Not sure how #Mastodon works? It's very simple🧵
1) You sign up on one server. I suggest picking something based on your main interests. So, if you're in academia, maybe http://scholar.social or http://fediscience.org. You will have access to people on other servers, and you can also switch servers later on.
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2) After you make an account, you'll see that you have three timelines. Home functions like Twitter, so you'll see people you follow and what they repost. Local - only people on your server (that's why I advised to pick based on interests). Federated - sort of like a global one.
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3) You can set posts to be: public - visible to everyone; unlisted - visible to everyone who visits your profile and/or follows you, but it won't be posted on timelines or under hashtags; followers - only your followers can see it; mentions - only people you mention can see it.
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4) To grow a community more quickly, you can download lists of people to follow based on your interests, and then import the list to instantly follow all of them, which can be found under 'Preferences -> Import and Export' on the web app.
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5) For academia, you can find lists here: https://github.com/nathanlesage/academics-on-mastodon ... For general interests, you can find lists here: https://communitywiki.org/trunk/ .. You should easily reach the core 200-300 followers to start posting and feeling like someone will read it! :)
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Nino Kadic
