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Ask HN: How to start a public identity from scratch in late 2022?

24 points by oliverjudge ↗ HN
For the past few years conventional wisdom would have said to spin up the the usual socials (Twitter for thought, Instagram for visuals, Short Video for younger audiences), but with the amount of turmoil in those spaces at the moment are they really the best places to start building an individual platform.

I've seen a movement back to personal blogs and newsletters but do they provide enough discovery to help people find you?

If you were starting from nothing today where would you put the focus for where your content lives and how you distribute it?

15 comments

[ 3.6 ms ] story [ 37.9 ms ] thread
dimitar
Nothing beats a domain + website, then you can link all kinds of accounts there.
v8xi
just don't link to it from Twitter or SUSPENDED
Pyrodogg
Increasingly, everywhere and all at once.

Even YouTube is now starting to enable (and subtly push) more text and picture content alongside video. The Community tab feature used to be gated to channels with more than 1000 subscribers but now it seems to be available to maybe everyone. The other days I noticed a very prominent "Create Post" button from the video share menu.

All of the feature copying between major platforms and wall raising may increasingly trap attention within different platforms.

bananarchist
Go to your city council meetings and volunteer with your local homeless services providers. Write regularly to your local newspapers if there are any, and be active on Nextdoor. Go to local events like parades, markets and festivals and make sure you introduce yourself to local business owners and other community leaders. In each of these venues, present the you that you want known.

If the necessary events and such are lacking in your community, start organizing the types of events you would want to attend.

Oh wait do you mean by “public identity” that you’re looking to get internet famous?

officeplant
Saving this just in case I ever run for public office.
40amxn40
Can you explain this obsession with locality? There's a place for it, but not always. In HN I've seen it used as a sort of artificial or unorganic "going back to the roots" kind of thing.

My local newspaper is boring, because nothing happens in my small city. There's no Nexdoor. There are very few if any local events. You can create a youtube or tiktok account and get your message spread to a wider range of people and tell if you're charismatic enough or if your ideas resonate in less time and with less effort. You're also competing with people doing this.

bananarchist
Think about it this way. Most ideas are garbage. But people are always looking for good ideas. If your ideas can’t hack it in the local scene, that’s to everyone’s benefit that only a small local audience has to deal with your rubbish. But if you rush your ideas to the global audience, you’re adding to a huge trash pile. Even if your ideas are good at this point, you are still going to need boosters in order for them to be found - and when they’re not you’re contributing to the burying of good ideas. That’s why you should start in the local community.

On a more personal note. If you think you community sucks, change it. Easier said than done, I know, but the alternative, resignation such as you have displayed, is repulsive.

40amxn40
Interesting theory but I ultimately disagree. I could have ideas that apply to my country on a national level, but not much input for the local scene specifically. I think these are completely different skillsets in fact.

>> But if you rush your ideas to the global audience, you’re adding to a huge trash pile

You're expecting too much altruism here. I don't care if "I'm adding to a huge trash pile".

>> the alternative, resignation such as you have displayed, is repulsive.

It's more of a lack of interest. Small fish in a big pond vs big fish in a small pond, etc.

deegles
Here's how I would do it:

1. Use a pronounceable password generator to find a short, memorable name. Like this one set to all lowercase characters: https://www.lastpass.com/features/password-generator

2. Plug it into https://www.namecheckr.com/ (or similar tools) to see if it's available everywhere

3. Buy the .com, .co, any other domain that interests you and register on every social site you can (even if you don't plan on using it)

4. self host a blog on your primary domain and make the other ones redirect to it

5. set up google workspace email on your primary domain and alias the other ones to it as well

If you're publishing a tweet or blog post, post first to your site and then on social media, linking with a canonical tag if available.

tomcam
I am taking your advice. Thanks to the LastPass website, I have taken ownership of the powerful identity now known as.. (drumroll please)

    IDEsTERMANtE
Bow before me, nerds.
hjkl0
The advice was to use lowercase only
deegles
Also you don't pick the first one, keep generating until it's something you like.
tomcam
What, you don’t like IDEsTERMANtE? Churl.
jameshush
Just pick one and start posting. It doesn’t matter where you start, it’ll take 100 posts/videos/presentations/whatever before you’re decent enough for people to pay attention anyway.

I went to 2-3 open mic comedy nights a week last year just focusing on developing the craft of presenting. On top of that I started teaching free engineering workshops and filming them. Its been about a year and I’m still in the “Just throw stuff at the wall” phase. I don’t have much “clout” but its been a lot of fun and my craft is 10x better than last year