Whenever someone asks me about blogging,
I strongly suggest they own their own domain name
and preferably their own hosting.
I am very wary of marketing tools
that are owned by another party.
Why?
Because the party owning the tool
truly owns the eyeballs.
They can redirect these eyeballs
wherever they want.
That’s one of the reasons
email is still the number one digital tool.
“…e-mail remains
the gold standard of audience ownership
in digital,
and continues to drive significantly greater ROI
when compared to social media.
Yes, e-mail competes with
a feed of content like postings in social media
(though much slower moving
when compared to say, Twitter),
but has the advantage that once opened,
it is an experience entirely controlled
by the marketer.
Even the e-mail addresses themselves
are a material asset
as they can be brought
to any other emergent social environment.
Look back at every social network
in it’s early days,
and there is always some sort of
“import e-mail addresses” function,
though there never has been
an “export” function.”
Own your audience… completely.