From my experience on Mastodon, it is almost impossible to be found.
Some of my toots feel like shouting into a void.
Is there anyway around this?
No.
Mastodon mindlessly copies big “horizontal” social network services, but they rely on algorithms a lot. Without algorithms, I think that platforms with categories and communities are better. That’s why before the major social networks, forums were quite popular for discussions.
I had a bit of a slow start on Mastodon, but after sticking with it for a while it’s now by far the best social media experience I’ve ever had. I follow less than 200 people, not all of them active, but their posts along with the content they boost provides a much more interesting feed for me than any algorithm ever has.
And when I post something I’ve put work into, it’s boosted by those interested and reaches far more relevant people than I’ve ever reached on other networks. And people trust it to be interesting because it’s boosted by someone they trust, rather than some faceless algorithm.
That said, the cost of entry is indeed a bit high.
This is why I like Bluesky more. The ability to create your own feed or follow feeds created by others makes it much easier to find content you want to see and even enables you to create something like a community by creating a feed that only aggregates posts that contains a certain hashtag or any other symbol or word or emoji.
Follow people from other instances, if you find them interesting, chances are they will find you interesting and follow back.
Use tags, especially popular ones.
- Consider writing an introduction post. “Hello, I’m [this person], and I’m interested in [this and that]. I’ll be posting about [these things], and I’m passionate about [something].” Tag it #introduction, along with other tags relevant to your interests. Check out what other people have written in their introduction for inspiration. Pin the introduction to your profile. Personally I never got around to writing one, but I’m pretty sure I would have had more followers if I did.
- Write who you are in your bio - what can people expect if they follow you? Who are you? It doesn’t need to disclose your true identity, but people follow other people on Mastodon, so it’s good to make it look a bit personal.
- Tag a relevant a.gup.pe. The group will boost your post to all its followers, making your post visible on more instances even if you don’t have followers there yet. If you asked this on Mastodon, you might for example tag @fediverse@a.gup.pe and @mastodon@a.gup.pe, though neither are unfortunately very big. At least your post is likely to get pushed to the largest instances, and some people who are interested might see it in their feeds.
- Throw in some relevant hashtags. Some Mastodon clients will hide them a bit if they’re at the end of the post.
- Search for content, follow relevant people when you see them. It takes a bit of time, but gradually you’ll expand your network and get momentum. If you’re in a small instance, you might search for relevant hashtag at a more central hub (like mastodon.social) or a more specialized one (like sciences.social if you’re into social sciences)
Use hashtags that are fairly active. You can search for them before posting to get an idea which ones to use. Even if your toot doesn’t have a good active hashtag, post it. People will check your profile before following and are more likely to follow accounts that are interesting and active.
Also consider posting just for yourself. Thoughts you want to note for later, things you found interesting and want to go back to. You likely aren’t going to get a huge amount of followers on the fedi unless you are well known unless you start following A LOT of people and you give them a reason to follow you back
Are you using hashtags?
