Mastodon is useless (to me.)

You have to use hashtags on Mastodon if you want your messages to be seen because there is no AI to fill timelines. People follow hashtags and search for them. Then you'll get likes and boosts.

And, you control your own timeline by following hashtags, following people, and searching for hashtags. This way, unlike Twitter, your timeline only has posts that you are interested in. Once you get this set up, it's quite nice to only see posts that you like reading, without advertising and without posts meant to enrage you.

Also you can use https://fedi.directory to find great people to follow.

"Creating your feed" is an essential part of of enjoying mastodon. Hashtags are the single biggest thing but also

groups help surface new material

you can follow lemmy/kbin users (you can also follow communities but you only see boosts)

you can subscribe to peertube creators

you can follow pixelfed users if you want more pictures in your feed

etc
People follow hashtags and search for them. Then you'll get likes and boosts.

How do I follow hashtags? I am using the official Mastodon app for Android.
- You should consider switching to Megalodon. It's a fork of the official Mastodon app so it's already what you're used to but adds features like following and pinning hashtags as we as supporting markdown in posts (if your instance is using glitch-soc)
- @kratoz29 @Jerry as stated here: https://fedi.tips/how-do-i-follow-hashtags-on-mastodon-and-the-fediverse/
  "The official Android app doesn’t yet support hashtag following", but you can use a different app that supports that feature. For example Tusky. :emoji_wink:
200% this, I did not enjoy mastodon at all until I realized you could follow hashtags. Once you do that you find your people and everything clicks.
When you follow hashtags do they bring people from other instances to your feed? Or does the search only fetch things from your own instance?

Edit: spelling
- The key word here is "connected" instances. You don't find hashtag-related posts from all the servers, just the servers that your server is connected to and also only posts that your server has seen from other servers.
  
  This is why, on my instance, I relay with over 300 other instances, some of them are the larger ones. All the posts they see on their server are duplicated onto my smaller server. The impact is that while my server is small, it has the same messages as one of the large servers which makes for a better experience. Note that Mastodon.social does not relay with any other instance. Not that most instances could possibly hold all their posts and accounts anyway.
  
  When I search for hashtags on my instance, I do get a lot of hits.
  
  Many smaller servers do not relay as much as I do, or at all, because it requires disk space to store all the posts, images, and accounts that are streaming in constantly from all these other servers. I don't have these concerns because I have unlimited capacity. So, the experience will vary depending on which server your account is on.

Mastodon is "dead" because you're not making the switch from spoon-fed algorithmically-supplied content to content you have to actively seek out. Mastodon supplies tools for this, but if these aren't for you, then yes, Mastodon is useless to you.

To make Mastodon "not dead" you have to take some actions of your own to become part, in effect, of an actual community. These steps helped me:

Follow some #hashtags of interest. As you find people posting interesting content on that hashtag, follow them. Engage with some of those directly, responding to their posts. Do this for a couple of weeks and you'll have a full feed.
Occasionally look into the local feed. Skip over stuff that bores you. Read stuff that interests you. If you see the same names making interesting content, follow them. Also, engage with the stuff that interests you by responding to posts.
Make content as well as the replies mentioned above. Apply relevant #hashtags so it's findable. But keep in mind that the system is not going to stuff this in other people's feeds on your behalf. This isn't Twitter or any other corporate microblogging setup. You need to get followers, which you can get by following steps 1 and 2. Otherwise you're just going to get the occasional person seeing your posts who is doing step 2.
Boost boost boost boost boost. There's no algorithm cramming posts into other people's feeds. The only way things go "viral" in Mastodon is if people spread it around. You have to be part of the process instead of abrogating that to an algorithm designed to foster "engagement" by spreading dissent and hate.

I'll make more of an effort to do that, although I'm still skeptical about the amount of content I'll see.
- In the end it still may not be for you, and I'd like to stress this right now: that's perfectly fine. Not every platform is for every user. If Lemmy serves your needs better, use Lemmy over Mastodon! It's awesome!

I felt like this the first time I made an account, but that's because no one told me I had to follow hashtags, and I only used the official app where you can't even do that!

But now I know all that and I'm using a third-party app, my experience is much better. For example, I posted a question about a book series last night, added all the relevant hashtags and then this morning had about 8 or 9 replies from people all helping with my question.

We're so used to algorithms and being able to just search for particular keywords which will then show up that we've forgotten how social media used to work.

I’m using the default mastodon app and I don’t have much replies too. May I know what 3rd party app you’re using?
- I'm using Tusky on Android. More features and more customisable to how I want it.
  
  If you're on iOS, I'm not sure what apps are available on there.
- I can recommend Tusky, easy and simple. Otherwise Fedilab is nice too. Both for Android and available on f-droid.

Dead?? Goodness - I love Lemmy and I’m working hard on the community I’m building but Mastodon is jamming! I’ve got like 200k followers on IG and only about 700 followers on Mastodon and the convos and engagements blow away IG!

My thing is follow follow follow and then favorite, reblog, and reply! Been amazing.

I don't think it's a Mastodon problem. It's a generalist social network problem. Facebook, Twitter, Mastodon, why are we using those? For some, it's "to keep in touch" with friends and family, and they're happy seeing any activity, preferably things that makes them smile (that's more Facebook). For others, it's a mean to build street cred in their industry by publicly saying on topic things that sound smart (that was Twitter). But if you look for interesting discussions on things you like, in order to learn something, they're terrible at that. It's where specialized communities, discussing only one topic, shine. It used to be forums, then reddit, now lemmy. RSS is also a very good way to get that kick.

What's RSS?
- RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. It is a web feed format used to publish frequently updated content such as blog posts, news articles, podcasts, and videos. RSS allows users to subscribe to their favorite websites or blogs and receive updates automatically without having to visit each site individually. It's a convenient way to stay up-to-date with the latest content from multiple sources in one place.
  
  RSS has been around for quite some time. It was first introduced in 1999 by Netscape as part of their Netscape Netcenter platform. Later, it gained wider adoption and became more popular in the early 2000s. Over the years, it has undergone various versions and improvements to make it more efficient and versatile. Despite the rise of other content distribution methods and social media platforms, RSS still remains a useful tool for content consumption and distribution for many users.
- It's a feed protocol for websites. Each time you see that icon, it's a RSS feed :
  
  You have a RSS client, a program you use to display your news. In it, you paste the url of the RSS feed of the various websites you want to follow, and just like that, you have an app in which you can go every morning to see what's new in your favorite websites, all at once.
  
  Now, the problem of course is that not every website, by far, is offering RSS feeds, so you have to look for those who provide one. RSS is popular among techies and journalists, so press and tech blogs are where they are the most common. On top of that, there are many websites having RSS feed without even knowing it, because they use Wordpress or other engines that automatically provide RSS feeds. Those are a bit more tricky to get your hand on, because there is no link anywhere on their page, you have to look in the source code of the page (using Control + u) to find an "alternate rss" or "atom" link. It used to be automatically detected by browsers, showing an icon in the url bar when a RSS feed was detected, but it's not the case anymore. You can still install a browser extension to make them appear, like this (chrome) or this (firefox).
  
  For the record, youtube has RSS feeds for all publishers, reddit has RSS feeds for all subs, most major news websites have RSS site, so it's quite useful, provided you can find the feed urls.
  
  Then, to actually aggregate the news, you need a RSS client in which to paste those feed urls. There are tons of them. Name your favorite platform, there probably are a dozen RSS clients for it. Mobile, web, desktop, it's everywhere. So pick the one you like best. :) You just have to search for "RSS client for <the platform you want>". A couple popular exemples : The Old Reader on the web and Thunderbird (which is also a mai client) on desktop.
- You sweet summer child
- -,-

I started following people I found elsewhere, then followed people they boosted until my feed had enough volume. Since I mostly consume content and don't post much, that has been working for me. It does take some figuring out and blocking people (like some on this thread) who'll act like you're not supposed to be there if it isn't all obvious to you (it really isn't to anyone). If you like both lemmy and twitter (X) it might be worth giving masto another shot.

I hate that posting into the void feeling. I blame that more on the microblog format more than any particular platform.

I've found the Mastodon experience much more isolating than Twitter or Threads, because it intentionally does a lot less to help you find interesting posts and like-minded posters.

I’ve not posted much on Mastodon, but I used a couple of hashtags and an interested-based group that automatically boosts any post you tag it in and I’ve gotten some people to respond! But yeah Lemmy and Mastodon are pretty different ways of interacting with people so I can see how you might like one more than another.

I follow some pages on there.

Did you primarily doomscroll when you were on twitter? If so that's probably why it seems dead to you.

I didn't use Twitter.
- That's why Mastodon is 'dead' to you. I never liked Twitter or used it much, and Mastodon just doesn't work for me either.

Ok, don't use it, easy.

They serve vastly different purposes. Lemmy would be a terrible place for people to chat about how their days are going, which is a key part of what microblogging platforms provide to be honest. And conversely, for structured conversations focused on specific topics, Lemmy has obvious advantages.

Beyond the basic structure, there are cultural issues with both that make them a bit tenuous for me.

I don't want to ask how people are doing. I have things that I like and I want to see posts about them.
- Then it's not for you, and that's fine

It’s great for professional - especially academic, tech/privacy, security, etc.

Got it.

I saw a lot of comments about hashtags to follow. It's right. You must follow them to find people to follow.

But, it's missing a part of how to find people to follow. Boosting is essential. A way to boost automatically a toot is to use groups. You mention the group about the topic and your toot will be boosted. You need to follow these groups to find people. You feed will be less empty by following groups.

could Lemmy extend its functionality and UI to essentially become an active part of Mastodon?

it's almost the same tech, no?

That's Kbin
- oh sick that's something i would love to see in Lemmy to expand the Mastodoniverse

Much like Twitter u have nothing to post and no interest in any of the things posted.

Interesting, I joined recently, followed a couple of people and hashtags, posted and got responses which I didn't expect as I was there for a day.

I've found squabbles pretty good for tweet style content. There seems to be a pretty engaged audience who can look at a short sentence or photo and happily engage with a comment

I basically used twitter for news some update and a couple of writers and actors accounts. Mastodon lack a bit of variety right now but you can find tons of content from users pages.