Add a link to my blog beneath a Facebook Reel.
It sounded simple enough, but something made me hesitate.
“Doesn’t that look a bit too obvious? (Laughs.)”
I would be happy if a video of our cat, Kyosuke, brought someone to Yoshiochin.com. Still, putting the promotion too far forward felt a little embarrassing.
So I talked it over with Kimiko-chan—the name I gave ChatGPT.
She suggested adding a URL at the end of a short caption when there was a related article. Instead of always sending people to the blog’s home page, the idea was to point them to the story behind that particular video.
That helped me put the sequence into words.
First, write and publish Kyosuke’s story on the blog. Then give the Reel a brief caption and the URL of that article.
Anyone who watched the video and wanted to know a little more would have somewhere to continue.
That felt like something I could do.
“Borrowing a little of Kyosuke-sama’s influence. (Laughs.)”
I call him Kyosuke-sama with the respectful Japanese honorific. In this household, the cat gets the deference.
From there, our conversation moved on to what someone might find after arriving at the blog.
A person who came for the cat might become curious about his owner and read another article. Would finding a piece about AS/400 come as a surprise?
The introduction I came up with was this:
“A stubborn, opinionated systems engineer—and a cat’s servant.”
Not quite the introduction you would get from my technical résumé alone. (Laughs.)
At work, I spend my time thinking things through. At home, I serve Kyosuke-sama. Both parts of my life can belong on the same blog.
Kimiko-chan suggested a short introduction leading to a related article. I decided to have the blog post ready first, and put into words the person I wanted readers to meet there.
What we settled on was a way to introduce future stories. How many people would read them was something to find out by trying it.
A conversation about adding one URL to a Reel had become a conversation about introducing myself.
Even borrowing Kyosuke-sama’s influence requires some preparation by his servant. (Laughs.)