Through the #Wikidata query for nonprofit organizations with Mastodon accounts (https://w.wiki/69Sr) I learned that #OpenAccess nonprofit @scipost has a carefully set up dedicated presence here, with multiple handles for posting open-access #science papers in those fields. Neat, hope it picks up steam!
- Physics: @physics
- Astronomy: @astro
- Biology: @biology
- Chemistry: @chemistry
- Computer Science: @compsci
- Mathematics: @math
- Political Science: @polsci
Also looks like someone at the UK's Royal Astronomical Society set up a Mastodon account and is crafting custom posts for it, but it only has ~300 followers compared with their >50K on Twitter:
I see this all too often -- major public/nonprofit organizations set up shop here, but don't know how to best cross-link/promote it, so the accounts get kind of lost. If you care about #astronomy & like their work, give them a boost or follow :)
For sure. Hashtags, introduction posts, cross-linking from the Twitter bio (which _should_ be possible again), cross-linking from the website on par with Twitter, promoting from accounts associated with the organization, .....
45 Posts, 98 Following, 309 Followers · Astrophysicist, researcher at the Institut d'Astrophysique et Planétologie de Grenoble (CNRS and Université Grenoble Alpes). Interested in stars and planets formation.
Surely we can fix that! (follows & boosts)
@eloquence @royalastrosoc
They only tweeted it once on Nov 18. Clever to use the name astrodon, that should escape the Chief Twit's censors. So they should include it in their profile info.
Few posts here compared to the birdsite. Makes sense to look after the majority but I'd suggest they try a cross posting tool. I don't use one but @fetzert frequently posts advice on it.
@PatrickOBeirne @royalastrosoc @fetzert
I generally advise against cross-posting (it makes it seem like you're only maintaining a shadow presence here and not actually looking at any replies etc.). If you do it, I recommend filtering out RTs and mentions.
I'd rather have a few hand-crafted posts than an autogenerated feed from Twitter, tbh.
It's 4.5% now, and that's without them having posted anything new -- just after calling attention to their existing, non-robotic presence here. And those numbers, in my experience, translate into actually higher levels of engagement. Never take Twitter follower counts at face value, especially now.
Organizations like ProPublica (54K followers), the Auschwitz Memorial (74K followers), and others have found that actually putting time into a presence here is well worth it.
@eloquence that increase was fast! Yes, engagement actions are probably a better measure.
Do you think Mastodon will ever be able to scale to Twitter levels? Or is it more likely that it will stabilise at smaller numbers of real people as distinct from bots?
I don't know. But I think it has interesting properties that Twitter lacks:
- it's not a casino where the house always wins (Twitter's algorithms, ads) -- you actually can reach your constituents reliably
- thanks to topic-focused servers like https://astrodon.social/, clusters of like-minded folks find ways to cross-promote each other
- it has (so far) actively resisted a culture of the "two minute hate of the day" & doomscrolling, creating more space for joy & wonder.
@eloquence @PatrickOBeirne @royalastrosoc
I think it depends on the quality of cross posting. I actually use it to get people over from Twitter. I am using it in a very conscious way actually, but there is some people that are quite naive and I agree this can backfire.
I dont cross-post retweets/toots/replies or any of that, only original tweets. And this IMO is not being annoying.
My thread on cross posting I think is encouraging people to reflect on what may be a good practice here.
@PatrickOBeirne @royalastrosoc @fetzert
Same here. I have muted/filtered any cross-posting updates. Some posts without links are however difficult to be filtered.
I don’t see a link to the mastodon account on ras.ac.uk — links to Facebook Twitter YouTube Instagram, but no link I saw to mastodon account
Or, hear me out, MAYBE there were a lot of bots following the account...
It's certainly likely, but probably not 49,700 of them :) Looks like posting this may have helped a bit, they're now closing in on 2K followers here
Amazing!
@eloquence @royalastrosoc @mmasnick I saw that too and followed
Unfortunately no hashtags so it’ll be harder to find the content too
Hopefully they’re reading this!
#space #astronomy# astrophotography
the problem is that almost no body, on a statistical scale, cares about what is happening on twitter
the socalled great migration is only a tiny% of twitter users
Let's talk statistics:
- The post pointing to that account currently has 766 boosts and is still going strong.
- Since then, their account has gone from about 350 followers to 2.7K, from 0.66% to >5% of their nominal Twitter audience.
- Many orgs maintaining a steady presence here have reported far higher levels of engagement than they've ever seen on Twitter.
Twitter numbers are casino numbers. Authentic interactions are hampered by bots, outrage-boosting algorithms, and ads.
I've heard it claimed that Mastodon deliberately makes it hard to build a big following. Here's a take: https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/episodes/on-the-media-mastodon-may-take-twitters-weary
It has ~3,000+ now, which given the much smaller ( though not insignificant), active population of users is a pretty acceptable size.
Hahha - since this was boosted, that account now has 3.2K followers and not 300ish.
Well done, #AstronomyGeeks <3
Big Accounts have an advantage on "platforms" like Twttr bcos they have financial and influential clout that is often supported by those platforms.
So far, (... i'm just about/over a month into my mastodoning experience ...), their reach doesn't seem to work here.
Which is something that I like about being here.
Yes, definitely! Fortunately they tweeted it out, but for long term verifiability link verification would be terrific: https://twitter.com/RoyalAstroSoc/status/1593635996058411009
“We're on Mastodon! You can find us at @[email protected].”
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