Imagine you have a friend who has NEVER used any social media platforms - and it’s your task to introduce them to what is available and help them set up one or more accounts.
You could start your presentation with an overview of mainstream social media: commercial platforms like Facebook, Instagram, X and TikTok, which give the illusion of connecting people but ultimately profit from data mining. Moreover, they use opaque algorithms to keep users “hooked”, seeing as many sponsored posts as possible. That is how they make a profit (and astronomical profits at that, in the tens of BILLIONS of dollars a year).
Then your presentation could move on to the Fediverse, a galaxy of free, independent networks that talk to each other, with a genuine ethos to connect people (and not make money off their data). Unlike what happens inside the walled gardens of mainstream social media, on the Fediverse posts appear in chronological order (there are no mysterious algorithms working in the background), there are no advertisements and what a user posts isn’t exploited to train an AI system. Again, connection is the real end goal.
If you were to present things this way to someone completely oblivious to the world of social media, I bet that person would steer away from commercial platforms - and opt for the Fediverse instead.
Acknowledging the competitive advantages of commercial social media
Thing is, Facebook, Instagram and X have some big advantages over independent social media: they have been around for a longer time, they each have a massive, engaged user base and enormous marketing budgets. Popular newspapers, magazines, TV news shows cover them as if they are the ONLY options available, largely ignoring the Fediverse.
Nothing will ever happen from the top down: Meta (the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, Threads and Whatsapp) has occasionally sponsored podcasts from media companies like the New York Times and NPR (National Public Radio) - sending a chill down my spine whenever I'd hear their ad pre-roll.
So, the change won’t come from the top down, but from the bottom up: we need a grassroots movement to raise awareness about the Fediverse and get more people on it. No action is too small: you gotta start somewhere. And I have sketched a plan, at least for my circle of friends and acquaintances who are only active in the walled gardens of commercial social media. Even if I don’t succeed in getting many people on the Fediverse, at least I would have the feeling I have tried something.
I’m sharing my plan outline here for several reasons:
- if you are also eager to get your friends on the Fediverse, maybe you could copy the blueprint of my plan and try it yourself
- you could have ideas about how to improve the plan to make it successful; I’m open to feedback and advice from early adopters of the Fediverse, who feel passionately about it
The Plan: Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed
I’ve been brainstorming ideas about how to convince my non-techie, former Twitter 1.0 turned Instagram-loving friends to try out Mastodon and other projects of the Fediverse.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized there is no easy and quick solution, otherwise someone would have already done it.
I don't have any grandiose ideas that I, alone, can move the needle and create a network effect to benefit the Fediverse. Of course not. What I'd like to do here is reclaim a sense of agency and feel like I attempted something - however small. It's better than stewing over the needless destruction of Twitter 1.0 by a malevolent billionaire who never faces any consequences.
I tried to put myself in the shoes of friends who used to be active on Twitter 1.0 and have now moved on to Meta's Instagram. How do I convince them to join the Fediverse? Here is what I came up with: a 5-step plan – I’m eager to hear what you think about it.
Step 1:
Identify 4 people you know that post frequently on commercial platforms (there is no use in approaching people who rarely use social media).
Step 2:
Share with these 4 people an article illustrating the advantages of the Fediverse over commercial social media… as well as an easy-to-follow guide about how to join a Fediverse project (like Mastodon, Misskey or Pixelfed).
Step 3:
Share with your 4 friends a guide* listing 50 interesting accounts to follow (across diverse backgrounds and interests) to quickly populate their feeds.
*it’s on my to do list to create such a guide by the end of the summer
Sounds familiar so far? Getting someone to try out a new social network requires some effort but is nothing new; the real challenge is getting your friends and contacts to CONTINUE using the new network. So many platforms attempting to rival Meta et al. have seen a surge of popularity only to fizzle out after a few weeks or months (remember Vero?)
What could work? Well, have you ever heard of “Instagram Pods”? Because of Instagram’s ever changing algorithm, creative people and influencers who relied on the network for visibility came up with a strategy: a private messaging group with other friends on Instagram… when one published a new post, that person would share the link in the group chat, asking friends to like it and comment on it ASAP. Instagram would think the post was engaging and would make it appear prominently in followers’ “For You” feed or on Explore.
Now you may think: "but you just said the Fediverse doesn’t have algorithms!?!" Correct. But here is why I think a “Fedi Pod” may work.
Step 4:
Put your 4 friends in a “Fedi Pod” group chat, asking them to engage with each other’s new posts via likes and comments (I’m drawing the line at boosts in case you find the practice dodgy).
Here is my reasoning: the biggest obstacle to adopting a new network is having to overcome the feeling that you are “shouting into the void,” posting things that nobody sees. What if, for the period of a month, people in your “Fedi Pod” pledged to interact with each other’s posts… giving the original poster the feeling that they were seen, heard and valued? My gut feeling is that this would encourage people to keep using a network, if there was the guarantee of interactions. The “Fedi Pod” could be accomplished via a private messaging group or via a list on Mastodon, that would show posts and replies by people in your pod (if a group chat sounds like too much work).
Step 5:
At the end of the month, you would ask the 4 people you invited to replicate this behavior - they would each invite 4 new friends to the Fediverse and create a new “Fedi Pod” for a month. And you would as well. Rinse and repeat.
Exponential Growth
This is the power of exponential growth:
Month 1: 5 people (you and 4 friends)
Month 2: 20 people
Month 6: 5,120 people (5 * 4^(6-1) = 5 * 4^5 = 5 * 1024 = 5120 people)
Month 9: 327,680
After 12 months: 20,971,520
Of course these are ideal numbers - if everything goes according to plan and people keep inviting new friends and staying engaged in the network. But I think it’s the perfect illustration of how a network effect could develop.
Side note: I’m average at best at math (even though I was good in school eons ago) so I asked Gemini AI to make the calculation for me. It felt like an ethical use case (even though I’m wary of AI) because I’m not stealing intellectual property from anyone. So, long story short I asked Gemini AI to make the calculation for me, but apparently my wording was really awkward, so Gemini AI refused to make the calculation, immediately warned me about the danger of pyramid schemes and suggested to give me resources about it. I found this hilarious. Yes, it's like a Ponzi scheme - but used for a good cause!
If my numbers are not correct, please let me know ASAP and I will post an update.
Anyhow, I’m eager to hear what you think about this 5-step plan.
The Next Steps
This post is just a starting off point - a plan outline that will be tweaked and refined over the summer.
I will draft and share with all of you the message I will send to friends, inviting them to join the Fediverse (step 2), so that you could copy and paste it, if you find it useful.
For Step 3 - the list of 50 or so recommended accounts to follow to populate one's timeline: I plan on contacting everyone I'd like to add to the list because consent is a key value of the Fediverse. Once I get their ok, I will publish the list (via a Notion page that can be cloned - and tweaked by you).
After all this is accomplished, I will then invite 4 friends to try out the Fediverse for a month. This will most likely happen in September, once my little one is in pre-school again and I can reclaim 7 consecutive hours of work time without interruptions.
So that's my plan! I'm eager to hear what you think about it.
As always, thanks for being here.
This is the fifth installment in the series "The Future Is Federated". In case you missed previous posts, here they are:
1️⃣ "Introducing: The Future is Federated"
2️⃣ "Seeds of Federation: a pledge and a first action"
3️⃣ "The Top 10 Reasons Why Mastodon is the Best Social Media Platform" (also available in French 🇫🇷)
4️⃣ "Your data, your power: the Fediverse's big advantage over the walled gardens of Big Tech"
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