Creating a Solid Presence for an Online Identity is Essential to Stay Connected in the Constantly Changing and Evolving Internet Landscape.
As seen throughout the past with the rise and fall of various online platforms, depending on a specific centralized entity to support an online personal, professional or business identity is unsustainable. Ensuring an online presence is stable is an essential part of maintaining connections, data and identity in an ever-changing digital realm.
Over the past decades many services have risen into the spotlight, gained massive traction, and eventually ceased to exist. Entities that come to mind include some names like Prodigy, ICQ, GeoCities, MySpace, AOL, and the list goes on. While social media and service providers can become unreliable, maintaining a website for your personal, professional &/or business remains the tried-and-true, most stable method of representing anything long-term online.
By keeping essential data on a seperate website and utilizing even a simple email list for contacts, the rise and fall of various online platforms makes less of an impact. Content, email contacts and data then have the ability to simply pivot when social or marketing moves in a new direction, offering flexibility when the need arises.
A website, private domain name, email and mailing list are portable, meaning changing hosting companies or email providers is fairly straight forward. If a business or person must change the social media platform(s) they’re utilizing, an email to their list can let their audience know where to find them.
Website development, design and maintenance can seem like a daunting endeavor though the process has become approachable for many to DIY and manage a simple site themselves, with or without learning some simple code and graphic design tools. Hosting and domain registration are affordable expenses considering the flexibility and stability a website offers.
Explore some useful resources here for creating a business, professional or personal brand and website to get truly online. These free and low cost services include dependable website hosting, a variety of free and professional WordPress themes and plug-ins, domain name registrations, branding references, image editing, stock images, website code tutorials (HTML, CSS, Etc.), email list management, form builders, social media management and more – all useful tools for beginners and professionals alike.
Implementing a website-centric approach is key to ensuring an online identity has a solid foundation.

The Current Social Media Landscape is Changing.
Rapidly.
Many small and even larger businesses have focused their marketing efforts on social media platforms that are privately owned, meaning their marketing, audiences and advertising isn’t portable across platforms unless they’ve also focused on website development and email list building.
Troublesome times seem eminent for major platforms including X (or, Twitter), Meta (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Threads, Etc.), and TikTok. Meanwhile, there are many alternative platforms with robust networks and apps to still explore.
Serving as an alternative to the major social media players, these networks are viable and worthy of consideration: Alignable, BlueSky, Quora, Tumblr, Discord, GroupMe, Signal etc…