I was reading a post on Instagram where someone wondering whether to start a blog. Of course, I immediately came on and said yes, and extolled the virtues of WordPress.
It was only as I was doing so; I realised just what a community WordPress is. Suddenly I began comparing it to Facebook.
For a long time Facebook has ruled our lives. We writers have built platforms there, a place to tell everyone about our books and blogs. We have a friends list and can comment, like, and share. It is a community.
That’s when it occurred to me that WordPress is the same, only better. Everything we can do on Facebook, we can do with WordPress.
Unfortunately, Facebook dislikes books links on your personal page, they want you to put them on your business page. Then, they restrict the amount of views its gets because they would like you to pay to boost the post to show it to more people. If you post in book groups, you can post too fast, and receive a warning from Facebook. I know authors who have flouted these rules and have been put in what they term as jail. Meaning they are banned from posting anywhere for a month. It can be very frustrating.
None of those apply to WordPress. The reader is the news feed and here we can scroll down our list of friends. These are people who also have WordPress blogs and we have followed them. Anything they post, appears in the reader where we can like, comment, and share.
Our timeline, or profile page on Facebook is similar to our main landing page on our blog. We can make this as pretty and as appealing as we want, all, I might add, at no cost, although there is the ability to upgrade if you wish. Any posts we make, we can have a link on the landing page, referred to as the menu, so nothing gets lost or forgotten. We now have a website. Once it disappears down the Facebook news feed, it’s gone, forgotten and lost.
As per the people we follow, we build up our own list of friends, called followers. Each time we make a new post, they receive an email. Or they can browse the reader. They too, have to ability to comment, like, and share on your blog.
Sharing is a wonderful thing, and there are several options. You can re-blog it, adding a comment – something like, I’ve just see this and wanted to share it with my followers.
You can also press it, as I like to do. This takes you to a new blog page along with the link to the blog you are sharing from. I do this because it provokes a thought process, or something similar happened to me. I can talk and chat about that, then urge them to see the original post. And of course, it provides content to your blog, too. You can see a couple of examples here.
Sixty Glorious Years
The Power of Word
Whenever you blog/make a new post, you can still share it to Facebook. The author I was chatting to on Instagram makes great posts with great photos. She could present them so much better on WordPress.
What concerned her was the time she would spend on yet another platform. Initially, it takes time to set up. After that, she would just be making blog posts and sharing them to Facebook, so her readers can click on the link and read the full piece on her website.
Tell me about your experience with WordPress and how it works for you, I’d love to know.
Karen J. Mossman 
I have used WordPress for 7+ years and love it.
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I’ve only ever done WordPress but been very pleased with it. Great community, easy to use.
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It is good, I really like it!
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Reblogged this on WordyNerdBird and commented:
I found this blog post interesting, and what Kazzmoss says here is true: WordPress is a great community, and you can do everything here that you do on Facebook.
I guess, though, that people like the “pretty” and the “instant” rather than thinking about and choosing what they read and see. Facebook is, in some ways, a monument to mental laziness.
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Thank you!
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I love WordPress. I’ve been blogging here for years, and I recently had a friend move my website to the WordPress platform so I could maintain it myself instead of paying someone to do it for me. It’s so easy to use. I recommend it to anyone.
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Reblogged this on Campbells World.
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Thanks for sharing.
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Hey, you’re welcome. Happy to do it.
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Oh!! I thought FB was blocking some things, wasn’t sure until I read this. I put up an article a friend put up about donations before she went up with a few trucks to the fire victims & not one friend got ahold of me for donations. Interesting…
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They sometimes block the picture that comes with outside link from Facebook, but I add my own.
They do all sorts if weird things and you only realise until you’re missing something, or try and do it. Thanks for commenting😀
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I loved this blog post and have to agree with you. I found WordPress after having another blog through another company and wasn’t liking their service. I googled WordPress and what sold me with this community you could be part of, Facebook didn’t seemed to cut it for me anymore where as WordPress did. Now I am enjoying blogging here as well as getting into contact with like minded people.
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Oh, so glad to hear that and thank you fir commenting. Facebook is becoming more difficult.
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I initially came on WordPress due to my website and saw the ability to blog. I liked the idea without knowing much about it and there my story began. I have the free version and would like to upgrade to a self hosted platform at some point. I have developed followers and have posted many blogs. I have thoroughly enjoyed being on this blog site. Thank you for this post it makes so much sense and would be easier for that writer if you could link your post to your Instagram page as well.
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Thank you for commenting, its interesting to hear what you have say. I’m so glad you found it useful.
I started out on the free plan, now upgraded to ‘Personal’ which gives me no ads and access to support. Not sure if this what you mean by self hosted.
WordPress is great and perhaps an Instagram link will come. My only bug bear with Instagram is links don’t work. There is a work around, but it faffy.
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You’re welcome. Self-hosted is when you own your domain name. If, I were on a self-hosted site it would read. http://www.thedayisaidyes.com instead of wordpress.com. Links don’t work in Instagram land? I hadn’t tried so, I didn’t know that. I need to try and see.
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Ah, I’m self hosted and I didn’t realised.
Yes, when you make a post and add a link, you can’t click it or even cut and paste it.
The way round is to click on your profile pic and use the link there. That’s the only one that will work when pressed. (Using your phone, of course) Online, you could cut and paste, but Instagram is mainly for the phone, anyway.
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So, true and okay that is where I need to post my links for my blog. Thank you. Thanks for the follow. I am following back. I am glad you are self-hosted and it is working for you. I am going to get there.
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It wasn’t that expensive to do through WordPress.
Glad to have you in my community now. 😀
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Thanks for commemting, and yes, I feel like that, gradually building up is nice to see. It makes it all the more worthwhile when people comment, too.
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