Mastodon App | Here's the most important information about the current X alternative
Mastodon App Is It The New Alternative To Twitter? Now I want to ask you a question dear reader, are you tired of constant ads and algorithmic interference in Twitter content (formerly X now)? Maybe it is time to try a new platform that offers us more freedom and higher privacy, Mastodon is the open source platform that has gained great popularity recently, so much so that X users are talking about it a lot and leaving X behind and running to this new application.
X and Mastodon are two social media platforms that share many similarities, but they differ in their philosophy and way of working. While X is currently focused on rapid growth and financial gain, Mastodon seeks to build an open and diverse community. In this article, we will compare these two platforms in terms of privacy, freedom, and the features available to users. In addition, we will explore why everyone is interested in it, and whether it can actually replace X. We also help you find out if there is any marketing potential on this popular alternative social media platform.
What is Mastodon App?
Mastodon is a decentralized social network made up of independent servers organized around specific topics or interests. People can join servers, follow each other, participate in conversations, and do all the other things you'd expect to do on a social network like X. Mastodon has been around since March 2016 but didn't really take off until late 2022, when Elon Musk bought X, causing a lot of users to migrate to the new app.
But why did this happen? Mostly because a large number of people on X said they would leave the platform for Mastodon due to the lack of privacy they felt on their favorite platform X. Meanwhile, most of the posts I’ve seen about Mastodon on X recently might make it seem like a traditional alternative, but it’s not at all. The Mastodon app is completely different from the Blue Bird app. Let’s see how different it is.
How does Mastodon work?
The biggest difference between Mastodon and X can be summed up in one word: decentralization; social media platforms like Twitter are centralized, meaning they are owned and operated by a single company. That company builds the features, moderates the content, tweaks the algorithms, and handles all the other tasks that come with running a social network.
In contrast, while there are people at a non-profit company called Mastodon gGmbH who work on the social media platform known as Mastodon, the platform itself is not centralized within that company, as it consists of thousands of independent servers. Think of a Mastodon server as a mini social network or forum. Typically, a server is organized around a specific interest, topic, or industry. Once you join a server, you can follow, respond to, and interact with anyone on Mastodon, regardless of what server they are on.
But what exactly can you do on Mastodon?
The very short answer is, you can do many of the same things you can on X. You can talk about what's on your mind, contribute to conversations that appear in your news feed, post pictures of your cats for example, etc. You'll get your own news feed, where you'll see posts from people you follow, an Explore tab that lets you find interesting new people, and so on.
You will see some differences of course, for example: you can’t start a thread the way you do on X, but you can reply to yourself and basically replicate X’s thread. You will also need to choose a server to host your account. The largest servers are public, meaning they don’t have a specific topic – it will feel more like Twitter, but you will also find that technical topics like Bitcoin and software development have some of the most popular servers. You can use a platform like mastodonservers.net to find the server you want to join.
How can businesses benefit from Mastodon Alternative X?
Although Mastodon is a new trend in the world of social media, its use by businesses is completely different from the use of platforms like X.
What is the difference between Mastodon and X?
The difference between Mastodon and X, as we explained above, is that there is no centralization in this application, but this is not the only difference:
- A network of servers instead of a single platform: There is no single central entity running Mastodon, but rather a network of independent servers, which means that companies cannot “market” on Mastodon in the traditional way they can on platforms like X.
- No Ads or Promotions: Mastodon makes it clear that the service will never display ads, nor will it promote any accounts over others. This is because Mastodon is a non-profit organization, and therefore there is no profit motive or desire to work with advertisers.
However, there are still many ways businesses can take advantage of this growing interest in Mastodon:
Market Research (Perfect Alternative X)
Mastodon is a great alternative to X for market research. Unlike Twitter, which shows you uncategorized tweets based on unpredictable algorithms, each Mastodon server is an independent community focused on a specific topic, whether it's a geographic location, a shared interest, or even a specific professional field. Once you find the right server, you'll have access to unfiltered information that's relevant to your target audience or a whole new market segment.
Affiliate Marketing, Advertising Programs, and User Generated Content (UGC)
You can certainly run affiliate marketing campaigns, advertising programs, and user-generated content (UGC) through Mastodon, where you can reach out to individual accounts with a certain number of followers, just like you would on any other platform, but it may take a bit more research to find the right accounts. Keep in mind that Mastodon has a much smaller following than X. For example, George Takei has 3.4 million followers on Twitter versus only 235,000 followers on Mastodon. Therefore, you may have a hard time finding influencers with the same following size that you’re used to on other platforms.
Advertisements
Advertising is one of the most difficult areas for Mastodon. The people behind Mastodon are very anti-advertising, which means there is no infrastructure to serve ads at scale across multiple servers. However, each server operates completely independently, so there is nothing stopping the server owner from creating their own infrastructure to accept payments, which technically means that servers can sell advertising space. But if you try to advertise on Mastodon, you may encounter some resistance, as Mastodon users expect to see fewer ads – or none at all.
Create your own community
While you can’t run ads or find the next big influencer, here’s what you can do on Mastodon: Create your own server. Sure, creating your own Mastodon server requires more technical effort than starting a YouTube channel or running an X account, but having your own Mastodon server gives you a huge advantage – complete control over it. This means you can approve every new account, handle content moderation, and direct the conversation, which makes it a powerful marketing tool.
Community Outreach
Because Mastodon doesn't have an algorithm that promotes certain posts over others, you can't just post and hope for good results. You have to put in the effort to engage with the community if you want to make any progress, but thanks to Mastodon's organization in the cloud.
Create an account on the Mastodon app
Mastodon offers a similar experience to X with a few key differences. Mastodon is a decentralized, open-source social network that focuses on privacy and moderation. We will help you create a Mastodon account. Here is a comprehensive guide:
1. Go to the site:
- Start by visiting the official Mastodon website: joinmastodon.org
2. Choose a server:
- Once you enter the site, you will see a list of available servers.
- Browse the list and choose the server that suits you, you can browse servers based on your interests, language or geographic location.
3. Create an account on the chosen server:
- On the server page you have chosen, you will find a “Create account” button usually on the right side. Click on it.
- You may be asked to read and accept server rules.
- After that, you will be presented with a new registration page. Fill in all the required fields accurately, including your username, password, and email.
- Make sure to read and agree to the server's privacy policy.
- Then click on the “Sign Up” button to complete the registration process.
4. Activate the account:
- After registration, you will receive a confirmation message to your email.
- Open the message and follow the link in it to activate your account.
Note: Some minor details may vary depending on the server you choose, but the basic steps will be similar to those mentioned above.
Congratulations! You’ve just signed up for the Mastodon app. You’ll be taken to your home screen, inside the server you’ve chosen to join. From here you can start following people – no matter what server they’re on – to get posts in your newsfeed, explore popular content from other servers, and more.
It is very important to know : You are not stuck on this server just because that is where you created your account. If you want to choose a different server to serve as the home base for your account, you can move your account between servers.
How to use Mastodon?
Much like X, Mastodon lets you post short messages to the world or select specific people to see the messages, but instead of tweets, posts are called “toots.” Many of Mastodon’s other features are pretty much the same as X’s, with slight differences: Each post is limited to 500 characters (instead of 280), and you can include links, images (JPG, GIF, or PNG, up to 8MB), audio files (MP3, OGG, WAV, FLAC, OPUS, AAC, M4A, 3GP up to 40MB) and videos (MP4, M4V, MOV, WebM up to 40MB).
Your posts on Mastodon can be set to be public, to your followers only, or completely unlisted from all timelines, you can create polls for your followers and use all your favorite regular emojis, as well as custom emojis created for specific servers.
Any post can be marked with an explanatory “content warning” that requires clicking before viewing, and Mastodon users take great advantage of this feature. You can even edit posts on Mastodon. Every version of the post remains available for review, and people who reshare your post after it has been edited are notified.
Like X, Mastodon uses hashtags that start with a “#” symbol, such as #Gaming, #Anthropology, or #Veganism. Since there is no algorithm to suggest your posts to non-followers, using hashtags to categorize your posts for people who might be interested is more important than X. You can follow any account on Mastodon, whether it’s on your own server or not, and the account’s posts will be added to your home feed in chronological order. Be aware that for some accounts, you need to ask for permission to follow them.
If you don’t want a specific account to follow you, you can block it entirely, as on X, or you can choose to block an entire server. Mastodon lets you “favorite” posts, but the number of favorites doesn’t appear on timelines. If you want to promote someone else’s posts, you’ll need to “boost” or repost them. Unlike X, there are no “quotes” on Mastodon, a deliberate choice to minimize interference with other people’s posts. A separate “bookmark” feature lets you save quotes on Mastodon without notifying the account that posted them.
Mastodon has a feature called Direct Messages, but the name is a bit misleading. Instead of providing person-to-person messages, Mastodon limits the visibility of a post to only the people mentioned in it. In other words, they're short messages that only certain people can see, not actual direct messages.
How do timelines work on Mastodon?
While X has only one timeline (ordered chronologically or by “top stories”), Mastodon has three:
- Your main timeline displays all posts and reblogs from everyone you follow.
- Your local timeline displays everything from your server instance.
- Your federal timeline displays all posts from all Mastodon servers you follow someone on.
Using a web browser, you can set Mastodon to look like an X, displaying one feed at a time, or you can display multiple feeds and notifications at once like Tweetdeck by selecting “Advanced View” from your preferences.
Can Mastodon replace X?
The answer is “it depends.” Mastodon recently saw a huge increase in monthly active users, going from 1 million to 2.5 million in about a month, but that number doesn’t compare to Twitter’s over 250 million monthly active users.
Technically, Mastodon is not aiming to replace Twitter but rather offers a completely different experience. Mastodon focuses on decentralization, privacy, and non-profit ownership, making it an ideal alternative for users looking for a platform that moves away from an advertising- and surveillance-based business model. Ultimately, users decide to stay on X or move to Mastodon based on their needs and preferences.
Frequently asked questions about Mastodon app
There are many questions that many users ask before entering the world of Mastodon, here are these questions and their answers:
Who owns the Mastodon app?
Mastodon is developed by Mastodon gGmbH, a non-profit company from Germany, but because the social platform is open source and decentralized, there is no single “owner.” Instead, each of the individual Mastodon servers – which are self-contained communities – is run by their owners.
What are the differences between Mastodon and Twitter?
Instead of being one central place where everyone tweets, replies, and interacts, Mastodon is a decentralized network of individual servers. Each server is organized around a specific topic, company, or interest, and server members can interact with members of other servers. Additionally, because Mastodon is run by a non-profit organization, it has no advertising structure, internal currency, or algorithms.
How do you find people on Mastodon?
If you're looking for a specific person, you can type their name or URL (their unique account identifier) into the search bar just above their profile picture. If you're just looking for new accounts to follow, you'll want to tap the #Explore tab on the right of the home screen.
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