What To Learn from Twitter’s Acquisition of Posterous

Posterous, one of the more popular and widely used micro-blogging platforms, has been acquired by Twitter. The platform, and the people, behind Posterous helped it to establish millions of users who actively created tons of content. This news must be very exciting for the team at Posterous, and also for those at Twitter, as the acquisition will most likely bring some fantastic innovations in the coming months and years.

The group of people who may not be so excited about this news though are the users of Posterous – and rightfully so.

What’s the Lesson?

Posterous is yet to provide a clear answer, or instructions, in regards to what users are to do with all of the content they have created over the years. We’re certain that they will and users will be given the opportunity to properly move their content somewhere else. What can never be certain though is how much time, effort and money it is going to take to properly move all of this work somewhere else. It was obviously not the intention of Posterous to inconvenience its user base, but this is a perfect reminder to all content creators to learn a valuable lesson….

Develop Your Content on a Property You Own

We continue to see this common “mistake” on a daily basis. People continue to spend hours creating content on sites that they do not own. We’re willing to bet that you’re guilty of it yourself as well. Think about how much you use Facebook, Twitter, Blogger or WordPress.com. These are all fantastic platforms to communicate your message or story to other people, but have you ever really thought about what would happen to all of your time and effort if any one of these platforms got acquired, like Posterous, or even worse, faded away, like MySpace?

What’s the Solution?

There are obviously reasons why so many people create so much content on these existing platforms – they’re free, they’re easy to use, they’re socially connected, etc. The risk you take in relying on these platforms though is not worth it, especially when the proper setup has very few barriers and little to no costs. Free blogs, like WordPress.com, Tumblr and Blogger, come with a cost – lack of control.

So, the solution is this…

Create All of Your Content on a Property You Own and Push it Out to these Other Platforms

There are a few different ways, and tools, to help you achieve this same solution. Here are our recommendations to help you properly setup your content development and promotion process:

1. Buy a domain name (~ $10/year)
2. Buy website hosting (~ $7/month)
3. Download WordPress (free)
4. Install WordPress through your web host (free)*
5. Setup your WordPress website / blog (free)*
6. Syndicate your WordPress content to your favorite social networks (free)

*For Steps 4 and 5, if you’re not familiar with these more technical aspects of using WordPress, then we would recommend consulting a web development professional. Or, if you’re ambitious and don’t mind learning some of this stuff then do some simple Google searches like “How to Install WordPress” or “How to Customize My WordPress Blog” and you will be sure to find easy to follow tutorials

Of course, if you need help with any of these steps, from choosing the best domain name to making your WordPress website look amazing, then we would be happy to help.