Your Website Is Not Your Social Media Account

For years, artists have built entire audiences on platforms they do not actually own.

Facebook pages.
Instagram accounts.
TikTok profiles.
Online galleries.
Marketplace shops.

These are fantastic tools, and I use many of them myself. But there is one important fact that often gets forgotten:

You do not own any of them. The platform owns the platform.

At any moment, an algorithm can change, a policy can change, a site can go offline, a company can be sold, or an account can be restricted. Sometimes mistakes happen. Sometimes accounts are hacked. Sometimes businesses simply disappear. History is full of once-popular websites that seemed untouchable right up until they weren’t.

This is why having your own domain name matters. Your domain is your digital home address.

It belongs to you. It appears on your business cards. It appears in your email signature. It appears in your social media profiles. Most importantly, people learn to associate it with you, not with whatever platform happens to be popular this year.

If one platform disappears tomorrow, your audience still knows where to find you.

That alone makes a domain worth having.

There are other benefits too.

A personal domain looks professional.

Compare:

myart123.someplatform.com

to

yourname.com

One instantly feels more established.

A domain also allows flexibility. Perhaps today you sell on one platform. Five years from now you may move elsewhere. If your marketing always points people to your own domain, you can redirect visitors wherever you choose without retraining your entire audience.

Think of it as owning the road rather than renting a parking space.

Your domain can also become the centre of everything you do.

Your portfolio.
Your blog.
Your shop links.
Your mailing list.
Your contact details.
Your social media accounts.

Instead of sending people in ten different directions, you create one place that connects everything together.

Another overlooked advantage is search engines.

Google likes consistency. The more your name becomes associated with your own website, the more authority and recognition that website can build over time.

Every blog article, every backlink, every social media profile mentioning your domain helps strengthen that online presence.

Perhaps the biggest reason, however, is peace of mind.

When your online identity depends entirely on somebody else’s platform, you are always living in rented accommodation but having your own domain gives you a place that is yours.

The internet changes constantly. Trends come and go. Platforms rise and fall. Features appear and disappear.

A good domain name quietly sits there through all of it waiting for people to come home.

EXAMPLES

https://abbie-shores.com
https://prints.abbie-shores.com
My online name is on both. This is my digital home.

For any interested.

Domain purchased through https://www.fxdomains.com
Hosting is with https://www.stablehost.com (no downtime in a few years)

———–

Brought to you by your local “remember MySpace?” department.