I’ve talked many times on here about how I believe we should all work to own our content. Having content in a system that you control is absolutely the way to go, and then you can use other channels (like social media) as a means to share it.
Along those very lines is a great concept being pushed by IndieWeb called POSSE: Publish (on your) Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere.
The idea is not unlike what I’ve been promoting, but they’ve taken it a level further to refine the idea. The main idea is to publish your ideas on a platform that you own (which could be WordPress like me, but certainly doesn’t need to be), and then sharing the content across the web so your readers can see it wherever they prefer to consume content.
They offer a few main reasons why this is a solid model, but ownership is a big piece. This matters in two big ways:
- You’re not relying on a third-party to do the right thing with your content.
- You’re creating an “ownership chain” of your content. Wherever you’re reading this post, there’s likely a link back to the original that I published on mickmel.com.
Keep it easy for others
Continuing to share on social media, email, and other places helps keep things easier on your readers. While I’d love to see a world where everyone uses RSS to handle their media consumption, I realize that isn’t going to happen. I’ll still encourage that angle, for sure, but I’ll also be sharing my content across every medium possible in order to give people simple ways to find it.
Keep it easy for you
The full POSSE concept is fairly complicated and might seem overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be. You don’t need to build your own server or anything, just set up camp in a place that you have a degree of ownership in, and then share your thoughts from there. Just reach out if you’re stuck and I’ll be happy to help point you in the right direction.
Hi. I’m a POSSE curious WordPress user. Where is a good place to start reading how to do this? Thanks
Roxanne — This really breaks down into two steps:
1. Setting up your website, which can be a little technical.
2. Everything else, which is the “real work” of writing posts, sharing them, etc.
For getting your site going, I’d suggest using a company like getflywheel.com or any other reputable WordPress host. Flywheel will be around $15/mo and they’re excellent, but others can work well.
If you’re having trouble getting things set up, I added a free course to YouTube last year that walks through most of the technical stuff and should be helpful for you. You can find it here:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL64qxPU7ZQwSpSHrnCyCix330Nzs8WEqO
Let us know when you get it going so we can check it out!