So….you want to set up a Mastodon account? It makes sense, given everything that’s going on with the bird app right now. But the main thing to remember as you’re deciding whether or not to do this, and trying to figure out whether Mastodon is a good place for you, is that it is not a Twitter replacement.
Twitter gained traction because it’s simple and easy to use. Mastodon isn’t necessarily. It has a learning curve and it takes some work to understand the ins and outs of how it works. It’s also decentralized or federated which means that there isn’t one company or person in charge of the entire thing. It’s built as a set of protocols, not first and foremost as a social network. This means many different platforms can interact with it (which is good!) but it’s more complicated (which can be good and bad, depending.)
You don’t have to understand (or care about) everything I just said, but you do have to put some time in to figure out how Mastodon works. If you aren’t willing to take the time and would rather just complain about it on Twitter, then that’s totally fine. No one is forcing you to migrate to another app! If you’re invested in community, though, it’s worth it. I’ve found my experience at Mastodon so far to be great. I’m not leaving Twitter, and in fact, I think I’ll probably maintain both sites. I find they’re good for different things. (You can find me at @skrishna@mastodon.social — more on what all of that means later).
Keep in mind that I am not an expert. I just started using Mastodon a couple of weeks ago in earnest, but I’ve learned a lot in that time.
Who Mastodon will work for (and who it probably won’t)
Before you set up your Mastodon account, it’s worth thinking about what you use Twitter for.
Do you use it for community and to interact with people , whether for fun or networking in your field?
Do you use it for self-promo?
Do you use it because your employer says you have to?
Do you use it because you feel like you need to have a platform as a freelancer, writer, or content creator?
Do you use it to find breaking news?
Honestly, if you don’t enjoy using Twitter for community, then Mastodon will probably not work for you. It’s not designed to build a platform. Instead, it’s about engaging with and talking to people. If you primarily use Twitter as a promo tool, to tweet links and such, Mastodon probably isn’t going to be worth it. If you’re on Twitter because you have to be and you hate it, I don’t think Mastodon is the answer. However, if you’re like me and just really enjoy talking to people about the things you’re nerdy about, then it will work better for you (provided you can figure it out).
Edited to add: I don’t think Mastodon is great for finding breaking news, and I don’t know that it ever will be. Plenty of journalists have migrated over there, but without an algorithm to surface breaking news (one of the benefits of Mastodon is supposed to be no algorithm) and verification (beyond what they offer via a website — more on that later), I don’t see it being overly useful to follow the news. That being said, if you want to see what people are saying in a particular field — say astronomy —I’ve found it great.
How Mastodon is organized (and how to pick a server)
Here’s the part where people get really confused: How is Mastodon organized? Twitter is centralized, which means everyone is on the same server. Searching for a hashtag, keyword, or account, means that you’re searching across all of Twitter at once. You can see everything that’s available.
Mastodon is different. It’s decentralized. Think about it this way (any tech people will probably rip this analogy apart, but this isn’t directed at tech people!): You’re a member of a single home Slack. But you can follow people (and search, to a limited extent) across different Slacks and their posts will show up in your home Slack.
Edited to add: You can’t actually follow people across Slacks. I am just using this as an example.
That means when you first sign up, you have to choose your instance (or home server). That’s where people get turned off, because if you’re going in with no information, you have no idea how to even choose.
People will say your home server “doesn’t matter,” and they’re right to a point. I’d argue that it does matter a lot, because your server admin will determine what is allowed on the server (abuse, harassment, etc.) But also I’m a person who just needs concrete instructions on how to do a thing. It doesn’t matter if it “doesn’t matter,” I still find it confusing until people tell me “this is how you do it” — so here’s how to do it.
If you have no idea what server to choose, I recommend one of the big ones. Each instance is dependent on its admins, and if you join one with an absent admin, your experience will suffer. That said, I’ve seen a lot of people joining smaller servers based on their interests. Ask around in your community to see which ones people are joining.
Here are the servers I’ve seen a lot of people on:
mastodon.social
mstdn.social
scicomm.xyz (science communicators)
tenforward.social (Star Trek)
astrodon.social (astronomy)
mastodon.art
I’m on mastodon.social, which is the biggest and it’s official. I like it because it gets the newest features the soonest. The downside is that most people are joining this server, and it’s a bit overloaded. It can be slow, image uploads can stall, searching can be buggy. But the server admin is responsive and keeping an eye on loads, so things always even out. A lot of the bigger servers are currently invite only because of these lags, but you can always DM me on Twitter to get an invite.
Edit: I’m now on wandering.shop, (@skrishna@wandering.shop), which is a closed server. I think mastodon.social was a great place to start out, but now that I have a larger following, I like being on a more closely moderated server.
Ok, I set up my account. Now what?
If you’ve set up your Mastodon account, then you’re going to see a whole lot of nothing in your home feed. That’s okay, but here’s where the real work comes in. You have to build your feed. That involves following a lot of people.
My username on Mastodon is @skrishna@mastodon.social, and you need all that information to follow other people. If you’re trying to follow the people you know, do not go to their profile link (which for me would be http://mastodon.social/@skrishna). When you log into Mastodon (which you do through your specific server link — there’s not a unified URL like mastodon.com. If you joined scicomm.xyz, your server link is http://scicomm.xyz, for example).
First things first: add a profile image and fill out your bio. Once you do that, and people can see who you are, write an #introduction post. Use hashtags like it’s your job — it’s the main discoverability tool for Mastodon. Pin it to the top of your feed. (Here’s my introduction post, for reference.)
Now it’s time to find others to follow.
This is where search comes in. Start searching for the usernames of people you know. If you don’t know anyone, search for (1) hashtags of things you like (#startrek, #scicomm, #space, and #astronomy are big ones for me) and (2) #introduction. Then…start following people. You can always unfollow them later.
(This is important: don’t go to someone’s URL to follow them because if you’re not on the same server you won’t be able to. Find their username through search when you’re logged into YOUR server.)
Once you follow some people you like, go and see who they are following and then follow those people! Mastodon can seem like an overwhelming wasteland until you actually have an active feed. When you find cool people to follow, boost their introduction posts! Liking their posts is great, but remember, there’s no algorithm here so that won’t help them be seen.
There are many tools popping up to find your Twitter people on Mastodon. I’m not going to link them all because I haven’t tried them, but what I have found effective is searching on twitter for “Mastodon,” and then restricting results to “people you follow.”
Also keep in mind that pretty much all servers are overwhelmed with the Twitter migration (#TwitterMigration, if you want to see who’s coming over) and things will run slowly. It will get better!
If you’re wondering how to use Mastodon once you’re on there, here’s the post on that (the culture on Mastodon is different — alt text and content warnings are the default). And there are definitely some pitfalls: no algorithm is great, but it also means no quality filter. And no quote tweeting! I’ll get into all that later.
But I hope this is a helpful primer for the first steps.