In my last post, I spoke about the differences between the POSSE and PESOS blogging styles and why it’s important. Today, I’m going to show you how I actually implement this with my website.

#1 Turn selected social media into posts

Unlike the POSSE gang, I prefer to PESOS my content. So I pick a social media post to expand into a blog post.

I’m pretty selective when turning social media posts into blog content and am pretty content to let some die and disappear. Seriously, not all my thoughts are worth recording in the blog, I promise.

And when I do record them, I don’t just copy and paste the social media posts wholesale on the blog. I prefer to rewrite the posts to suit the platform.

Every platform has a different audience, so every content should be tailored to them. Does this sound like a lot of work? It can be, but I generally like the rewriting experience, so it’s not a big deal for me.

Should you do it? Ideally, you should craft your content to suit different channels, but I have seen some IndieWeb bloggers who just auto-mirror everything into every channel. It really depends on what you prefer. I mean, it’s your online home!

#2 Mirror my Substack content onto this blog

If you are not aware of it already, I have a Substack newsletter, Tai Tales, where I post my fiction and write about publishing online.

I used to think that I needed to create special content just for Substack, but not anymore. For the longest time, I let my guard down because the folks at Substack seem really nice and writer-friendly. But after what happened to Twitter and Reddit, and remembering how Medium devolved into a platform where it’s now difficult to be seen, I need to face the hard truth that I’m not the boss of Substack (like, no duh) and it could easily disappear one day.

Because it isn’t a platform I control, the CEO may one day turn mercenary and think, “I need profits now and I don’t care how I screw over users to get it” or sell the company to less writer-friendly billionaires in the future.

The days of thinking, “Surely they won’t do this to their users?” is over. The lesson from the Internet/Social Media events of 2022 and 2023 is, anything can happen. So, I need to be ready to move at any time, eventhough I personally think that Substack is absolutely fabulous.

That’s why I’m currently in the process of copying over the content of my newsletter, Tai Tales, to my WordPress blog. Thanks to WordPress.com’s new newsletter feature, I can make this content only accessible to my people who subscribe or follow my blog. I can even make some of them paid!

In essence, I’m creating a separate channel and hopefully, stream of income, for my newsletter.

I’m not getting off Substack as the platform has a powerful recommendation engine. Since participating in its Notes feature, my subscriber count has shot up. Also, it’s a fun little place to hang out with other writers.

The problem is, it’s not terribly great at reaching readers outside its writer-heavy ecosystem of readers.

WordPress.com actually has a community and content recommendation ecosystem with their Jetpack Reader. It may not have as robust, user-friendly or active as Substack’s, but it still offers me the opportunity to reach readers who are outside the Substack ecosystem.

My theory is that not all WordPress.com users are eager to plug in to another ecosystem like Substack’s just to read my newsletter, so I’m offering them the option to subscribe to my blog without leaving the Jetpack Reader ecosystem.

#3 Automate notifications on various platforms

Each time I post content on this WordPress blog, a short, summary post will be sent out to the followers of my accounts on the following platforms:

• Tumblr
• Facebook page
• Mastodon

Fortunately, WordPress.com (which this blog is hosted on), makes it easy. I use its sharing features to push out notifications to the platform.

I also include links to new blog posts in the Weekend Tales edition of the Tai Tales newsletter. This is not automated.

If you dive into the IndieWeb space, which is dominated by tech-savvy folks or developers, you’ll find that lots of people automate their processes using fancy codes and tools. I’m not there yet, and honestly, I’m not sure if that’s the right approach for me. I just prefer my blog posts to be more human, you know?

#4 Include social media comments into blog posts

Brid.gy is a handy tool that lets me include Mastodon comments on my WordPress posts. It’s like bringing the discussions right into the heart of my blog. Pretty neat, huh? It helps foster a sense of community and interaction, which is what the Indieweb movement is all about. I wish I can make it look nicer though. Here’s how the comments look like on a blog post:

I may explore more automation options in the future, but honestly, I’m quite content with my current setup. By blogging the Indieweb way, I will have more control of my online content, and keep it from going poof due to a business decision at some faceless corporation somewhere.

It’s worth owning your digital home

If you’re a writer and not especially techy, this may all seem overwhelming to you, but trust me, it’s truly worth it not to be too centralised or dependent on one platform that you do not control.

Yes, it is sucky that you have to battle SEO content farms to get your website noticed on the Internet. But this is where platforms come in. You use their features and potential to make your content viral to spread your content. But your content needs a home that you control. Full stop.

So, if you have most of your content on Substack, for example, think seriously about mirroring it on your blog. If you have been building your audience on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram, start funneling the content you’ve created there to your website.

Because a platform collapsing overnight is no longer a distant “what if”, but a “when”.

The Twitter meltdown made me realize something important: I’m a seriously prolific content creator. And I’ve been giving away all that content free to a platform that not only profits from it but treats me like garbage unfairly when it comes to sharing said profits. Meaning, they don’t share a dime. When I downloaded my Twitter archive, it hit me like a ton of bricks that most of that content was not sitting in my website, so they could just disappear if a billionaire decides to cut me off from the platform.

According to tech journalists, platforms are dying. I personally think they’re more resilient than that and people underestimate how reluctant people are when it comes to getting their hands dirty, building their own home on the Internet. They’d much rather use a ready-made platform where the tools are all ready to do this.

Still, with Twitter still melting, Facebook losing relevance, Reddit turning off many of its power users, we really need to stop putting ourselves in the position where we will be at the mercy of corporations and their business decisions.

Most of the time, these decisions are made solely in their own interest, not yours. Sure, using platforms can help us reach wider audiences, especially in a web overwhelmed by SEO-optimized sites and it’s tough for the little guy to stand out. But let’s not be fooled into thinking they have our best interests at heart, no matter how nice they seem right now.

So, how do we take control?

Well, I’ve been diving into the IndieWeb movement for the last few months, and it’s been a game-changer on how I’ve been blogging. Here’s how I’m doing it.

PESOS and POSSE: Are we in a Western?

We might as well be when it comes to with the IndieWeb movement! People barely know about the movement, so it’s uncharted territory for most. But for me, it has been refreshing and liberating to learn more about.

PESOS and POSSE are methods of publishing your content on the web that will ensure you have control over it:

POSSE (Publish on Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere)

PESOS (Publish Elsewhere, Syndicate to Own Site)

First, get a domain!

Your blog, whether it is on WordPress or Squarespace etc, should be owned by you. Meaning that you need to buy a domain name. With a domain name, each piece of content will have an address with a URL that you can control.

At the time of this writing, my wordpress.com website is still using a staging address — firediarist.wordpress.com. I have a domain name but haven’t gotten around transferring it yet. (Don’t be me.)

Indieweb folks tend to go a step further by favouring WordPress or Ghost as they are both widely-available, open-sourced content management system unlike Squarespace or Wix. As the latter platforms use proprietary systems, your content would be harder to transfer out of because there’s only one platform that uses their CMS. Their own.

With WordPress (even WordPress.com), you can easily transfer to another service that offers WordPress hosting. And there are a bajilion of them out there. (I can’t comment about Ghost as I’m not as familiar with the platform, but it comes highly recommended.)

Which method should you use?

While I use both methods interchangeably, PESOS is more my style.

I tend to have little bursts of inspiration and I often share these on social media because it is quick and easy to do so.

Some of these ideas make great blog posts, some end up in my trusty Obsidian vault as a note or a journal entry, some I don’t even bother to save. PESOS works for me because it enables me to create content spontaneously, quickly and flexibly.

From a logical standpoint (and if you talk to most IndieWeb purists), POSSE is more efficient.

You write a long, detailed post and then break it up into bite-sized pieces for distribution across platforms. It prevents “wasteful” content creation which might not end up on your blog or disappear into the digital ether.

Both methods have their merits. And it really depends on your personality and preferences.

Personally, POSSE just feels more tedious to me. It takes a lot more effort to organise my thoughts into a long proper post and then breaking it down into smaller content pieces. It prevents me from being quick and spontaneous; I’m a much, much slower and inefficient content creator with POSSE.

So, PESOS it is for me!

Next: I talk about how I actually implement POSSE/PESOS on my website.