Over the past few months several Twitter users have been migrating over to alternative social platforms, mentioning rival competitors, such as Mastodon and Peep, but as an artist online and in the NFT community, should you?

This article aims to answer that question.

Twitter, Crypto & NFT’s:

Twitter has been the main gateway into the world of NFT’s, both for myself and countless other artists. Collectors and artists alike utilize this social media platform to stay-up-to-date in crypto, NFT and web 3 communities, as well as build relationships with like-minded peers from all over the world.

So, when it was announced that Elon Musk was going to purchase Twitter, I will admit, I was eager to see how the richest man in the world would revolutionize the Twitter space. I have always been quite an admirer of this billionaire genius. However, his moves so far have been quite hard for me to – sink in, as he had made some very chaotic shifts since his acquisition of the company.

In eye-catching headlines, several major corporations have temporally paused their own advertising and marketing campaigns, while others have lowered the amount of dollars they allocate to advertising on Twitter.

Now, as an artist, corporations are “yuck” right? so why should you care? Because it’s called forecasting. Twitter is too unpredictable at the moment and making decisions based on how the future looks, in any situation, is key to a successful & thriving career, big or small.

And whether you like it or not, as artists who are selling your work online and building a community of admirers along the way, you are running your own little businesses.

My Experiences on Twitter – to Date:

I had joined the Twitter NFT community in April 2022 and to be honest, I have had many positive experiences. I have experienced fair-organic exposure, sales and, in my opinion, steady growth. In the last few months however, I have seen a major decline in engagement rates, which has led me to the research I share with you all today.

Let’s take a look at the options that are currently making their voices heard. These companies are similar to Twitter – Mastodon and Peep. In this article I will be focusing on Mastodon.

Currently, to registrar for Peep you have to join a waiting list and I have heard some biased yet, unfavorable views about this platform already – mainly from Mastodon users themselves. So of course, I signed up for Peeps waiting list, despite that, and I will let you know my unbiased thoughts about Peep when/if I get in.

In the meantime – on to Mastodon!

What is Mastodon?

Mastodon is a free and open-sourced software. There are no promoted accounts or algorithms. These features have been boasted as positives since web2’s centralization and algorithms have gained lots of negativity over the years.

Mastodon is very similar to Twitter, but “tweets” are called “toots”. You can boost a toot that you like, similar to retweets, and you can fave a post, which is similar to Twitters, like button.

How do you get started with Mastodon?

To sign up for Mastodon you have to first, select a server. There are many servers to choose from. These range from general servers to servers related to specific hobbies and interests. I spent a week waiting for an art server to open up or rather, to reappear, as the original art server was closed for registration. However, that wasn’t the case, so I opted to try mindly.social server, then I moved over to the mastodon.world server. You will understand why as I explain my experience with both in a bit.

After you join a server, you are provided with a selection of people to follow, but you can skip this step, set up your bio and you’re ready to post. They suggest in a follow up email, that you introduce yourself and add the hashtag #introduction to your first toot.

My experience with Mastodon:

First server: Mindly.social

After joining mindly.social server, I spent a two weeks scrolling through the feed, boosting posts, sharing an introduction of myself, making use of hashtags, following other accounts, and doing all the lovely things suggested to navigate through this new world. I was excited and eager to make new friends and interact with new people, as I have in my experiences with the NFT Twitter community…

…and…crickets.

I felt as if I was the only one who survived a post zombie apocalypse.

Literally after 2 weeks of talking to myself, I questioned myself relentlessly… was I doing something wrong?

If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound??? I felt like I was that tree.

Don’t get me wrong, there were ACTIVE users on the platform. My Mastodon feed was updating constantly with other users sharing their toots. I would engage with them, but hear nothing back. Honestly, this felt worse than an algorithm because I couldn’t blame the algorithm! People were just literally not engaging with me… cue the loner school kid in the corner, eating her baloney sandwich, wishing she had friends.

It felt as if there was no incentive for people to like, comment, or tweet-I mean toot! I, felt so invisible. There were LITERALLY no conversations to start because there was no engagement. There was even a toot that I read which had to remind people on the platform to engage with others because it’s free.  ‘

So, since that toot proved to me that I was not the problem, I thought, maybe it was the server. Let me change servers.

2nd server: Mastodon.world

After moving to a second server, I was eagerly as optimistic to give it a second go.

On the positive side, the tone of conversation in Mastodon was quite different from what I have grown used to on more top-down controlled platforms dominating the web. The toots were thought provoking, sometimes unsettling. Mostly there was a lot of toots venting frustrations on topics that many had felt silenced or banned to speak about on centralized platforms. What I also appreciated was the fact that I wasn’t being spoon-fed a feast of obviously targeted, yet unwanted ads.

As I was still new to this server, I had been commenting, boosting posts and “engaging” on the platform. However, I have to continue to use the word “engaging” loosely because engaging usually implies that there is a dialogue happening between two or more people, when that was never the case.

So out of curiosity, or rather, weeks of bottled-up frustration, my last toot went like this:

And would you look at that… 5 hours later, one comment. Someone, besides me, is replying to me!?

To Mastodon or not to Mastodon:

I don’t want to brush off Mastodon because I have heard from many users that it is really engaging, and everyone is really nice to each other.  I have heard nothing but positives reviews about this platform, but to be honest– I have not had the same experience. In fact, I have not had any interactions at all – quite the opposite of my experience in Twitters NFT community.

It has just been boring to be honest. Just, boring.

My Suggestion to Artists on Twitter:

I really had high hopes for Mastodon and as an optimist, I still do – but for right now I wouldn’t tell you to quit Twitter and jump over to its “welcoming” rival Mastodon!

I have had tons of positive experiences in the NFT Twitter space. Mainly being able to connect with fellow artists, building quality relationships, and motivating each other every day with Gm tweets – something that I thought would be more prevalent on Mastodon, but that was just not the case for me at all. So, with that, I am in no rush to jump off the Twitter train anytime soon AND I wouldn’t suggest, by any means, that you do either.

But what I do suggest is this – Look at alternative platforms to have as an addition to Twitter, and start sending your audience to those spaces.  I know this might sound obvious but you would be surprised how many artists in the crypto community focus all of their eggs on Twitter alone. So, for the next few weeks start focusing on driving your audience to follow you on your other platforms as well. In this way, you can have more control because you can communicate with your audience in more than one place. If one platform goes down, you still have your tribe on another.

Again, this is just my opinion. I have asked some of my crypto friends, fellow artists in the Twitter space, their thoughts, and I was, honestly under-impressed. Many artists in this space are just banking on hope. Hope that Twitter will make a comeback. I want that as well of course, but from a business perspective, we cannot pretend that a problem is not there. As artists online, you need to better forecast for your own art businesses and make the necessary moves for the longevity of that. If you don’t agree with me, ask yourself, what would Mr. Elon Musk do?

And I don’t care what anyone says, as an artist, who is online, who has collectors, who sells art, and has loyal fans and admirers of your work, you are running your own business – an art business that you birthed this into the world. You do have to remember that.

Final Thoughts:

As artists in the crypto space, we are each responsible for our own businesses. Therefore, we do have to consider the forecast and prepare properly for the what ifs.

If big businesses are doing what they can to minimize risk during times of uncertainty, what does that say for you and I? Artists, small business owners, and creatives on this platform? It is important, no, vital, for you as an artist, making an income online, to really think about this and start making a strategy to navigate through any path of uncertainty.

I have seen too many artists keep their eggs in one basket. Do not scratch Twitter completely off your social media & content strategy, but just reduce the risk, to you.

So, with that said, should artists on Twitter flock over to Mastodon?

Not anytime soon.

Also, if you are interested in reading more, check out my related blog posts – here.

I have so many new things in the works and I am super excited! In the meantime, I am probably out somewhere, at a local cafe, creating art, while now, only being remotely active on Twitter.

Until next time creatives.