When trying to convince people to move to Fediverse services, people will often refer to them as “alternatives”, calling Mastodon a Twitter-alternative, PeerTube a YouTube-alternative, etc. But I don’t think this is the most effective approach.
This is a problem I noticed before I even heard of the Fediverse, because FOSS advocates do the same thing.
The issue is that to the average person, THING-alternative just means that if you already have THING, you don’t need it. Or even worse, people will assume it’s an inferior imitator. Most people aren’t looking for “alternatives”. When they adopt new social media it’s in response to trends.
Look at mainstream social media for example. When TikTok appeared as a new video platform, it didn’t call itself a “YouTube alternative”.
So, at a minimum, I would advise not referring to services as “alternatives” but simply “cool new services/apps” and exalting their best features from a user perspective.
I have other thoughts on how to advertise the Fediverse, but I don’t want to make this post too long.
Let’s flip the script,
Reddit is just a shitty PieFed alternative
Accurately portrays how I’ve felt kicking the tires on the new digg.
So how would you describe the fediverse in just 2 words? Or perhaps 5 words?
5 words: Reddit for leftists and nerds.
I wouldn’t. I would just describe the services people might be interested in. Users have specific needs they want services to provide. I would talk to them in terms of those needs.
As for why federation, just mention that you don’t need to create many separate accounts. For example, you can follow a PeerTube account from Mastodon.
Most people don’t have the patience to listen to a sales pitch. I think we need to start with a concept that is easy for most people to understand. For me, “Reddit alternative” is the simple concept.
Not just five words. The Fediverse is a modular, federated Reddit-alternative that isn’t owned by any specific person - that makes it immune from traditional shittification of online services, that can be forked by others to be used better if necessary. It also is rapidly developing tools and functionality that makes it better (at least as far as Piefed is concerned), and as it grows organically could be better prepared at dealing with bots, grifters, and trolls.
It won’t appeal to all though. It just flatout is a downgrade for right-wingers who want a twitter-like “let me behave how I want” experience. And that’s a good thing.
Of course it wont appeal to all, you failed to write a marketing blurb. This is just an about page no one reads
My take:
Let’s call a thing we do on social networks an activity. Posting a thing on X is activity, posting a link on Reddit is an activity, commenting is one, posting a pic on Facebook is an activity. Fediverse is a loose cloud of federated (hence the name) instances that regardless of how they present activities, exchange those using the so called ActivityPub protocol. So not only you can use the content on the network in the way you prefer, you also don’t have a single point of failure like the separate companies that run the old social networks. The point of federation is that you can set up your own instance and exchange with others, you can join the instance of your neighbor, or join one of the big ones that are maintained by a few non-profits created for thatI think I made it in 5Ah, you wanted words :_DFor most people that means either:
a) So that’s kinda like Reddit or b) TLDR; back to Reddit
It does get less wall-of-text-feel when said out loud. But then, I’m afraid that people from examples a and b would never move from what they already know anyway
For me, I was actively looking for an alternative to Reddit. So when I heard fediverse was somewhat similar to Reddit, it immediately made me want to try it. I only found out about the federation, different servers etc after I properly started trying to use Lemmy/Kbin at that time.
Yes, but that’s the difference. You had internal motivation to find something else. If one has no issue with Reddit and someone just comes up and says “hey, checkout this thing!”, it takes a certain kind of person that always chases the new shiny, to check it out. For most, that triggers “what do you want to sell me and why would I want that?” Especially after so many years of marketing being based on first creating a need, instead of just providing information
Yeah but we still need to start with an easy concept before going into details. I would at least start by saying “Similar to Reddit but better in multiple ways.”
Might be. The angle I was aiming at was to label bigtech networks as passe and with unclear motives in comparison to grassroots movements
Esp in context of “Reddit alternative” doing a disservice
Lemmy: An ad-free collection of forums that aren’t owned and controlled by one group.
Masto: A laid-back social network feed you build yourself, free of Musk’s and VC influence.
Peertube: A shared video platform where you can view, share and comment from other platforms without being subject to “the (Google) algorithm” deciding which videos stay up or get popular.
That way, if you’re familiar with the mainstream version you can tell it’s implied, but it’s got enough info to describe it independently for someone who hasn’t had interest in it.
Eta: This video does better to introduce the fediverse than any wall of text I write ever could: https://videos.elenarossini.com/w/64VuNCccZNrP4u9MfgbhkN?ref=news.elenarossini.com
Don’t quit your day job
My Lemmy posts are a labour of love :)
I’ve never worked in marketing but I imagine it’s hard. People don’t care about things. Certainly not remote or abstract things like “centralized control” or “tomorrow”.
You could probably just do “Oh yeah, lemmy has good memes and posts” and be done, and only go into technical details if they ask.
Let’s go with the email analogy so normal people will never join.
Underrated comment.
Maybe one day we’ll get a 4th poster on !movies@piefed.social
:-D yeah more, nice, or niche people !
Very few things in humanity are completely novel. We’re iterative beings by nature.
Lots of businesses (not just decentralized FOSS stuff) is X but Y… just watch any episode of Dragon’s Den or Shark Tank…
- It’s Uber… for dogs!
- It’s Hello Fresh… but flowers!
- It’s Reddit… but decentralized!
“Lemmy, a cool new Reddit” ?
“PieFed, a cool new Lemmy”
“A cool new place to share links and discuss things”? Or just “a cool new social media”?
A cool new place to share links and discuss things
“Like reddit?”
Yes.
“But I already have reddit for that”.
So you then have to explain why it’s a better version.
“So it’s an alternative then?”
The problem is when you try to describe it to someone, it’s easier to compare it to the existing similar product. I think it’s fine to call it an alternative, but go further to say that it’s an open platform alternative that’s free of ads and data collection.
nobody i shared a lemmy link with ever asked me about it. they just go enjoy the meme or news and i assume, if they want to participate, they will sign up, but i don’t know, because i respect their privacy
This description leaves out 100% of lemmy users unfortunately
When reddit was new everyone described it as Digg but better. Idk why we shouldn’t say Lemmy is Reddit but better?
Nobody has said that’s a problem.
What was considered a problem by the post is saying “Lemmy is a Reddit alternative”.
Saying “Lemmy is Reddit but better” is a whole different kind of phrase!
Common issue in bad marketing actually, for example you know those ads that compare one product to another? They usually boost awareness of the already better known product.
I think the issue in this case though is deeper, because the design of the platforms themselves are copying the incumbents instead of bringing new ideas to the forefront.
I think Digg realizes this, which is why they are not (at least for now) calling themselves a Reddit alternative in their revival.
I’d agree. And the real marketing stunt is to offer a nice place to people. Make it contribute to their lives, have a nice atmosphere, make it somewhat convenient and easy to use. Outcompete other services by being better across the board. That’s giving people good reasons to join a place. And I think that’s far more successful than absorbing a few people who are dissatisfied with the real deal and we’re somewhat the consolation prize.
Maybe. We do need to explain in terms people can understand what specific fediverse platforms are for though, and people will understand this best if we describe it in terms of concepts they’re familiar with, such as that something is structured like Twitter, like Facebook, like Reddit, etc.
Perhaps “replacement” works better than “alternative”.
Of course, https://web.archive.org/web/20250811165045/https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#Alternative has been a section on the gnu.org website (which is for some reason currently down, hence the archive link) for a long time.
Honestly, I think the best way to bring people is simply to reference (link, screenshot and mention) it elsewhere, so that people realise it’s already established and not just a work in progress.
When we put too much effort into persuasion, it can come across as desperate, which makes people distrustful.
Sharing Fedi content on non-Fedi media seems like it could help. Linking a PeerTube video, or sharing a screenshot of a Mastodon comment (preferably an intelligent one, not a drama-baiting one) could help. Although the direct linking could be difficult since we don’t want to overwhelm anyone’s instance.
Firefox is a Chrome alternative, Linux is a Window alternative.
Fyi, for promotion of the Fediverse, there’s !fedibridge@lemmy.dbzer0.com
Firefox is a Chrome alternative, Linux is a Window alternative.
These are not inaccurate descriptions, but it makes them sound like inferior imitations and gives the impression that they’ll always be second best. It is also a kind of free-advertising for Chrome/Windows.
The best success we ever had on !fedibridge@lemmy.dbzer0.com was using a subreddit called /r/RedditAlternatives
Makes sense to do that on Reddit itself. If you’re posting on the equivalent platform I guess you are talking to people specifically looking for alternatives. I was thinking more about advertising on non-equivalent platforms, like Mastodon on YouTube, PeerTube on Reddit, etc.
Honestly I’m not sure how Reddit itself became so popular among people who never used old Internet forums like I did, so the Threadiverse is something I don’t have ideas for.
Well, what are some selling points for the fediverse? Can’t claim free speech. That definitely doesn’t exist here. Maybe a LITTLE more wiggle room than schmeddit, but it all depends on who controls each instance.
That’s what they are though.
