What is Mastodon?
Mastodon is an open-source, decentralized social media network that consists of various servers. Every server has its own set of guidelines, and users can join a server of their choice to be part of Mastodon. They can also choose to create a server of their own.
A server in Mastodon is an independent entity. Currently, there are over 9000 servers available in Mastodon, which can usually be categorized based on a specific interest, topic, industry, language, and so on. Once you join a server, you can interact with anyone across all the servers.
Imagine it like this: the servers are like individual apartments in a gated community. Residents in the apartment can communicate with their neighbors with ease, just like how users in a server can follow or interact with other users in the server.
To contact someone from another apartment, you can reach out via phone or email. Similarly, on Mastodon you can use the @profilename@servername to reach out to users from another server also. It's like the address of the apartment.
If you are no longer interested in being part of an apartment, you can always switch to the one you prefer, just like how you can move to another server of your choice in Mastodon.
Once you have created an account in a server, you can start creating posts, following other users, adding a reply to or interacting with other posts, direct messaging, and so on.
How can businesses use Mastodon?
Mastodon is quite different from the other social media platforms that you may have used in recent times. There are no ads, no algorithms to suggest posts and, since it's completely de-centralized, it gives you an option to create your own server. This gives businesses a unique advantage over other social media channels and the content strategy should be completely different for Mastodon.
Join the right server
Currently, there are over 9000 servers in Mastodon and it could get a bit tricky to find a server with a suitable audience for your business. Mastodon displays a list of servers categorized based on region and topic to help you get started.You can also use various directories available online to drill down further and find the server that better suites your niche. If you want to establish an audience for your brand, you can even
create a separate server on Mastodon.
Engage in meaningful conversations
The social media marketing strategy for Mastodon can be different when compared to other popular channels like LinkedIn, Instagram, and so on. Since there are no ads or algorithms to prioritize or boost your post, you can leverage this unique advantage and initiate interesting and relatable interactions with your followers and build a community that can work together.
When you create a post on Mastodon, your followers will be able to see it from the Home tab itself. But, how do you expand your audience and reach more people who are interested in your brand? That's where #hashtags come into the picture.
Hashtags play a major role in helping the audience find the content that they are looking for. In fact, Mastodon gives more priority to hashtags than any other social media channel, so it's important for brands to include relevant hashtags to a post so that you are able to reach the right set of interested audience. You will also be able to find the list of hashtags that are getting better traction on Mastodon and include the relevant ones to your post.Promote your posts across channels
Mastodon has over 14 million users as of September, 2023 and it's continued growing rapidly over the last few months. However, there are billions of users available on other social media channels, such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and so on. So, brands can share their Mastodon posts across other social media channels, include it on websites, landing pages, and much more, to connect with your existing customer and followers and expand your Mastodon community.