Ecommerce Brands: Migrate From Twitter to Mastodon?
What if I told you that you could reach almost 38 times the people you’re currently reaching with organic content on one channel, and you could do it while slashing your advertising budget for that channel to zero?
Too good to be true, right? Well, these are the exact results one brand named Iconfactory saw when comparing the engagement rates to the same content posted on Twitter versus Mastodon, with Mastodon coming out substantially ahead. An organic post to Twitter saw 12 engagements despite the brand having a following count of over 16100 users on Twitter. Over on Mastodon that c content saw 450 engagements from a following of only 4100 users. What’s going on, and how can you capitalize on this early opportunity as social marketing trends shift?
Before we dive into that, let’s look at what’s happening in the world of Twitter and Mastodon to understand these shifts.
Power Users Flee Twitter, Flock to Mastodon
Among a number of other policy changes, Twitter recently announced that they were banning the third party apps that many power-users had utilized for years to help them engage with others on Twitter. This has pushed many of those users to finally leave Twitter, and it’s greatly impacted the software companies that provided those third party Twitter apps as they were cut off without warning and now have apps that went from generating substantial revenue to nothing literally overnight.
Those companies aren’t just sitting back and letting Twitter do this without reacting - a number of those companies including Tapbots, the maker of the Tweetbot app - have pivoted and released apps for the Twitter competitor Mastodon. These apps, like Ivory from Tapbots, provide a very similar and familiar interface to former Twitter users but for the Mastodon platform. Apple has even jumped on this topic and spent several days featuring Mastodon apps in their App Store, further driving adoption of the Mastodon platform.
What is Mastodon?
Mastodon is an open source, decentralized, alternative to Twitter. It’s been around since 2016 and is slowly starting to gain a following of power users and early adopters. You can join various Mastodon servers or “instances” that all operate independently with their own set of rules and communities. What makes Mastodon so appealing are the lack of any ads, no algorithms to filter your content, and no data mining to sell your data. It’s very different from Twitter and it already has an engaged audience.
While each Mastodon server is operated independently, most servers are part of the “fediverse” (a play on the words of federated and universe) - this means that messages posted on one Mastodon server appear on all Mastodon servers. In other words, if you visit the website of a Mastodon server - like https://mastodon.social/explore - you get an experience that looks quite a bit like Twitter, with messages and reactions from servers all around the world.
Why Did Iconfactory See Such Great Results on Mastodon?
Mastodon is backed by a German non-profit, not a for-profit company. Mastodon does not place any advertising on its servers. The lack of advertising combined with the lack of an algorithm standing between you and your followers means that if you post a message to Mastodon, your users will see it. Compare this to existing, commercial social networks like Twitter where they have created a “pay for play” model where if you want people, even your own followers, to see your content you often have to promote, boost or advertise that content on the network. It’s in Twitter’s best interests to create a platform where you have to pay them in order for your content to be seen. Now you see why Iconfactory had such better results on Mastodon than on Twitter.
Social Media Inflection Point?
Twitter’s actions that are driving more and more users from Twitter to Mastodon may trigger an inflection point. For a few years now we’ve seen increased monetization from social networks and a need to be extreme, pay to promote your content or both in order to be seen. This is beginning to collide against Gen Z and Gen Alpha’s extreme interest and desire for authenticity, and it’s not a pretty collision - this is in part what’s driving younger generations away from existing social media platforms and to newer platforms like TikTok.
The sudden shift from Twitter to Mastodon may help mainstream Mastodon, which could show the world that a social network operated by a nonprofit with no mandatory algorithms and no advertising could be a much more authentic and enjoyable experience for all involved. Even if Mastodon doesn’t become a major player in the social media space this inflection point could lead towards the downfall of one or more commercial social networks and a societal drive towards nonprofit social media networks.
That’s all well and good, but how can you, the average ecommerce brand, take advantage of these shifts?
Ecommerce Brands Must Join Mastodon - Responsibly
While there are different levels of engagement and interaction on Mastodon that will vary based on your target audience (i.e., if your average customer is a technology-focused early adopter, you absolutely need to put time and energy into Mastodon every day. But if your average customer tends to shy away from technology, for now you may just want to secure your brand name on Mastodon), it’s important to know some ground rules before you get started. Mastodon is a small but growing community - at current count there are over 6 million accounts and of those about 4 million are active users. It’s large enough that it can deliver solid results but small enough that brands that aren’t playing nicely will be called out quickly.
Mastodon is small enough that it still has a strong focus on authentic, genuine conversation between users. This isn’t the place to auto-post every sale product on your website. It is the place to share the story behind your new product.
Securing Your Brand Name on Mastodon
I would encourage all brands and ecommerce professionals to go a step further and actively engage on Mastodon, but securing your username is a good start.
Because there are many Mastodon servers, the first decision to make is which server to create your account on. Mastodon usernames look almost like a cross between email addresses and Twitter handles. For instance, my Mastodon username is @JoshuaSWarren@mas.town. This means that I am @JoshuaSWarren on the Mastodon server mas.town. When viewing my posts, if you’re on the mas.town server the post comes from @JoshuaSWarren. But if you’re viewing it from one of the hundreds of other Mastodon servers, you’ll see it as coming from @JoshuaSWarren@mas.town. To put it simply - what server you create your account on impacts how your username appears on Mastodon.
You can view a list of servers to choose between at https://joinmastodon.org/servers. While all servers on this list can view all posts to Mastodon, some of them have a particular topic the server focuses on that’s incorporated into the name of the server. For instance, masto.nyc is a Mastodon server that encourages New Yorkers to join. pnw.zone also has a regional focus, focusing on the Pacific Northwest of the US and Canada. There are also interest-based Mastodon servers, for instance many influencers in the personal knowledge management (PKM) space have setup their Mastodon accounts on the server pkm.social so that PKM appears in their usernames.
For brands, if you don’t have a regional focus, you may want to consider registering on the original Mastodon server, mastodon.social. This server and mastodon.world seem to be the most commonly used and recognized. The good news is if something occurs and you feel you ought to move your account to a new server, you can, assuming your username isn’t taken on that other server.
Once you have registered with a server, I recommend configuring your profile following the advice on Fedi.Tips. At a minimum setup your logo and basic information and consider verifying your website and listing your website on your Mastodon profile so that people can verify that this is the official account for your brand.
What’s Next?
If you want to go deeper and engage further on Mastodon, stay tuned, as I’m developing a guide to brands to engage with their customers on Mastodon as new services, standards and trends begin to solidify around this emerging new approach to social media. For now, remember to keep it authentic and enjoy being able to interact with and reach all of your followers without having to pay to play! If you have any questions or want to share what’s working well for you on Mastodon, please reach out!
