Well, this has certainly struck a chord today… I wanna follow up on a few things here:

1) This was written during the first big crush of Twitter users post-Musk; the attitude toward this newest influx has, at least from what I’ve seen, been less ridiculous.

2) I’m glad folks *have* been able to build substantial enough followings here to make a living. At least part of the issue is perception; newcomers just don’t know how this place works, and it can be both off-putting and worrying. If you’re a creator, try not to get discouraged. If you see a creator struggling or confused, lend them a hand!

3) Being no-algo has its upsides, but also its downsides. This very post is proof you can still “do numbers”, even accidentally, but Twitter recommendations still do a lot to surface stuff at people who’d never see it otherwise. I personally think a “folks the people you follow follow” TL would serve a similar purpose and be more useful for organic growth than the Federated TL is. It’s likely have a higher signal-to-noise ratio if nothing else.

I don’t have a SoundCloud or anything, so, uh, drop a follow if you want occasional thoughts on Fedi Meta in between pooptoots about Myst and furry stuff I guess?

I’m going to bed now.

@alahmnat I've read from a number of people on fedi that due to the closer nature of it, they've gotten more commissions with fewer followers

No more "fighting the algorithm," plus since you're posting within a community, much more likely to get repeat clients, as well as less chances people miss your opening up

I can see it being not great for rando business, but I don't know if Rando Business was ever reeeeally a good thing

Either way, after the twitter blue rollout, might as well try it because people opening for commissions having to pay an extra 8$ a month for the chance people see their commission opening vs everyone else doing the same thing, as well and just other blue users tweeting stupid bs

@alahmnat I have to say this, screw anyone who dares to complain about artists promoting their work!

Boost any cool art you see, follow artists and don't be afraid to post the stuff you make!

@alahmnat i will chime in as a career freelance artist who has done way better on fedi over the course of 5 years than i did during my time on twitter (15 years)

it's very doable, but it requires more than just art dumping and radio silence between those posts

you have to show you're a person, interacting meaningfully with others who may or may not be art peers, not simply a bot who posts pictures every few days

@alahmnat So on a very Twoatter-specific counterpoint; that platform has been doing its best to algorithmically cut out artists for a while. While there is now no longer an algorithm here I think that does mean it behooves us as people who can boost posts of our favourites to do so.

Also, boosts here will go out without algorithmic moderation so when I repost something, as I'm about to, you can be sure it's going to go out to everyone who follows me.

@alahmnat I absolutely do! It's a real problem, and I think it's part of the reason that Fediverse sites have a retention problem.

Twitter's whole thing is that there's a large enough audience to justify making content for it, and enough content to justify having an audience.

I think the Fediverse has the potential to be there, but it's a chicken and egg situation. How do you attract an audience without content, and how do you attract content without an audience?

@alahmnat I think this is connected to something that's been a bit rough for me: figuring out which people on here are looking to connect vs. which ones are looking to build reach and broadcast.

My perception is that most brands, both corporate and personal, are trying to do the latter. I don't think there's anything *wrong* with that, mind you - it just sucks when I see an interesting post, try to strike up a conversation, and then realize that I'm effectively talking to a recording.

@alahmnat

I'm an indie, So I'm myself a brand.

I'm not that good in the social media game, But I've seen how important Twitter was for my peers to make their living.

If someone like that chooses to leave Twitter for Mastodon right now, Then they value some things more than money even if it costs their livelihood.

Those people who complain about an indie, freelancer selling $40 item on Mastodon would happily pay $999 for a stupid monitor stand from Trillion$ Mega Corp.

Please don't be them.

@alahmnat

I’m someone who thinks a social network can be anything you want it to be. Including a place to sell your wares. I’m more interested in being able in a network that can’t be owned by a single corporation, and therefore subject to any bizarre whim it has for making money for itself. Which makes the fediverse perfect.

@alahmnat I'm an old who has been preparing to transition to full time artist for the last 2 years. My art income was 90% driven by Twitter.

My sales result from posting WIP, talking about it & posting finished work. About as soft sell as it gets And it has worked well for me.

I now have accounts on all the new alternatives to see what sticks. So far, Mastodon seems to have a good feel but if it doesn't generate some sales it will be hard to justify time spent.

@alahmnat Twitter had reach because it was one twitter everyone saw. Fediverse was designed not to do that so it couldn't be a twitter alternative. (= not worth advertising on mastodon.)

It's still quite likely the fediverse is going to dreamwidth; it's there, people use it, but it sure ain't livejournal from its glory days.

That's not a personal-preference scale choice; that's a "design decisions a decade ago" scale choice.

I don't know where you get reach now. Maybe someone here does.

@alahmnat I'm curious how this intersects with what people have observed about Twitter vs Fediverse engagement. I've seen several mini experiment posts from folks with huge followings on Twitter, but comparatively way smaller (orders of magnitude smaller) in the fediverse, describe much more conversation, links interacted with (blog posts actually followed), etc, than the exact same content (same blog post / tweet content) posted at the same time on Twitter.

While reach is lower, I do wonder about artists' and freelancers' experience with whether they find that same higher engagement level, and whether that translates into more commissions and such as well, relative to a lower follower count or reach.

I agree 100% that the mechanisms within AP and fedi software to hand power to the users and instance admins to manage our own experiences (filtering, blocking, defederating) should limit the success of "Big Brand comes to Fedi!" But, I'm hopeful that's based on people responding to ads and big brand shilling, and that we could have a culture of celebrating, uplifting, and supporting artisans and freelancers.

@alahmnat
I will ask again why are we all on social media?

And my first answer, in the context of your posts, is if we don't promote ourselves as 'freelance' artists, who the heck will? How else do we get our name and our work out there for readers and listeners and, yes, buyers?

So I support self-promotion. Honestly, it's how I find and learn from and appreciate other artists and writers and, yes, I occasionally buy from or support them in return.

I see nothing wrong with that exchange.

@alahmnat

I am a bit disappointed when I witness this type of bullying, and it's not just people that have nothing to offer in the way of a #free_market or lacking a brand for themselves that engage in such #dogpiling.

Trying to define what the Fediverse is in terms of social acceptability is an exercise in futility at best, and in the extreme, it is hate stemming from #envy or projection by those afflicted with self-loathing.

The Fediverse is a #censorship_resistant communications network - go forth in #commerce, go forth in hate, go forth in sharing your backyard barbeques with the family and friends, or promoting your creativity - sharing your printings, photography, electronic project gizmos; these are all #brands, things that define what you care about, and what you are about. It's not a bad thing. It's s good thing, usually.

It is a place where so-called #Big_Tech and #mega_corporations can #participate - but they cannot dominate - it is antithetical to their desire and ambitions of #dominion over the #marketplace.

When your #brand is about capability, personality, product or services that you derive an income or admirer stream from, that is #positivity.

When you pile upon others for having a #dream or #vocation, and denegrate those with s vision for themselves and their talents, that too, is part of your brand - if this is you, then your brand is that of a hater.

It can be frustrating for people entering a social space to feel free enough to #share aspects of themselves with strangers, especially when you're just trying to find your bearings and #navigate that space, and coming face to face with negative personalities that enjoy belittling others. But those people really are quite the vocal minority.

There have always been list bullies, #trolls, and general malcontents in every corner of the online world. That's not going to change. Certain types of mediums seem to exacerbate the extent of their influence, like mediums where only short, hit and run messaging is the constraint.

Short messaging platforms can be ideal for pushing out a quick synopsis of your thoughts and ideas, but there's no reason why you should seek to be constrained by the lack of a platform ability to enable more comprehensive coverage of anything you have to share, market, sell, or produce, because in the #Fediverse, there are many platforms to choose from, and almost all of them afford you with the same ability to communicate your messages, creations, and ideas across the entirety of this space.

In the article below, written by a student endowed with a wealth of said positivity, I suggest reading it while replacing nouns like #Faceplant, #Twatter, #YouTube, and #InstaSPAM with nouns such as, #Friendica, #Pleroma (or mastodon), #PeerTube, and #Pixelfed, respectively; since those are some of the close corollaries we currently enjoy here in the Fediverse, remembering that anything you publish on any of those platforms can be shared and propagated natively across the entire Fediverse - and of course, far beyond.

For the creative types of you out here, say, your thing is selling personalized Converse All-stars with custom paint jobs, it's important to realize that your actual reach when you post far exceeds that which any deprecated, legacy silo systems have the potential for, because that post with the photo of your latest set of "Chucks" crosses the boundaries of one type of social networking platform - it's like if you publish a short video at YouTube and it automatically shows up on InstaSPAM and Twatter, without ever having to make a separate post, or posting a product of your latest commissioned painting (part of your brand) on InstaSPAM and suddenly, everyone following you on #Soapbox, mastodon, #Misskey, and Friendica servers sees it too.

Such is the breadth and reach of publishing anything about you, yourself in the Fediverse - worldwide, in the global feeds of everyone else's Fediverse accounts... And we're only growing, as we continue to retire those old deprecated, legacy silo systems.

Ah, but what about all those #meanies, lambasting you for "breaking the rules" and marketing your image and product brands?

News flash! There are no such fucking rules - only imaginary restrictions envisioned by some people with small-minded, defeatest, insecurity issues, and misery loves company. Those haters and self-loathing unfortunates would like nothing more than to instill such negativity in you, perhaps for personal, or even political reasons.

If you let those worthless, insignificant, but very loud and vocal sorts dictate your happiness and success in any endeavor you choose, whether to simply make friends around the world or marketing whatever it is that you do best and are passionate about, then it might be best if you just unplug your computer, trade in your #Android for a flip-phone, and get a job at the local smelting plant (no offense to steel workers), never again dreaming or aspiring to harness the infinite power of your imagination.

So what to do about these curmudgeon-like trolls and list #bullies that have always been a part of the online, let alone everyday life landscape? The same thing you do in every other situation in your life - ignore, mute, and block them - unceremoniously, without acknowledgement or response. These sad excuses for people have no power whatsoever except that which you grant them, and the Fediverse arms you with the #tools to #filter out their voices entirely.

This doesn't mean that you necessarily disappear from their timelines and feeds. You probably won't, but just as it is when you go to your local ☕ coffee house or grocery store, workplace, or enter your classroom, you filter them out of "your" existence, and suddenly... They cease to exist.

I recently published an article in response to one such dogpiling and so-called, "cancelling" event. Those self-hating projectionists actually believed that by propagating a campaign of negative publicity against another creative newcomer's brand - in this case, Raspberry Pi, they could achieve 'cancellation' of that company and its product line here in the Fediverse. Fat chance.

These semi-organized malcontents actually even published a blog article (linked to in my aforementioned article), documenting their success in destroying that brand, along with it's employees and product line.

The reality however, is much different, in fact quite the opposite affect was evidenced, sort of a #Newtonian "equal and opposite reaction" #physics principle.

These children went so far as to demand from Fediverse server administrators what you may occasionally see hashtagged as #Fediblock - a block of other users and instances at the server level by any Fediverse server admin that will listen, or can be brow beaten into submission... But rarely does anyone pay that sort of nonsense any mind at all. Such measures are reserved for people and instances that most average, everyday folks find offensive - like militant leftist sites, personalities, or kiddie pr0n pedophiles and others cut from the same cloth.

At best, when haters like them folk claim to wage battles against those regular people and #communities that they despise, issuing calls for the ominous sounding "defederate them!", the only thing they actually achieve is "self-cancellation", by virtue of painting themselves into a corner when they "defederate" themselves, and that is usually followed by many of their registered users leaving that instance - in this case, everybody loves Raspberry Pi computers, which you can buy for under fifty bucks.

What did the good folks at Rasberry Pi do to deserve such ineffectual wrath from these hateful sad sacks? Only two things:

First, the company rep, responding to one of these agitators stated the obvious, more or less saying, 'If you don't like us then feel free to unfollow us', and when that resulted in a rather ascerbic retort from the professional hater, the Rasberry Pi spokesperson committed the cardinal sin of simply #blocking the troll.

That's it. No biggy, poof! You're gone. Nothing is worse to these maladjusted losers than being unceremoniously ignored with the forever button. It is comical, but it is also sad. One's mission in life should not be to make others as sad as they themselves are.

Don't let anyone belittle or condescend you. The worst (best) they can do is remove themselves and others like them from your timeline feeds, where you don't actually care to see them anyway - so it's win-win 👍

So just know, your going to hear from your fair share of bullies, trolls, and other types that derive a sick and twisted pleasure from harming others - but this is about you, your products, services, brand, and your happy life in the real 🌎 world.

It is a simple matter to ignore, dismiss, disappear them, and move on - millions of good people, other brands, and customers or new friends want to meet and greet to know you!

https://ylai.state.gov/get-social/

I hope that helps! And have a wonderful time in the Fediverse!

#tallship #brand #bbq #creator #artist #trade #commerce #market #marketing #social

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