If You Don’t Define and Present Yourself Online, Others Will Do It for You
In the ever-evolving digital landscape, writers face a familiar balancing act: building a website, shaping an online identity, and keeping up with social media’s shifting tides.
This article is featured in Jane Friedman.
In the ever-evolving digital landscape, writers face a familiar balancing act: building a website, shaping an online identity, and keeping up with social media’s shifting tides. Michelle Tamara Cutler reflects on her own 25-year journey through this terrain—from the days of exchanging business cards and coding static HTML portfolios, to redesigning her site in the age of SEO and personal branding. What began as a simple quest to showcase her work became a deeper exercise in defining who she is online. Along the way, she discovered that running a website is a lot like running a restaurant: you need a clear menu (your offerings), a welcoming front of house (your site), and consistent service (your social media presence). In this article, she shares the lessons learned, the missteps, and the three rules that now guide her approach to presenting herself—and her work—on the web.
