Today I am pulling the curtain back a little bit to go behind the scenes of this blog. Rather than writing about tennis, this post shares my current frustrations associated with social media. After two rather lengthy posts on the NTRP” “T” rating over the previous two days, I feel like I have already put in my tennis time this weekend.
When I launched this site, I registered an independent domain to host my content. That is a philosophical decision consistent with the idea that you should never build a house on rented property. The control freak in me instills a need to be the master of my fate. It was clear from the onset that this blog’s primary “home” was not going to be on a site operated by a third party who could arbitrarily change the rules at any time.
A handful of people have been consuming my content exclusively through Twitter, which has recently devolved into a social media dumpster fire. One change that you might not be aware of is that the API that makes automated tweets possible has been eliminated. That means that there is no longer a mechanism for automatically sending a tweet when the daily post is released each morning. I haven’t been tweeting out the content manually. That decision is partially driven by time constraints but also out of irritation with recent policy changes on that platform.
Facebook has also reached a level of pitched annoyance to me. The platform does not consistently serve my content to people who have elected to follow the Facebook page created for my site. The Trophy Husband is a prime example of a Facebook follower who is not consistently served my content. Meanwhile, Facebook has been spamming me with a steady diet of encouragement to “Boost” my content through paid ads. This feels a lot like I am being asked to pay for access to people who have already signed up to receive my content. I am not playing that game.
People tell me that all the cool kids are on Instagram right now. Currently, there isn’t an automated way to post my daily message on “The Insta.” My hosting service provider says that they are working on that. However, Instagram and Facebook are essentially the same company. Additionally, Instagram is all about the quality of the photos. The pictures that I use on my site kind of…. suck. I am probably going to start engaging more on Instagram but with a lot of trepidation.
People in my orbit who are much better at online content promotion frequently tell me that I should be doing a much better job at that. They are right. At the same time, I have some overarching reasons that compel me to keep this blog firmly in the “hobby zone.” Every once in a while, a person figures it out and accuses me of writing a book. They’re not wrong. In a way, this site is the literary equivalent of hitting off the ball machine.
I am planning to “up my game” and encourage the people who are truly interested in my content to subscribe directly for email notifications. Yes, you will receive an email every single day, but it contains unique original content. I don’t serve up spammy ads and have zero intention of ever doing that in the future.
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