Discoverability

I was chatting with one of you the other day via email and he raised an interesting point. We were talking about social media and the concept of being present on social platforms.

I am not a social media kind of person but that doesn't mean I hate them either. They've done more harm than good which is why I don't use them. That said, I kind of see his point of view: if you have something worth sharing you want to be present on all those platforms. It's a no brainer.

This is part of a bigger discussion about online content. If you're a "content creator"—whatever the hell that means—you want people to find you. It's a constant battle for attention against other fellow creators. And a fight against the algorithms to rank high whether on Google or Instagram or Youtube (or even LinkedIn and Pornhub, who am I to judge). If you like all that and want to partake in that game, good for you. I decided it's not my thing.

Which is why I spent almost no time optimising my content for search engines or for social media. My posts are ugly when shared on social media. My side projects are usually designed to avoid playing the analytics and SEO game.

Two reasons for that. First, I'm a weird person that likes to do weird things and second, I don't care about being found. It might sound counter-intuitive for a person that has a blog and runs a couple of public side projects. But that's the truth. I didn't start this blog to become famous and being read by thousands of people and the same applies to my gallery. I work on these sites because I want to and because I like to do it. That's the only motivation.

But don't get me wrong, when someone does find me and reaches out, I'm thrilled. It makes me happy to know some of you out there do read what I write and I'm glad to know that thousands of designers use my gallery as a reference. That's a nice feeling. But it's nice because it's not something I'm seeking. It's the spontaneity of it that appeals to me.