There are good reasons to save yourself the stress of having your own website and rely on a third-party service instead. Instead of a blog with WordPress, you can use a site like Medium, or a seller account on Amazon instead of a store with WooCommerce. However, there are significant disadvantages and risks if you rely on such platforms. I explain what these are in this article.

For me, nothing beats your own website. At the same time, I understand very well why third-party platforms are so tempting. For example, when I blog on a site like Medium, I don't have to worry about the technical issues. Not only that: the service is free to use and in this case I can even earn some extra money through their premium program.

However, this is only tempting as long as I don't repeatedly reach the limits of what is possible. Because if the technical issues don't concern me, I also have no direct influence on what is possible. And if a site like Medium decides from one day to the next that my content is not so interesting after all or even violates their newly changed rules, then I am also helplessly at their mercy.

Own website vs Facebook page

Let's take a look at your own website in comparison to social networks. Today, hardly anyone would argue that you should give it up in favor of a Facebook page. In the past, things were quite different. In the euphoria over Facebook's enormous growth, many people abandoned their own web presence and relied entirely on the social network.

I still see smaller and local providers relying on their Facebook page. Their own website may still exist and offer more or less up-to-date information. But if I want to be sure whether the information there is actually correct, I prefer to check Facebook again.

Why is the Facebook page so popular in these cases? For some people with little technical understanding, it is easier to maintain and keep up to date than their own website. With the latter, the company sometimes has to ask the service provider if a link needs to be corrected. Who wants to constantly change opening hours or update their own offers? With Facebook, this is partly done automatically, is very easy to understand and costs nothing extra (at least not directly). Paid advertising via Facebook Ads can also be effective.

However, when looking at their Facebook statistics, some people realize at some point that each post only reaches a fraction of their own fans and followers. This is a trend that has been emerging for years: Commercial content is having an increasingly difficult time on Facebook. And it's no wonder, because people prefer to interact with people and not with brands.

Yes, of course you can do something about that. There are certainly still Facebook pages with a decent reach today. Feel free to share examples in the comments! But that doesn't change the fact that Facebook can change the rules tomorrow and these pages will no longer have any reach.

And what do you actually do as the owner of a Facebook page if you want to switch to another social network in the future? It's not so easy to take your existing fans and followers with you.

Newsletter vs Messenger

Another example: e-mail. This medium certainly seems old-fashioned to many. And for some target groups, it is not the right choice. In many cases, however, it is still the perfect channel for reaching interested people.

The "modern" communication tool Messenger has the same problem that Facebook and other social networks have: The rules are made by others and I can't take my contacts with me here either. The various messengers are not even compatible with each other. So you can't send a message to a Twitter user from WhatsApp. Only Facebook now wants to link its various services with each other. A uniform standard is clearly not wanted by the providers. Instead, each one wants to assert itself against the others.

By contrast, I can reach anyone by e-mail, regardless of where the e-mail address is hosted. This is so self-evident that it is hardly ever mentioned. If, for example, I no longer like MailChimp as a service provider for my newsletter, I can move my subscribers. I did this a few years ago when a MailChimp automation froze my account and support didn't see fit to reply to me. I now send my newsletters with the WordPress plugin Mailster via Amazon SES instead. I'm currently very happy with it. 

If at some point this is no longer good enough for me, I look around for an alternative. I actually look more or less regularly to see what other options I have. I have all the freedom I need here and I really appreciate that.

WordPress vs Medium

The situation is very similar when it comes to blogs: Should I run my own WordPress installation or would I rather use a site like Medium? As I mentioned at the beginning: not only is it free, it can even earn me money directly.

At least that's the case at the moment, because Medium has changed its business model and conditions several times over the years. Once it wanted to be a site for beautifully designed texts, then a platform for publishers, now an offer for paid content ... Some people moved to Medium with bag and baggage and gave up their own site because the startup had promised the blue sky. When things didn't turn out as hoped, Medium suddenly dropped the "partners" that were so important yesterday.

No wonder some people vent their frustration in a very public way. With WordPress, on the other hand, I can have both and start my blog on WordPress.com first. Then I don't have to worry about anything at first. If I want more later, I move the site to my own installation. Specialized hosters like Raidboxes now make this very easy.

WooCommerce vs Amazon

Even those who want to get into e-commerce are faced with the question: build something yourself with WordPress and WooCommerce? Or follow Amazon's success? For the first option, see our e-book Online stores with WooCommerce.

After all, it's easy to get started with Amazon. But, as is so often the case, the devil is in the detail. Because you will soon realize: Although there is a large potential audience, there is also a lot of competition. There are more than 240,000 sellers in Germany alone. And they are all jostling to be listed by Amazon as the first choice in the "Buy Box". Because that's when the cash register starts ringing. Incidentally, almost 30 percent of the "Top Sellers" on Amazon.de do not come from Germany, but from China.

At the same time, you should never feel too safe here when things are going well. Account suspensions happen all the time. It doesn't help to be the second-largest retailer on the German marketplace, as Rebuy experienced at the beginning of the year. Or the prices for important services suddenly increase.

In addition, it can always happen that Amazon itself becomes a competitor. After all, the retailer has almost 150 own brands on offer - some more, some less obvious. According to its own statements, these products only make up one percent of its own sales. But compared to small retailers, that is of course a lot and the figures are rising quickly. In itself, it is not surprising that Amazon is so successful on its own marketplace: after all, the company knows exactly what people are looking for and what sells.

Amazon has publicly denied that it looks into its retailers' data in order to offer its own products. Officially, this is probably also forbidden internally. As it turns out, however, it was still common practice.

Why not both?

To pre-empt a typical objection: Yes, of course you can do both at the same time. You can start a blog on your own WordPress site and write on Medium at the same time. You can have your own WooCommerce store and be present on Amazon at the same time. And of course, it's a good idea to be active on the appropriate and relevant social networks. All of these can complement each other wonderfully - if you have the resources.

With this post, I would like to make the case that your own website should always be available and well maintained. It should be a priority, even if it doesn't have the (potential) reach of offers such as Facebook, Medium or Amazon. See also my article on the topic of content hubs. There you will find further suggestions on how to make your own website the central hub.

Why is it worth the effort? Look at it this way: it's the difference between renting an apartment and owning your own home. Of course, you have more work and more responsibility when you own your own home. But you can furnish it however you like and plan for the long term.

In addition, there is no tenant protection on platforms such as those mentioned above: Facebook, Amazon & Co. can remove you from the platform at any time, with immediate effect and without giving reasons. Sometimes it is even an automatic process that blocks your account - as it was for me with MailChimp. Only in exceptional cases will you be able to defend yourself against this, with the corresponding effort.

Since you are an irrelevant case for such large companies, you can usually just move on and start your project all over again elsewhere. Or have you ever tried to get a human support employee on the phone at Amazon, Facebook or Google? As a small provider, you have practically no chance.

What third-party platforms are ideal for

I don't want to hide any of this: There are times when such external platforms are wonderfully suitable. I've already mentioned the built-in reach that a small company usually doesn't have. However, you should use this to build your own long-term relationships with fans, prospects and customers - via email, for example.

The platforms mentioned are also very suitable for experiments. See my article Testing content ideas in advance. You can gain initial experience here and also learn from the competition. You don't take any risks at first and your effort remains low. This fits in with the "lean startup" concept: find out as early as possible how well your idea works and what you need to improve.

Third-party platforms can also offer functions that cannot be easily imitated by other means. This means you always have a good chance of engaging with your fans and followers on the social web. This works better here than on your own website. This is an opportunity that you should take advantage of.

Or they offer functions that you would struggle to implement. Think of a platform like Udemy for online courses, for example: you don't want to set up an entire learning platform first to find out whether you want to offer content in this format. This can all be done with WordPress. I use Sensei LMS here and there are several alternatives. But I only implemented this after gaining experience on Udemy.

My conclusion

Your presence on Facebook, Medium, YouTube & Co is only borrowed. It doesn't belong to you. You can achieve a lot of reach here and be very successful for a while. But it could be over tomorrow.

It is all the better if you have created your own platforms and channels in parallel, such as your website, a blog, a podcast and your e-mail distribution list. No one can take all these channels away from you so quickly.