After watching my followers across social media platforms, I’ve decided I’m going to pause Mastodon posts for a bit.
You learn one thing quickly on social media: It’s easy to spread yourself too thin. Different social platforms have different options, different capabilities and, most importantly, different audiences. While some audiences are duplicated across multiple platforms, each one has its own core group. You have to decide, therefore, where you’ll invest the most time and effort. And after looking at some numbers, I’ve decided it’s time to pause Mastodon posts indefinitely.
One of the biggest challenges for any digital undertaking is ROI. That’s return on investment. Essentially, you measure it by looking at the amount of effort you’re putting into something and comparing that with the results the effort achieves.
When it comes to social media, one way to examine ROI is to look at the amount of posts you put out and the responses and followers you receive.
Six months ago, I looked at the various social networks I belonged to and the followers I had built over time.
| Social Media Platform | Followers (April 2024) | Followers (Nov. 2024) | 6-Month Growth |
| X/Twitter | 3,445 | 3,381 | -2% |
| Threads | 372 | 688 | +85% |
| Bluesky | 35 | 135 | +386% |
| Mastodon | 23 | 25 | +9% |
The fact that I’ve lost followers on X is most likely part of the movement to leave that platform in the wake of changes its owner, Elon Musk, has made. Plenty of people I know have terminated their accounts. Most of them say they haven’t looked back and don’t miss it.
Bluesky, which seems to be quickly becoming a favorite alternative to X, has grown by several million users in less than two weeks. Yes, it has a long way to go to reach X’s numbers. But still, the growth there — and the growth in followers I’ve seen there in six months — certainly adds to its appeal.
Threads seems to be a cross between Instagram and X, although there’s generally a lot more of a positive vibe on that platform. Posts with photos still seem to perform better than posts without them. But sometimes a text-only post still does well. It depends on the profile, the content and the followers, of course.
Then there’s poor Mastodon which seems to have been left in the dust behind other platforms’ growth. Yes, I’ve grown there, too. But only two additional followers over six months doesn’t strike me as a good ROI.
I don’t know that Mastodon’s chief selling point is all that appealing
When you start comparing Mastodon to its competing social platforms, there’s one key thing you hear from its users. Mastodon is all about the “fediverse” and getting out of “centralized” control. It’s a nice idea, particularly when you think about the problems X users complain about.
But I don’t know that Mastodon accomplishes this quite the way its users think it does.
Its users seem convinced that once you set up an account — which feels much more complicated than any other platform — you escape any “overlord” control. I don’t really think that’s true, however.
When you create a profile, you have to choose a server on which your profile will be hosted. How do you know which server to choose? When I set mine up, I had no idea. I went with the default main server, which is a like the “corporate control” model. Different people run different servers in different countries. Each server has its own set of rules and policies. Likewise, each server has its own set of guidelines over what it considers “acceptable.”
I recently read of someone trying to join a few different servers before finally being “accepted” by one. That’s a major turn-off right there. And if you do something that goes afoul of one server’s regulations, you can move to a different one. But it appears that your old content doesn’t travel. You apparently have to start fresh with the same user name but without the history of content. (To be fair, I haven’t moved servers, so I don’t know that this is fully true. But if moving from one server to another is like moving from one platform to another, I wouldn’t be surprised if it is true.)
Regardless, if the server doesn’t like what you post and you end up having to move, are you really in a vastly different boat from the censorship and negativity those leaving X complain about?
As one user put it, when you sign on to a server, you’re basically joining a homeowner’s association. Even when you have a long list of HOAs, you’re still dealing with the drama that HOAs seem to cherish.
Maybe I’m just missing the point of Mastodon. I’ll confess that I don’t spend a lot of time there posting a lot of one-on-one stuff. At the same time, I would have done more of that if the content I did post built any kind of reaction.
But when the same content that gets you comments, likes and followers on other platforms get you nothing on this other one, where are you going to spend more of your time?
ROI, right?
One other platform that I included in that list back in April was Post News. That one, unfortuantely, bit the dust months ago, so it’s no longer even a player in the social media attention grab.
I didn’t see huge success there, either, but there was more interaction and there was a lot more positivity to boot.
I don’t plan to delete my Mastodon profile. But I probably will post there far less often going forward. There just doesn’t seem to be much of a need to keep focusing a lot of attention there based on what I’ve seen so far.
Look for me on other platforms, please!
I’ve tried several social media platforms, but the ones listed above, plus this blog’s Facebook page seem to get the most interactions.
Just to make it a bit easier, here’s where to find me on other platforms…and I hope you’ll consider a follow on whichever platforms you’re also on:
I don’t include X on that list, because while I’m still there as well, I don’t know how much longer I’ll be posting as much on that platform, either. I hate the idea of deleting my account since I’ve been there for so long — 16 years now. But at the same time, things look neither promising nor as welcoming there these days.
