A Month on Mastodon

It's been a month since I created an account on Mastodon. A few days after I created the account, I decided to lock down my Twitter account and focus on Mastodon.

I am loving it. I found a good instance to be on. I've had a couple of toots go a bit viral, getting several hundred boosts and likes. Have found lots of cool people to follow - by this point probably less than half are people I was following on Twitter. I am building up followers nicely - am currently on 468.

I'm not here to tell you all about how to get started on Mastodon - I'm still a noob myself after all, and still learning basic stuff every day.

But I've got a couple of thoughts to pass on to other new Mastodon users, who are maybe struggling a bit figuring out how to make more connections, especially if not a lot of your Twitter friends have come across.

It does matter which server/instance you're on

We all get told, "just choose any server" when first getting signed up. You can interact with anyone else in the "Fediverse" from any server.

And technically that's true, but I think if you're going to maximise your experience then once you're on and have figured the basics out, see if you maybe want to move to a different instance. Doing it early is best. You don't lose your followers, but the sooner you find your home, the better.

Reasons for this:

• Moderation is variable depending on the server/instance you are on. If the moderation is a bit loosey-goosey and some users are running amok on there, other instances may block that instance, leaving you possibly cut off from some of your follows and followers. It could even be entirely defederated. 
• If you're on an instance with a narrower focus, the local feed becomes much more useful. It will probably not move so fast that you can't catch anything anyway, and it will be a great place to spot interesting people to follow and engage with as they toot about, or boost other toots about, your area of mutual interest. I registered on a general UK instance, but quickly moved over to one focused on Romance novels, and I'm making connections with other writers and readers on there.

Hashtags are your friend

• You can follow hashtags, and will then see toots that have that tag in your home feed. The best use for that I think is to follow something more niche, rather than whatever's trending. So when something does pop up with that tag, maybe you'll find someone new to connect with.
• Daily and themed hashtags are a good way to participate and engage with the wider community. Many of them are picture based. The ever popular #Caturday is big on Mastodon, just as it is on Twitter, along with #ThrowBackThursday and #FollowFriday (another good way to find people to follow!) but there are fun things like #ThickTrunkTuesday - pictures of especially girthy trees and #Fensterfreitag - window Friday, pictures of cool windows. An important one is #BlackFriday - not the shopping fest, but being used by POC on Mastodon to rebuild the communities they had on Twitter.

You can use the T word - in fact you should

• On Mastodon, there is no simple text search. So if you want to toot something critical about Donald Trump, or Elon Musk, or J.K. Rowling, you don't have to obfuscate and use nicknames to avoid having their fans coming and piling on. You can only search on hashtags for text, so don't hash tag them and you're safe.
• Not only can you safely use them, you should use the real name, because if people use filters so as not to see stuff about those people, then if the real name isn't in the toot, the filter won't work. 
• But do use the CW option - that stands for Content Warning, and it's used to hide the contents of the tweet, with a short "warning." It's also useful for things like spoilers about a TV show or movie, or to hide the punchline of a joke. 😉

Use image descriptions

When your toot includes an image, you should always add an image description to it when posting.

• The primary reason to do this is that it helps visually impaired people who are using screen readers.
• But also, if your image doesn't include a description, many people will not boost it who would have otherwise. So it's good for you too.

And images really do make a difference to the amount of engagement a toot gets. I started posting a daily update about the Gavle Goat a few days ago. As soon as I started including a picture of it (with alt text of course!) rather than just a link, I started seeing more boosts and likes on the toots.

Going Viral

And speaking of images - cute and funny certainly does the numbers. Going "viral" on Mastodon is not the same as on Twitter. There's no algorithm to start pushing your viral post to other people. The only algorithm is people boosting it and their followers seeing it and boosting it. Which is great for finding more people to connect with.

But, the way to go viral is not by being controversial, or finding something controversial and stirring outrage. There is no "quote tweet" equivalent on Mastodon. You boost something generally because you like it and think other people should see it so they can enjoy it too. You don't boost something awful because there's no (easy) way to add your own context to it to say "Isn't this TERRIBLE?!"

I've had three toots go pretty viral so far. They've all been images (with descriptions) of things that are cute, interesting or funny. I'll keep trying to hit that sweet spot. 

Well I hope those observations have given you a few more ideas to get the most from Mastodon. 

But really, there's no magic to it. You didn't land on Twitter with a great big following and a curated timeline. It took time. It probably took years. And it's hard to start over. But you've done it before, maybe several times if you've been on the internet for a long time. You can do it again.

See you around the Fediverse!

My "viral" toots.

Cute

Interesting (also quite cute)

Funny