Hello, I am a person who has only used thread based “social media” their whole life. I never liked platforms such as twitter and instagram and preferred aggregators like reddit, and nowadays, lemmy.
I tried joining twitter once, failed, closed my account and went back to reddit. Same with instagram. Kind of glad that I did not use them.
I recently created an instagram account because my friends use it’s messaging feature. And because my generation uses instagram handles like phone numbers of old (i am 20).
I really want an active mastodon account. There are really cool people there and there are some thoughts I can’t express with the “forum format”.
I mostly repost cool stuff I see, but even after joining a reasonable amount of discourse, and trying not to look like a bot, I am yet to get a workable amount of social circle. Whereas I easily fit into places like lemmy.
what am i doing wrong
edit: Just realized the title looks like a “I wanna be famous” post. It really is not
My profile: https://toot.community/@yogurtwrong
@yogurtwrong You don’t necessarily need “followers” to actively participate. On Mastodon (and other parts of the Fediverse) many people will follow hashtags as much as they will follow accounts.
Follow hashtags you find interesting, and when you post, include hashtags that are relevant to your post, this is a great way to participate and also how people will find you.
Make sure your hashtags are relevant. Including hashtags that are “trending” but not relevant is considered spamming, and you may find yourself muted or blocked.
I heard about people not reading the tags on other platforms? So this is not true for fediverse then.
Kind of makes sense since there is no algorithm and only way to discover is basically to read the tags.
Adding to Brian’s comment, if you use hashtags, please avoid spamming them. First and the main reason, because it’s spammy. And second, too many hashtags cause visual noise.
And if you’re still looking for an instance, maybe pick some mid-sized Mastodon instance (plus it has good Peertube compatibility). Would advise, however, to avoid creating an account on Mastodon Social as it eclipses the other instances, risking to defeat decentralization. You could also pick a Friendica or Mbin instance as both support microblogging and threads.
On Mastodon (and other parts of the Fediverse) many people will follow hashtags
I don’t really like Mastodon either but I stopped following hashtags entirely because for some reason it ignores language filters for them, meaning my feed is chock full of shit I can’t even read.
So that‘s why I keep seeing stuff that don’t follow my language settings. That’s pretty annoying.
Yep, there was an issue opened 3 years ago, be sure and let them know:
I agree it’s definitely worth following hashtags liberally for things you’re interested in. Your feed should really open up with that.
But it’s also worth doing a longish #introduction post, adding hashtags of things you like and pinning that to your profile. You might already have done that but you can always do a fresh one. People will also boost introduction posts so that might get your profile out there more.
I have an introduction pinned on my profile if it helps: https://beige.party/@brian
I do not understand hashtags. My GF has tried to explain it to me and I just don’t get it. Maybe I am too old.
It adds searchable metadata to a post. Like if you go in Netflix and search for an actor or browse a genre. So I can follow #rugby without having to follow every single person posting about rugby, and I will see all posts that have that tag. Then I can find individual people within that topic to follow and interact with directly.
https://fedi.tips/what-are-hashtags-how-do-i-use-them-on-mastodon-and-the-fediverse/
Exactly this, and the other benefit of hashtags (at least on some apps for Mastodon) is that you can mute them. So, if you’re following someone whose posts you enjoy, except their posts about #rugby, you can mute those posts and not see any of them. I find it a really great way to keep my feed as only those things I’d prefer to see.
You know what tags are, right? It’s a tag, denoted with the hash symbol.
Start with following some person who posts about things you care. Sometimes respond if you think you can contribute to the topic, be nice and soon you’ll get your circle.
You can also use some tools for easier discovery of interesting people. Like my mastodon search. I sometimes use it and got few mutuals this way.
I actually enjoy Mastodon because the “followers” you get or the ones you follow are few and it’s all manageable. I don’t understand the appeal of following so many that you can’t possibly keep up with what they write about or who they are.
Having used Mastodon for a few years, I would say that it doesn’t work like that. There’s no reason to expect interaction unless you bring an IRL group, or stick close with a popular niche topic. Most people I interact with have an agenda, and don’t need me for anything other than boosting their posts. Some are intensely hostile to anything other than standalone posts. Anyone replying across the platform is labelled a ‘reply guy’ and basically dissed and shunned. “Ultimate cancelling”, I think.
Most of Mastodon doesn’t want to support the rest of Mastodon AFAIK. There isn’t a broad society with popular encouragement as you had with early Instagram, Twitter, and Reddit.
At the outset of popularity for the platform, a lot of long term users were very upset about popularity. To the day, those users are trying to discourage other people. If you post, they might even counter-post as cleverly as possible to attach disdain to anyone interacting with you.
Don’t take any of it personally. It’s not about you. Luckily you’re not special in this regard. Post there if you want to, but never expect something beyond passing jerks.
I don’t know with whom you interact in Mastodon, but this in definitely not my experience there.
Dang
Yeah, dunno who hounded them out. It’s not usually like that. I’d be reporting some accounts and blocking for that level of unkind.
I use Antennas on Sharkey / IceShrimp to be able to find content I’m interested in.
But I usually prefer the Threadiverse format.
Antennas are underrated, they works pretty well for capturing many small signals about one area of interest. Mastodon columns with multiple hashtags pinning comes second this.
Antennas are really a feature Mastodon is missing.
When I use Mastodon, I switch to Phanpy.social to have a slight better UI, but otherwise Sharkey/IceShrimp are really much better.
Don’t forget to mention Misskey as well, as they that feature originally forked from them :)
Follow hashtags and get stuck in to some conversations. It’s quite rewarding.
And well done avoiding instagram. I thought it was now just a graveyard for deluded millennial aspiration but apparently not!
I only follow people on mastodom who post original content or I know them IRL. There is no good reason to follow a random user who only repost things.
Apart from the stuff already mentioned, never stop shouting into the void about stuff that interests you or projects you’re working on. Add a few relevant hashtags so your toots can be discovered. It may take a while, but people will come. Don’t give up.
