Twitter Exodus – Should you move to Mastodon or Hive?

With Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter, many people have considered fleeing to other social media platforms like Mastodon or Hive. But should you make the transfer? When is the right time and what are each platform’s pros & cons?

(We’ll keep this article updated from time to time as it is an ongoing process!)

Here are some useful jump buttons to help you navigate this article quicker:

What’s happening with Twitter?

On the 27th of October 2022, the keys to the Twitter kingdom were officially handed over to Elon Musk. While the transfer of ownership was something most people had an outspoken opinion of, there was no telling what kind of effect it would have on the platform.

Elon Musk walking into Twitter HQ with a sink
Let that sink in. haha, we get it, Elon.

Day after day, new bombshells hit with news that would impact the future of the social media platform, however. It started with letting users pay for a verification symbol, which used to be a manual process before and was only granted to big accounts representing large companies, government officials or people active as (games) journalists. Now the checkmark can be yours for just €8/month. And it took about 2 microseconds for the internet to abuse this.

Super Mario giving the finger from what looks like an official Nintendo account
How could this possibly go wrong?

But then he also started firing critical staff members and people began worrying about Twitter not even surviving the weekend (it did) and servers becoming unusable (they didn’t). But regardless of fears being warranted or not, it started having an impact.

How does this affect YOUR Twitter presence?

Like it or not, the takeover had an effect on all accounts using Twitter on a daily basis, be it for informational or entertainment value, or for professional use. Community Managers all across the globe started feeling the effects…

Goodbye Twitter
  • People started leaving the platform, take Nibel (@nibellion) for example.
  • Tweets had fewer impressions/engagement (unless it was about Twitter/Musk)
  • Accounts you followed didn’t show up in your feed anymore
  • Paying advertisers stopped pumping money into Twitter Ads
  • Bots had free rein (spamming everyone’s DMs)

Social Media & Community Managers started looking for alternatives…

Mastodon – PROS & CONS

Mastodon is an open-source decentralized social media platform. Unlike Twitter, its source code is publicly available and can be redistributed and changed. This makes it easier to fix bugs, add new features and to translate into different languages. And most important: everything is completely transparent.

Because of Mastodon being a decentralized service, there isn’t a central server that contains everyone’s credentials (like on Twitter). Instead, volunteers or non-profits can set up their own servers to run the network on. This way the network belongs to “the people” instead of a single billionaire. This is by far the biggest advantage of Mastodon, but also a drawback. Servers can cease to exist, moderators can choose to remove you from the servers and signing up for Mastodon isn’t as easy as just going to a single page and choosing a username and password.

Mastodon

How to join Mastodon?

  1. Go to https://joinmastodon.org
  2. Pick a server (recommended: “mastodon.gamedev.place” or your own country eg: “mastodon.be“). You’ll still be able to interact with people who are on a different server, similar to how someone with a Gmail address can still communicate with someone who has an Outlook address.

Positive Aspects

  • Can scale up easily, as anyone can contribute by creating a server
  • You can change the server you are on at any time
  • A lot of game developers made the jump to mastodon.gamedev.place
  • Within game-related servers, there is less “noise” from other topics
  • Posts are chronological, so no algorithm screwing you over
  • 500 character limit > longer posts if you need them
  • No advertisements

Lesser aspects

  • Confusing set-up. People don’t know which server to join.
  • As long as it doesn’t reach critical mass, you won’t get all your news here.
  • No algorithm = you need followers before your posts are seen
  • Chronological order : posts have a shorter lifespan
  • No DM inbox, you can only use @ “toots”
  • Not enough resources to guarantee cybersecurity/protection of privacy

Hive – PROS & CONS

Hive is a social app that combines some of the familiar elements of Instagram, Twitter and even MySpace, started by two college students that taught themselves how to code. It’s gained massive popularity recently as people who tried Mastodon were scared away from its high barrier-to-entry and found a lot of familiar aspects here.

Hive

How to join Hive?

  1. Download the app on iOS or Android
  2. Create an account using your email address

Positive Aspects

  • It mixes the best of two worlds from Twitter & Instagram (familiar interface)
  • Rapidly growing userbase
  • Higher character limit which allows for longer posts.
  • It has a discovery tab to keep up with the latest news
  • Or you can choose to only see the content from the people you follow
  • #hashtags seem relevant again (downside: more work putting them in every post)
  • Built-in Q&A feature to ask questions
  • You can add a soundtrack to your feed (we love this!)

Lesser Aspects

  • No stable Android version yet
  • No Web-client, you need an iOS or Android phone
  • You can’t switch between accounts (yet)
  • You can’t see a post without having an account, making it useless to embed
  • The servers can’t handle the amount of new users: slow response times
  • As long as it doesn’t reach critical mass, you won’t get all your news here.
  • No pin-system, so you can’t keep your most important post visible
  • Not enough resources to guarantee cybersecurity/protection of privacy

What should you do? Here’s our advice!

The short version is: Stay on Twitter. It’s not going anywhere. Twitter has built up too much of a presence, and you’ve probably spent a lot of time already in building a following that you won’t easily be able to migrate to new platforms. And as far as organic discovery goes, it’s still one of the best platforms and offers the potential to go viral.

Twitter
Keep Calm and Stay on Twitter

But we still have some tips for you, to safeguard your online presence and leave you with some homework!

Try TikTok

It may not be the same format you’re used to and if you haven’t tried marketing your game there yet it might be daunting at first, but the organic discovery on TikTok is second to none. So when you notice fewer impressions on Twitter, consider spending some time on making TikTok content.

  • Create 9:16 videos
  • Put your CTA in the video (at the end)
  • Use spoken words + captions if you can
  • Your first 3-5 posts have a big chance of getting boosted by the algorithm
  • Don’t be afraid to use popular music

Consider paying for Twitter Blue (yeah, we don’t like it either)

It’s currently not available and while we don’t approve of destroying the value a verified check had on Twitter accounts, the other features it promises to introduce may be relevant, especially for professional accounts. If you’re on Twitter professionally and you’re advertising your services or product(s) on it, like it or not: it may just be worth it to pony up the €8/month when the full list of features is available.

  • You’ll be able to edit tweets (supposedly)
  • Your tweets will be seen more and people are more inclined to share it
  • You’ll see fewer ads (sadly not zero)
  • You’ll be able to upload longer, bigger filesize videos
  • Downside: you can’t change your @handle or display name

Create your @handle on Hive anyway

The future is uncertain and who knows, Hive may just be the next best thing. But one thing you can already do is make sure your @handle is secured. It will make you easier to find for other accounts who have moved over and this way your account will prevent people with bad intentions from abusing the opportunity.

  • Create your @handle
  • Add your avatar & banner
  • List your other socials or key links in the description
  • Maybe make one post for people to interact with already
Pirate PR on Hive
Don’t want to have someone else plunder it…

Follow us for more tips!

Do you know what else you can do? Follow these friendly pirates and we’ll help you navigate the unruly seas of the internet! Or if you need someone to manage your socials for you, we’d be happy to lend a hand (or a hook!)


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