The slow journey to not syndicating my content
Following up on my previous post on the slow goodbye to Twitter, this post from Ben Werdmuller seems apt and timely.
👋 Hi Ben. We met many years ago, and whilst we haven’t actually spoken in a very long time, I love how I somehow feel connected to him through his writing and sharing.
I have one exception. One of the indieweb’s oldest ideas, Publish (on your) Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere, is something I plan to retire in my own use. The idea is that you publish on your own site but then mirror that content to a third-party silo like Twitter, ideally with a link back to your site. But with the growth of the fediverse, I’d like to be done with doing that. I’ve already stopped publishing to Twitter, and I think Instagram and Facebook will quickly follow suit. Right now my only real syndication is to LinkedIn, and I don’t know that I want to make that network exactly central to my existence online.
So instead of Publishing on my Own Site and Syndicating Elsewhere, I plan to just Publish and Participate. I want my site to connect to the indieweb; to the fediverse; to people who are connecting via RSS; to people who are connecting via email. No more syndication to third parties. My own website sits in the center of my online identity, using open standards to communicate with outside communities.
Honestly, I feel kind of scared about this one. Though it feels so right and so good.
At the moment I cross-post content to:
- Medium, sometimes
- Indie Hackers
It’s easy to get sucked into the benefits of it, which there are some. Reaching more people. Getting found. Inbound links.
The reality is that most of that stuff doesn’t make a real shift. I was recently featured on an email list with 100k subscribers and the impact was negligible.
Sometimes I post my content to Hackernews, the spike in traffic is fun to watch, the actual outcomes in positive support or new subscribers, is again, negligible. In fact, often it just brings negative comments and moderation issues.
It’s all part of modern day marketing. But really to succeed we should be investing in each other. It’s just so much more authentic.
We can shift this, with intention. We can feel validated by commenting on each others work. We can ask each other for recommendations, ideas and support.
We can bring back blog rolls and resharing of each others posts. (Substack is doing this exact thing in a more modern way).
We can get excited about supporting each other and diving deeper into the things that we care so deeply about. We can add value to each others spaces and stop being so selfish about only doing things that benefit ourselves.
Going back to publishing and participating
Which I’ve partly been doing anyways. I need to get rid of the habit of feeling the need to cross post to social media.
I care deeply about the world of community building and Rosieland is about creating a space for people to explore. I write, some for free, some paid. I publish other people’s articles. I host a free discourse forum. I’m investing into the community conversations in a way that will bring long-term value to thousands of people.
It’s a huge effort and I love it. But the fact that it’s a huge effort means that I need to find sustainability too, which I thankfully been finding my ways of making a sustainable income.
The reality is that I don’t really keep in touch with people via social. It’s all too random and easy to miss stuff. That damn algorithm. And there’s also just too much junk. DMs and messages in social spaces are probably the things that are really pulling me back in.
I keep in touch with people through RSS, some newsletters that don’t have RSS (damn you) and niche communities on the likes of Slack.
I’m not ready to go cold turkey, but I think this is the opportunity for me to have a slow journey to not syndicating my content. Partly it’s about surrounding myself with people like Ben helps me find confidence in that. Maybe more of us can surround each other. The other part is perhaps making some updates on social over the coming weeks and making it clear where my content is being shared.
