8 hours ago, ItsJayMar said:
Wow, there's a lot of solid advice here. First of all, let me thank you once again for responding and providing a personalized list of ideas. It's funny because you pretty much hit the nail on the head, I had already juggled a couple of these tactics( personal website, networking) but seeing them laid out in this format is a big help. There is no doubt I will definitely be using your suggestions as a guide. I have one more question, would you recommend using wordpress as a temporary main website?
You're welcome, I never mind lending my brain power. I will say that you could probably start with just a personal website, linkedin, and twitter, then look for independent development sites to help you network. Facebook, reddit, and the others can always wait until after you're comfortably working with what you start out with. Some people use social networking as a second nature, others find it tedious, so I'd avoid doing anything that burdens you without having a potentially direct benefit, as it might put a sour taste on the process in general. Also remember that it'll likely take months to start gaining traction with any option, so try not to give up and stop keeping up on content, assume people are reading it and not commenting, or that you could luck out by creating something popular and then have a giant backlog of content for people to look over. EDIT: Don't hesitate to drop a platform if you feel the you aren't receiving adequate benefits for the work involved in upkeep. If you do drop a platform ensure to create a polite post there saying you are dropping that platform explaining your reasoning and informing potential fans or contacts that they can still follow or reach you from your website or the other platforms you frequent.
As for wordpress, I've never used it personally, but I have seen people's wordpress websites that look really good and are easy to use. On the other hand I've seen people's wordpress websites that are difficult to use and hard to navigate. Consider why you are deciding to use wordpress first, if the answer is easy then typically that means 'lazy', and you should opt to try the one that might cost more effort, but then yield better results. Alternatively if wordpress is something you're already familiar with, and feel you can get good end results, then for sure go for it.
My only concern with using anything temporarily is that you're effectively doubling your workload. If you start with wordpress with the plan to use a web provider eventually, you've automatically doubled the effort it'll take to create a work related website, in addition to forcing you to go back to your other sites (soundcloud, youtube, here, etc) and update what website link you've posted. So if you're on the fence, go with what you plan to use ultimately, rather than opting into something easier for the short term, as it'll save you effort in the long term. Most web hosting comes with drag and drop type interfaces that make professional looking websites easy to create, and should only take you a week or two at most to find and be totally confident with your results (I'm not sure what the effort is for creating a nice wordpress website).
The other thing I forgot to mention was that if you do keep your project files, you might want to consider backing them up externally to your pc. Be it on an external drive, or ideally somewhere hosted online. I use dropbox for project files, and google drive for written and visual work (I was an early adopter to dropbox and so I have immense storage space, use the largest space for your project files). This way if my/your pc ever dies unexpectedly, or your external drive stops working, you have a 'permanent' copy of your work existing online. Again that's pretty general advice but I'd be remiss in not suggesting it.
If you're worried about becoming over burdened with the setup process of creating a web presence, then I'd recommend creating yourself a list of goals, even sub goals for each goal. It can be rewarding to cross off goals from a list, and help keep you motivated. There is no rush to set it all up, as long as you're actively moving forward towards whatever your goals are.
Feel free to post back here with your website (whichever host you choose) if you'd like additional feedback. Also remember to follow your gut, if your opinions differ from mine, think about both options logically and go with what feels right.