Ask Lemmy

First thing is gain enough support in the presumption that increasing userbase is a desirable outcome.

Chasing bigger numbers for bigger numbers sake is one of the biggest problems with capitalism

Absolutely nothing.

Stay federated and up prayed.

I don't think this site is for everyone. You need your own internal reason to use this site (anti-enshittification, banned from other places, or whatever). On a regular social media site, you log in, and you immediately are shown a feed of fun and interesting content. Unless you're like really into programming, Lemmy doesn't have fun and interesting content. Of the content that is here, people don't engage with it much, and it's poorly moderated (actual calls for death and abuse, weird sexual anime stuff, etc). Lemmy is also not easy to use or understand. Most people don't understand what an instance is, and why do I need to read paragraphs on federation just to use the site? The only way this place could compete with polished, plug-and-play social media is if the US continues getting so authoritarian that regular social sites become exorbitantly censored to a regular person's perspective.

you can link to posts and comments here on other platforms if they are interesting or funny or cool

you can also post your dingus on the NSFW one

Nothing.

Twitter was fine until it got popular, as was Reddit.

I think instead of promoting Lemmy as a whole, promote individual instances separately (but evenly)

We don't need more usebase, we've got perfectly good userbase at home.

Trying to convince people I know to join the Fediverse is like, well, it's a lot like trying to convince people to switch to Linux. They're not gonna do it and I'll look like a jackass if I talk about it too much.

If there was an easy way to grow this platform overnight, we'd be doing it. Reality is there's no shortcut, all we can do is continue building community with the people who are here and hope that we see some slow and steady incremental growth.

Occasionally I'll tell one of my friends about it. I point them to one of my low-politics / low-tech feeds:

• https://piefed.social/f/highsignal
• https://piefed.social/f/highmemecontent

I mean for me it was a recent decision to delete for-profit and algorithmic social media. But that was internally driven as I realised they were making me more miserable and I couldn't stomach the advertising anymore. But I've always failed to replicate that feeling in other people who are stuck in a mixture of sunk cost fallacy and boiled frog status, no idea how to do it consistently.

Biggest thing, make it easy to understand.

I STILL dont really get the fediverse. Ive had it explained to me multiple times and I'm still shaky on how to explain to a normie.

Reddit is easy. Fb is easy. Lemmy has to be easy or it will never work. Humans are above all lazy.

And, give them a reason to leave. Why would my friends leave reddit or x, where the content is? (They dont care about bots or fascism). Lemmy has way less content.

Post more sexy pictures.

Just keep using it. Ask questions, post solutions, as time goes on they will be more relevant.

Post everything here.

Today I Learned is a good one for old info, as people post repetitive stuff all of the time, so when people look up an unusual fact etc.. They get brought straight to one of those.

DIY, Woodworking, hobbies etc. and all the main things that people want to look up.

Bring it up at your local town hall; be sincere about what Lemmy is. Ask if there are any Reddit users then publicly shame them for using the platform.