stop Renting Your Digital Space - Own Your Content Home Instead

Hey creators! Quick reality check: what happens when the algorithm changes overnight and your content just disappears? Most of us post on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter thinking our content lives there forever. Wrong. You're posting to rented space that you have ZERO control over. It's at the whims of corporations that don't care about you or your content. The Apartment Problem Take Substack for example. Your URL is substack.com/yourname, not yourname.com. When people think of your content, they think "oh that blog on Substack" not "that person's website." You're living in an apartment, not your own house. And just like apartments, you can get evicted when management decides to change things up. Why This Matters Remember when people had AOL email addresses? Now when you see someone with an @aol.com email on their business card, what do you think? Same thing applies to your content. If you're serious about building a brand, people associating you with a platform instead of YOUR domain is a problem. The Professional Factor I recently saw someone from a multimillion dollar firm using a @gmail.com email professionally. That screams unprofessional in corporate settings. Your email should be yourname@yourdomain.com, not yourname@gmail.com. The Solution

1. Buy your domain,

2. Create your website,

3. Post content there FIRST,

4. Share links to YOUR site on social platforms,

Yes, platforms like Substack give you distribution and it's "free." But you're trading ownership for convenience. If you're just starting out and don't know technical stuff, platforms are fine temporarily. But if you want to build a real brand, you need your own digital real estate. Video Exception Video hosting is crazy expensive, so YouTube/PeerTube makes sense for that content type. Bottom Line Your digital space is all you really have as a creator. Take care of it. Own it. Build on a foundation YOU control instead of being at the mercy of platform changes and corporate decisions. What's your take? Are you team "own your space" or team "platforms are fine"?