By Dario Cavallaro · Published · Updated
Mastodon: where your account lives changes how you participate.
Mastodon is a social network made up of independently operated servers that can communicate with each other. You choose where your account lives, but your conversations can reach beyond that server. This is called federation.
For a brand, choosing a server means reading its rules and seeing how people discuss your subject there. A relevant conversation can be on another server, so the place hosting your account is only one part of finding your audience.
How Mastodon began
Eugen Rochko began developing Mastodon in March 2016 and announced it publicly on 6 October that year. His two-year retrospective describes the starting point as one server, mastodon.social, with 45 registered users.
The idea was that a social network could grow across independently operated communities. In a 2017 essay about community control, Rochko described Mastodon as continuing earlier federated social software while trying to make the experience approachable to more people.
The choice of server follows from that design. Each has its own administrators and rules, even when its members can communicate with people elsewhere in the network.
Growing beyond the first server
By its second anniversary, the project reported thousands of servers. In April 2022, Mastodon announced official apps on both iOS and Android, making mobile onboarding another route into the network.
The change at Twitter brought a different reason to try it. Mastodon had existed for six years when Twitter changed hands in 2022. In a December statement, Rochko reported growth from roughly 300,000 to 2.5 million monthly active users between October and November. Those are figures from that period, rather than a measure of its audience today.
An alternative that had seemed peripheral became relevant when people questioned who controlled their main platform. That does not mean everyone moved, or that every brand would find its audience on Mastodon. It explains why ownership belongs in a discussion about platform fit: a change at the company can change how people feel about gathering there.
The organisation also changed. In November 2025, Rochko announced he was stepping down as CEO and transferring the trademark and other assets to the Mastodon non-profit. The software project, its organisation and the independently run servers are related parts of the story; they do not all have the same operator.
How federation works
Think of email. Two people can use different providers and still write to each other. Mastodon uses a similar idea for social communication, through the ActivityPub protocol. Your server hosts your account; compatible servers exchange posts and interactions. This explanation follows the official Mastodon documentation.
Decentralised does not mean nobody makes decisions. Server administrators set and enforce local rules. The network does not have a single operator controlling every server, but the server you use still has people responsible for it.
Choosing a server is part of choosing the audience
Read the server’s rules, language, moderation approach and recent conversations. A community built around a specialist subject might be more relevant to your work than a larger general server. Look at what people actually discuss before deciding which of your existing posts could contribute.
The official signup guide explains the full account address: a username plus the server domain. Share the complete address, such as @name@example.social, or your profile URL. A username alone can leave someone guessing where to find you.
What should a small brand post?
Start with something that makes sense without requiring the reader to know you. A useful observation, a short explanation or a genuine question can give people a reason to respond. Add a link when it helps someone go deeper, rather than making every post an instruction to leave.
For example, a local repair business could show what a damaged cable looks like and explain when to replace it. That is a complete, useful post. A link to a longer guide can follow. “New blog, click here” gives someone far less to work with.
Mastodon supports text with media and polls. An Instagram carousel may need to become a short explanation with selected images, a thread or a linked article. Check the server’s actual limits before scheduling. Do not assume that every server behaves like your Instagram account.
Three ways to repurpose an existing idea
- A carousel becomes a useful discussion. Take one claim from the carousel, explain it in the post and attach the images needed to understand it. Add image descriptions. Finish with a specific question someone in that community could answer from experience.
- An article becomes a short explanation. Share a finding, why it matters and a concrete example. The post should make sense on its own, with a link for readers who want the full reasoning. Keep the original source attribution when summarising research.
- A demonstration becomes a focused clip. Choose a complete problem and solution from a longer video, retain readable captions and explain the context in the post. Check the server’s current media limits before exporting.
Suppose an Instagram carousel explains how to repair a bike tyre. For Mastodon, you could select the images showing the damage, describe them for readers using assistive technology and explain how to recognise the problem in the post itself. A question about which repairs have lasted for other riders gives a cycling community something specific to discuss.
Can you move your audience?
Mastodon has account migration tools. Its migration documentation explains that a move can redirect followers to a new account where their software supports it. Posts do not move with them, and other lists need separate handling.
That is useful flexibility, but it is not a promise that everything transfers. Keep original content and check the migration instructions before making changes. A server and your own content archive serve different purposes.
An adapted post gives you something concrete to assess: did people discuss the repair, ask a relevant question or find the explanation useful? If the conversations you want to join are absent, shortening more captions will not fix the fit.
Use Repurposing 101 to compare formats. The original Mastodon carousel is part of Digital Shifts.