On Facebook, I have come across several people who like writing poems, articles etc and love to have their work read and appreciated by readers. And for that, they post their content on Facebook. I used to tell them to start a blog to showcase their writing. But many people find blogging too much of a hassle. Even a free blog needs to be setup with a theme and widgets etc. Moreover, only those bloggers who are regular in posting can boast to have readers. Having and maintaining a blog does require commitment of time and energy, even if you run it only as a hobby and not a profession. Bloggers are advised to post at least once per week in their blogs to keep their readers entertained. This deters many people from starting a blog.
If you too are one such person who would like to have a space to share your creativity or feelings but can’t afford the commitment that a blog requires, go Expin!
Expin.me is a brand new expression platform that provides a space to writers to post their articles. Expin.me Beta launched on 26th January, 2015 with a slogan saying ‘Freedom to Express’.
And since then I’ve been wanting to write about Expin.
Expin gives people the freedom to express themselves using text, images and videos. All that you can do on a blog, you can do on Expin, except monetize your work. Expin doesn’t yet allow the content creators to earn from the content they post. What it allows is freedom for all to make a free account on Expin.me and share their content whenever they like. And it gives the readers freedom to read the works of different writers in one single platform.
To use expin.me, you need to create a free account and set up your profile. You can create an account on Expin.me using your Facebook account, Google Plus or email address. Just like in Facebook, you can set up a profile photo and profile header. Once your profile is set up, you can create a Story easily. Just click on Create Story button, type in the title of your story and select whether you want your Story to be Public, Private, or shared in a Group. Once you enter the title and select the audience of your Story, you’ll be taken to the story builder. Once in the story builder, just create your story as you like, add images or videos and Publish. All the stories you create will appear in your Profile page.
What i like about Expin.me:
- Convenient: If all you want is to share your views, opinions and creativity when you want, you’ll find Expin.me very convenient. Creating Stories on Expin.me is easy and fun. And once you publish your content on Expin, you can easily share the link of your Stories on your social networks.
- Freedom to express the way you want: When you post on a blog, your writing space or ‘canvas’ is restricted to the theme of your blog. All your blogs have the same canvas size and appearance. But on Expin, you can post your stories using different Story templates. And even if you post on the default page, you can increase and decrease the width and length of your canvas as you want. Not just that, you can add several pages to a single story and use different fonts in different posts. You can use background music, themes, images, videos etc to make your post interesting.
- Better Looking Posts: Because epin.me gives the writers freedom to alter the writing space as they want and use various customization options, the posts appear more visually interesting than common blog posts.
- Post Privately or Publicly: Users have the freedom to decide which story they want publicly accessible and which they want to share to only selected people or keep entirely private.
- Become Elite Storyteller: If your stories are considered good enough, they will get featured on Expin.me and can earn you the honor of being an Elite Storyteller. This will win you an Elite URL. My Elite URL, for example, is http://expin.me/JyotiArora
- Groups: Expin.me allows its users to create different interest groups. Anyone can create a group and classify it as Open, Closed or Secret groups. Anyone can post in an Open Group. Only the members of the Closed Group can post in it and the Secret Group is, well a Secret Group that only the members can access. The advantage of these groups is that many different writers can post their articles related to a theme in one group and readers interested in that theme can read the articles of all these writers in this one place. For example, I created a group called BookWorm. I have posted only two book reviews in it yet. But since it’s an Open Group, anyone desiring of sharing a Story about books or writing can post in it.
- Tags: Expin allows the users to add tags to their stories. Tags help the readers to search and browse for the stories of their interest.
- Add Images, Videos, Links and Social Buttons: When you create a story on Expin, you have full freedom to adorn your stories using images, videos, links (as text links, link buttons or image links) and social network buttons. These can be used by bloggers and website owners to drive traffic to their blogs and websites.
- Followers and Likes: Expin.me doesn’t allow readers to post comments on the Stories, but it allows the readers to like the content and follow the writer, as well as share their favorite stories on their social networks. As all writers love having their writing appreciated, winning likes and followers on Expin is sure going to please the writers and encourage them to post more.
- Freedom to read: Expin.me isn’t only interesting for writers. Even readers have the advantage of finding works of different writers in one single platform. They can Follow their favorite writers or Interest groups. Readers can browse for the Stories of interest by looking at recently posted Stories displayed in their personal Feed. Or they can search and browse using Tags or by visiting the Interest Group of their choice.
Expin.me is great place for all the people who like expressing their views and opinions and would like to share their articles with others. Bloggers and website owners can share their content on it to drive traffic to their website. It can prove to be a useful promotional tool for various companies and brands too. But its greatest benefit is in giving a place to common users to share their content, without the commitment and bother of maintaining a blog. The ability to add Interest Groups can prove great fun too.
Expin.me is still in Beta. It will go through many changes and developments by the time it finally launches. But it is already great fun to use. And if you like sharing your articles, stories, poems etc. and have them read and reviewed by readers, do check it out.
Important Links:
Expin at: http://expin.me/
Follow me on Expin.me http://expin.me/JyotiArora
