This post was inspired by Domain.ME, the provider of the personal URLs that end in .ME. As a company, they aim to promote thought leadership to the tech world.
At a conference I attended last week I heard some variation of “The Blog Is Dead” three times. I even attended a session on how to have a lucrative blogging career without a blog–just off your social media influence. It was timely, since I’ve been researching this topic for this sponsored post on personal data from Domain.ME. 
Some forms of blogging may be dead, especially if you follow what’s going on with fashionable Instagramers. Tech evangelist Robert Scoble completely abandoned his popular blog, Scobleizer, for social media, but what’s the risk here for other, un-famous bloggers?
For me, when people talk about making a living off of one or the other social media platforms, I always think about Myspace. It had a great five-year run before the then-new-and-cool Facebook ate its lunch.
Pinfluencers who made good money through affiliate links on Pinterest recently had a big setback too. Pinterest striped out all affiliate links in the interest of a “better user experience.” As one user said on Twitter, “bye bye money!”
Personally, I run a private Facebook group for midlife women that is directly beneficial for my other website, Midlife Boulevard. My business partner and I would love to host this group on our own forum, but there’s just no good option. Our people are on Facebook, and that’s where they want to talk and share.
Knowing how frequently Facebook makes changes always has me a little nervous. What if they drastically change the privacy settings for groups? We’d have to scramble to readjust if we couldn’t ensure user privacy, and the potential for loss is great.
So, how do you smooth out the potential for loss from the slings and arrows of outrageous social media platforms? The best way is to own your own data.
Write your content, host your pictures, and encourage your discussions where you control and own it—your own website.
I’ve always called this building your house on land you own, but last week I heard Marcy Massura call it “not decorating someone else’s hotel room.” I love that imagery of talent and effort wasted on a place inevitably vacated. Again: remember Myspace.
Being able to control your data is the key to building your own brand. Social media impressions still matter, but out of a thousand tweets and a million pins, what’s more searchable than your own blog?
As long as you need an on-line resume, (i.e., forever,) a site you own is your greatest asset. 
Well said, Anne. I always worry about what will happen when someday FB and Twitter are pushed out by something newer and better. The way to promote the blog you lovingly work so hard on may no longer draw traffic from those sources and it’s time to scramble.
Just my private nightmare, or perhaps another way to keep my brain elastic by learning about something new. Well, we’ll have to wait and see. In the meantime I’ll keeping “owning” my site and doing what I love to do.
I attended the same conference you did, heard the same things you did, and am really excited about the potential value I see in Domain.ME You did a great job of summing up and providing logical reasons for further investigation into it, as well! Good job!