Own Your Content
Each year, I revisit where I publish and syndicate my content. Typically, an analysis of traffic patterns is done as October approaches. Analysis is performed across platforms such as LinkedIn, Twitter, and whatever experiment I’ve tried in the preceding months. Examples of experiments could include Medium or whatever invite code caught my attention for a newly launched social service.
Each platform has a different tool or dashboard to present metrics. While almost all platforms provide tools, some tools are more mature than others. As one might expect, the platforms all seek to ensure the creator sees the most compelling metrics possible but statistical rigor and significance is likely caveat emptor.
Most traffic to my blog at fudge.org and my personal website jaycuthrell.com indicate sources for referral clicks are from Twitter, LinkedIn, and a small handful of search engines. Since my publicly accessible blogging is minimal it means that most traffic I would see is a function of search engines and their own algorithmic weighting changes over time.
Increasingly, referral information is deprecated as modern browsers prioritize their own ecosystems and/or privacy considerations for their users. As such, the use of deep links and unique tracking by URL, URI, route within a content management system is essential to have any sense of what is trending from where (if at all).
Additionally, social media card support and cache longevity on platforms continues to change with each passing year. So, the shared content of today might be cached adequately or inadequately based on timing that the creator has little or no control over. In effect, subsequent changes to how the platform decides to operate will render the creator content preview as desired or simply not at all.
Examples: fudge.org, jaycuthrell.com, and @JayCuthrell on Twitter and Medium and a version of this post as rendered by LinkedIn social media card and cache du jour.
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