Social media for charities 101: Mastodon

Mastodon was founded in 2016 by Eugen Rochko and rocketed in popularity during 2022 following Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover.

 

It’s a decentralised social platform made up of lots of servers or ‘instances’ as they are known. Some operate independently and some are part of the ‘Fediverse’ – a network of interconnected instances that users can interact across.

 

The look and feel of the platform is very similar to Twitter but with the heat turned down. For example, there is no ‘quote tweet’ function so it’s harder for controversial posts to be amplified and ‘pile ons’ to begin.

 

The federated structure means that content moderation is decentralised and each instance has a different set of community guidelines that tend to be strictly enforced.

 

On Mastodon, a tweet is a ‘toot’, a retweet is a ‘boost’ and a like is a ‘favourite.’ You get 500 characters plus images, video, polls, or audio for each toot. 

 

Charities can use Mastodon to reconnect with communities that have left Twitter and join instances with relevant niche interests.  

 

 

Audiences on Mastodon

 

The first thing to establish is whether your charity’s target audiences are on Mastodon. There are two main reasons why they are likely to be using the platform:

• They have decided to leave Twitter following (or before) Musk’s takeover and the rise in hate speech on the platform
• They started using Mastodon because of a particular special interest community

There are some no-code tools to help you work out whether your Twitter followers have moved to Mastodon, such as Twitodon.

 

You can search for instances for any that might mention a special interest for your community using the list on the Mastodon site. The full list of servers can be found on the directory in the help section.

 

 

Which server to choose

 

When you set up an account, the first step is to choose your server or instance. It’s an important part of your strategy because it determines who can or is most likely to interact with you.

 

Here are some questions to ask when making your decision:

• Is the instance connected to the Fediverse? As an organistion you may want to connect with people, companies, and influencers on other instances
• Do you agree with the server rules? These are the community guidelines set by the server admin
• Who is the server admin? Doing a bit of due diligence research on them will help you assess whether they fit your values

You can find out more about each instance by visiting its homepage. For example, Mastodon founder, Eugen Rochko is the admin for Mastodon.social.

 

The instance about page tells you about the server, the admin, the server rules and ‘moderated servers’ – any other servers that have been blocked.

 

Don’t worry if you set up an account and decide that you’re on the wrong server, you can switch to another one and redirect your followers.

 

 

Make the most of your profile

 

Mastodon profiles give you the option of adding an avatar (profile picture) and a header image alongside a 500-character bio.

 

They also allow you to fill out a table with four pieces of ‘metadata’. You can choose what these items of data are. For individuals, age, location, pronouns, and website are suggested.

 

For charities perhaps registered charity number, location and website could work well. You don’t have to use all four fields.

 

If you add a website, copy the ‘verify’ link and add it to your website to get the site address verified.

 

You can also pin a post to your profile to help new followers understand why you’re on the platform and who you’re hoping to connect with. 

 

 

An engagement-led strategy

 

Prior to Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter, Mastodon wasn’t used heavily by brands, so audiences are a bit wary of organisations setting up accounts.

 

Promote your new account handle [@handle@mastodoninstance] to your followers on other platforms and in your email marketing. This will help to kick off your following with people who already know and care about what you do.

 

Use ‘conversation starter’ posts to boost engagement with your account quickly. You could ask your followers what you need to know about the platform or who they think you should follow.

 

You could also try polls on current news agenda items that are relevant to what you do as a fast engagement tactic.

 

Focus on strategic follows for partners and influencers and engage with them proactively to help grow your presence.

 

Come to the platform with a testing mindset. Brands and non-profit organisations are still learning what a good Mastodon content strategy looks like. You could test different volumes of content, media versus text only and evergreen content versus trend-related content, for example.