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FediForum September 2024:

Marketing & Messaging for ‘Open Social Web’ / the Fediverse (PR for the Layperson)

/2024-09/session/2-f/

Convener: Georgia Mountford-Blake (@georgiagemo@threads.net)

Participants who chose to record their names here:

Post-session summary

The discussion centered on strategies for marketing the Fediverse, emphasizing the need for targeted audience messaging, better education as well as improved user experience. Participants agreed that clear, specific messages to different audiences makes the most sense.

It was noted there is growing awareness of the open social concept: ie people are recognizing issues with centralized platforms (“problem aware”) and a small subset of “solution aware” were slowly discovering federated alternatives. In particular governments and NGOs are starting to see the benefits but need better tools and education to adopt. Niche communities and marginalized voices were other early adopters but their user experience was so poor they left - highlighting need for education and usability around topics like trust/safety/moderation and controlling your own algorithm.

It was suggested that the most successful pathway to adoption was people following a specific person in a specific place ie “ie post all my ABC on flipboard”. This is where ambassadors can promote tailored, community-specific instances (positioning the Fediverse as diverse communities with unique cultures, not a single, unified platform). Participants highlighted the benefit of products like Threads to simplify onboarding and drive adoption while acknowledging challenges in server migration and limited developer engagement. There was a call for promoting alternatives beyond Mastodon and integrating innovative ideas, such as podcast activities, into social networks to boost awareness and understanding of decentralized platforms.

Key quotes / takeaways

  • “Don’t market Mastodon to end users; market specific Mastodon instances to the specific communities for which they are appropriate.” — Johannes Ernst

  • “Market the community, not the software. We need ‘community ambassadors’—influencers within specific groups—to champion and promote their own instances. This builds credibility and trust. People are more likely to join if they see it as a community that aligns with their values and interests.” — Julian Lam (paraphrased)

  • “The focus should be on building awareness, not convincing people to switch. Make the Fediverse an option they know exists when they are ready to leave centralized platforms.” — Daniel (?)

  • “The narrative shouldn’t be about joining Mastodon; it should be about finding your community and building connections within it.” — Johannes Ernst

  • “Just because Federation makes it possible to connect everything together, it doesn’t mean that everything has to be connected to everything all the time.” — Anca (?)

  • Re: chicken and egg cycle: If we (as advocates for the open social web) focus on getting the ‘chickens’—ie creators, community leaders, and organizations—to set up their own “spaces” aka server instances, then Threads can bring in the ’eggs’—the mass market users.

To drive adoption of the Fediverse, we must prioritize:

  • Creating an intuitive user experience that doesn’t require education.

  • Developing/promoting flagship products that make these platforms easy to understand for everyone.

  • Seamlessly integrating the Fediverse into existing habits, like podcasts or blogs. Make it feel like a natural extension of what people are already doing.

  • Increasing awareness (as opposed to persuading adoption) then when they are ready they will come.

WHO / WHAT / HOW

WHO: Targeting Specific Communities:

  • Market to communities where instances make sense: local orgs, niche groups.

  • Drive Organizational Adoption: Promote autonomy ie own your own instances for control and governance.

  • Governments, journalists, and NGOs were identified as key groups that could benefit from having their own instances, allowing them to control their data and communication.

  • Encourage the creation of .gov instances (e.g., US Congress). Highlight existing efforts by European governments.

  • Targeting Technical Audiences First: Build advocates to promote Fediverse to others.

WHAT: Messaging

  • Focus on Specific Instances: Promote individual Fediverse instances that cater to unique communities. Market the benefits of these communities, not the tech.

  • Platform Diversity: Push unique features of Mastodon, Hubzilla, PeerTube, Pixelfed.

  • User Autonomy: Promote the benefits of niche content, local community, authenticity.

  • Expand Use Cases: Encourage diverse organizations to create instances, boost visibility. Share success stories: Highlight examples of successful Fediverse adoption.

  • Mining User Feedback: Suggestion to use comments on those videos/podcasts to generate ideas for future content that addresses real user concerns and interests.

  • Federation should not imply an overwhelming connection to all content or users but should allow for more curated and meaningful connections - there is a need for more explicit visualization tools and gated community concepts to help users understand and control who can see their content and who they are interacting with.

HOW: Methodology

  • Focus on marketing specific instances that align with subcultures (e.g., furries, marginalized groups) rather than the software itself.

  • Leverage Community Ambassadors: Use influential community leaders as advocates for specific instances. Localized champions build trust, making decentralized platforms feel more accessible and credible.

  • Use podcasts, blogs, more to spread the word.

  • Improve visualization tools to help organizations see the benefits of owning their own servers.

  • Support Alternatives: Push platforms like Lemmy, Ghost, Hometown that might serve communities better.

  • Develop better educational resources and tools to help users understand the benefits of gated communities and the decentralized nature of the Fediverse.

  • Promote platforms like Threads, Flipboard, and Ghost as key products to drive Fediverse adoption.

  • Other suggestions included adopting visual guides and onboarding tutorials to simplify the user journey.

ALSO DISCUSSED

  • User Education vs. UX: Teach or simplify? Make platforms easy, intuitive. The user experience of many Fediverse platforms needs to be more intuitive to attract non-technical users.

  • Education by Design: Built-in notifications help users understand the basics of federated networks without the jargon. Easy Onboarding: Threads offers a simpler entry to the Fediverse with a user-friendly interface and clear privacy indicators.

  • Service Gaps - Support for Businesses (lack of accessible services for setting up and managing servers), Support for Finding the Right Community (central directory for users to easily locate the best-fitting instance).

Recent Marketing Efforts & Wins:

  • WordPress/Automattic: WordPress funded a series of educational videos about the Fediverse, highlighting its potential for content creators and communities.

  • Waveform Podcast: A recent video podcast by a popular tech reviewer reached over 150,000 views in two days, suggesting that leveraging existing media channels could be effective for outreach.

NEXT STEPS:

  • Join the working group for marketing and promo (Matrix - below)

The final word:

Georgia: “Threads can bring the eggs, we just need more chickens”