Dear Lemmings, how can we funnel reddit users to lemmy?
Please, help us to better understand how we can effectively funnel reddit users into Lemmy across all demographics, leveraging the average Lemmings advantages like expertise in automation, ai and bots?
What tactics/strategies do you propose? Can we automate the process? Can we somehow add ai to make it more fashionable?
Don't worry about user numbers. Worry about developing niche communities here. With different personalities. That's the magic to make a garden grow.
It doesn’t matter how niche, it matters how active we are. I’ve been bored by “hot” for a while since it’s just 1h old trash, and “active” just leads me to day old threads. I want to participate in 4 hour old threads that have a lot of comments and a lot of activity and people still replying.
Exactly! This isn’t about monetization, so raw numbers don’t matter. As long as a given community has enough active members to promote continued use and provide its members with interesting material, that’s enough.
Users don't care if Lemmy or the Fediverse is more "free" or which technical features are superior to what Reddit offers.
Most users want a place to find content and basically doomscroll. You want users that will submit new content, not just lurkers. So in order to attract people here, the best way to do so is to submit new content.
I would focus on getting top posters from Reddit to move over or at least cross post.
Doing that requires them seeing someone else getting attention that they are not. Anyway you slice it, the answer is more posts being made here.
Users that don't care about freedom will never care about Lemmy. It's the only plus it has. It's why it exists.
Please, help us to better understand how we can effectively funnel reddit users into Lemmy across all demographics,
Who is "us", who is "we"?
And who the fuck thinks anyone should be funnelling (no less) the toxic cesspit that is reddit over here?
This post sounds like some bullshit written by the marketing department of a clueless corporation trying to find ways to exploit the latest "thing".
Please get some redditors here, the narwhal isn't bacon enough
Well, it isn't midnight yet so no baconnings will be happening yet.
I am a recovering corporate layoff. Part of my recovery process is to mock the corporate world by imitating their language...
Flawed premise.
Lemmy is not reddit nor should it aspire to be.
We don't want to attract reddit users, we simply want vibrant communities.
This type of attitude results in turds that won't flush like lemmit.online et al - a blight upon our fertile landscape.
Wow, do so many people believe Lemmy user are that much different than Reddit user? I mean I can totally forego all the bots, incels and astroturfing, but I do believe they migrate automatically once a platform got big enough. I don't think there's any way to stop that unless you want to keep Lemmy small forever.
Lemmy needs to grow because Reddit needs to go. Reddit has become too powerful for a greedy company like that.
You've missed my point.
I'm simply saying that migrating reddit users en-masse is the wrong objective. Just make lemmy awesome and allow users to come organically.
I couldn't care less what happens to reddit. Let them hang around and soak up all the idiots.
I would be very interested to see the percentage of lemmy users that were reddit users right up until the point they switched primary platforms. I have to imagine that number is near 99%.
Wow, do so many people believe Lemmy user are that much different than Reddit user?
Some of us have been here longer than the June 2023 reddit migration. The problem is that you're still a redditor at heart.
Wow, do so many people believe Lemmy user are that much different than Reddit user?
Some are, but some are even worse than reddit, for example the cursed reddit custom of profile downvote... actually never happened to me on reddit but here it's constant.
I see some people here saying they don't want Lemmy to grow. They're right as far as growth for the sake of growth. That said, there's value in a bigger user base because it allows for niche communities that otherwise wouldn't have enough activity to be worthwhile.
So in that spirit, I think actively posting and commenting about the subjects you're interested in is the best way to help develop active communities. If in conversation IRL we find ourselves saying, "I heard about X on lemmy" or "This tutorial on lemmy helped me figure out an issue with Y" then that's the best advertisement for new users.
Likewise I think reddit posts are favored when people do web searches because it's humans having a real discussion, not seo trying to sell something. As there's more content on lemmy I'd hope web searches will start bringing people here. (And as platforms like reddit make their product worse to make more profit fewer people will go there)
Yup. I don't post on reddit anymore but lemmy is still relatively empty so I still search for stuff on reddit.
In general, as somebody who migrated from Reddit in June, I'd say that the best of us are already here. I've only run into a handful of shitty trolls here these past 4 months. The smaller userbase also results in fewer posts and comments, so I spend less time scrolling through endless content. Both of these aspects have led to me feeling significantly happier and present. You're right about niche communities being too small here, but I would rather have it this way than deal with proudly ignorant, stupid, hateful dipshits relishing in being loud assholes in a thread with thousands of users learning to be loud assholes like them.
In my opinion, if people want Reddit, they should go to Reddit. The fediverse is the way that it is, and of course I'm open to improvements, but fundamental alterations to the entire identity is not something I would like to see. I'm happy to engage in discourse and disagree productively, which is much more possible here than it ever was on Reddit.
I like that there is one instance dedicated to that. Individuals can subscribe if they like, but overall generally a good idea to avoid in other instances
I got the opposite conclusion from how Facebook managed to take marketshare from MySpace. They allowed bots to take content from the other service and it made it easier to switch
The problem with Lemmy is that the demographic is so skewed. Its mostly hyper-tech nerds mixed with political activists. I like tech and politics but its a bit of a toxic brew and I haven't found myself having that much fun over here. On reddit, there's comedy and people not being angry because someone isn't using linux. Lemmy often feels like a glorified arstechnica link aggregator. Its just kind of a sad place compared to reddit. The other day u/shittymorph made some posts that made me laugh super hard. I haven't laughed at anything over here, because well most of you aren't funny, haha me neither so don't feel attacked. But lemmy not attracting comedians, and having the top post in here be "Dont" really makes it seem like the people here prefer being sad and lonely. sorry its not a direct reply to your query, as some actionable advise your seeking, just me attempting to articulate what i enjoy about reddit that I feel like i don't see here yet. I don't how to get someone like shittymorph over here. I don't know if there's anything that lemmy offers that appeals to a person like that, that's enough to make them start creating content over here. Maybe we just need people to stand up the sort of communities commedians would be attracted to, even if its a bit out of our wheelhouse, but idk. Authenticity is important and faking it is easily seen through.
I made a political post here a couple of days ago.
RIP in box.
Turns out lemmy users are just as toxic as reddit is.
I'd argue that this is how most communities start out. It's start by being a niche like Linux users and slowly gains population. Population makes posts more generic to appeal to the new wider audience and then more people migrate.
I'm hypertech nerd that's a hard social democrat so for me things are good lol.
This is it for me. It seems like the whole site is an example of "the left can't meme" with content populated by activists and sysadmins Thus even though I also dislike Reddit I haven't really been coming here either
I think the problem with Lemmy is that people assume Lemmy is reddit instead of one lemmy-instance is reddit.
So people attribute a culture to the whole of Lemmy instead of an instance.
People should focus more on one instance and grow a culture. It will automatically attract more of that type of person.
Just try to interact with people because it is fun or you have something to share that you are passionate about. As my doctor said: "Don't force that shit.".
And most important is that people stop talking about content like it is heroin. It is becoming pathetic.
Looks like you had something interesting to say, but man that lack of paragraphs... I'm not submitting myself to that.
Maybe try posting some funny memes then?
Works for Stamets and Picard.
Please don't actually
This was my thought too. Organic growth is better. I like the vibe on Lemmy far more than Reddit which has turned into a Instagram clone.
Exactly right.
Just stop going to Reddit and start contributing valuable content on Lemmy. If Lemmy is a good network, people will come here on their own.
Using AI bots to spam outsiders with Lemmy info is very likely to have the opposite effect.
Post more from humans, no ai content
As an AI language model, I concur with this assessment.
As an agreement bot, I agree with this message.
I don't really understand why you would want to. In order for the fediverse to be strong it has to grow organically and scale up, not face an eternal september of clueless people who aren't particularly interested in it.
The corporate/political shills, scammers, sealions and such are attracted to reddit by its size. Not having all that crap here is a good thing. Let's enjoy it while it lasts.
I'd rather be in a small community of interesting people who like to talk, contribute and honestly and politely debate ideas.
Rather than a huge community of zombies repeating one another or joining in mob mentalities.
@ininewcrow me too. I also like that we can still recognise some of the people here, even from different instances!
Yeah it is definitely much better, you can almost taste the freedom. The quality of discourse is much more relaxed and just overall better.
Hey, let's not!
The reddit posts I saw made it seem WAY more complicated then it was.
It made it seem I was going to have to make dozens of different users. That it was going to be an issue posting to different instances. That I was going to need several programs to talk to eachother..
Mean while. I signed up. Sync told me. 'hey! You just got lemmy - I already work for that!' and here I am. Sometime I forget this isn't reddit.
Seriously. Whatever flyers you want to spread for reddit needs to show how EASY it is to come here.
Speaking of that. Do we lemmings have a dedicated post we can share to redditor who are ready to switch?
"Join Lemmy now!
Lemmy is like reddit but better:
click here to join https://Lemmy.World/Login "
For starters, the signup shouldn't happen on one central server
Would you be willing to create such a post/Share link?
Cross post from Lemmy to Reddit. But we must raise the question if we really want that. Reddit became toxic over the past few years, and I think people on Lemmy right night are in general different. Do we want to turn Lemmy into Reddit?
Instead of crossposting everything, maybe just do it for specific topics.
Large subreddits are (and have often been) toxic. Niche interest ones are mostly fine
I don't think we do no. Reddit (users) has long been known for its "know-it-all" elitist attitude. I dunno if that is a natural consequence of the voting system but we shouldn't try to replicate it.
how can we funnel reddit users to lemmy?
Spez is already taking care of that:
'Reddit can survive without search': company reportedly threatens to block Google
Not required, reddit had since activated self destruction mode and still on going
At this point, anyone who was part of the 3rd party app protests who stayed and didn't make the switch clearly didn't want to jump here, so they'll probably be on r€dd!t for a long time.
What if they didn't know Lemmy existed?
I'd like to think the people involved heard about Lemmy because we essentially kept saying, "Hey, we're jumping ship!", but I can't remember if we did or not. I'm pretty sure there was some migrate to Lemmy sub that was also advertised in the saving 3rd party apps sub, but I, again, can't remember whether that actually happened.
I'd definitely like to think anyone in the protest 100% knew about Lemmy unless they actually weren't paying any attention whatsoever.
Mod tools. Steal the moderators and the communities will follow
Please don't, we don't need to ruin this site as well.
Stop pulling the ladder up behind you. Don't lock the door once you are in. Don't advocate for Anti-Immigration when you are fresh off the boat yourself. 😂
(did you hear that, North America? 😲)
Don't hold me to your standards, I'll think for myself.
I don't want another Reddit, because Reddit was shit for years because of all the peons flooding the gates.
Some immigration is good, but too much is bad. Just like the real world.
Accusing me of gate keeping? Look in a mirror. You are the one with a narrow view of reality here.
Don't focus only on reddit users. That unnecessarily narrows the scope of the issue.
Lemmy has significant barriers to joining that other sites or services do not have. And then once people manage to join there are basic usability issues with simple things like finding communities.
Until these core issues are solved it feels pointless to try to target users from a specific site.
The true answer... get all the only-fans folks here and everyone else will follow. We need the content people crave and people crave bewbs.
Yup! Porn is the backbone of reddit.
the girls go where the crowds are, that's just advertising
If you just funnel reddit users onto Lemmy, you're just going to get a shittier version of Reddit. You'll be selecting for people who are tired of, can't use, or rejected from reddit, but didn't make the move on their own. That will result in growth, but at the cost of quality. Specifically reaching out to reddit users sends the message that you just want to be reddit for people who can't or won't use reddit anymore.
Expansion should come naturally. As Lemmy grows and improves, new users will naturally gravitate over, but because it wasn't some sudden influx of reddit users they'll be less inclined to just bring Reddit's culture with them.
Aren't all Lemmy users former redditaries?
But before Reddit, I was a Goon. Before that, I ran some forums. Before that, I was on Usenet for ages.
The platforms change, but the people and communities are pretty much the same as they were 30 years ago.
The difference lies in how we got here. One means finding a new community, assessing it, and integrating into it. It means seeing the new community as distinctly not Reddit. The other is effectively a "Come as you are" invitation that will just directly import reddit's culture, after which it will be effectively too late to trim less desirable behaviors.
I'm arguing against recruiting people over en mass. I feel natural growth is a healthier alternative, as a stagnant environment is also unhealthy.
Dear Lemmings, how can we funnel reddit users to lemmy? Please, help us to better understand how we can effectively funnel reddit users into Lemmy across all demographics, leveraging the average Lemmings advantages like expertise in automation, ai and bots?
This almost reads like an AI generated prompt from a company. Personally I don't think it makes sense to coordinate something artificial because people will see right through that.
Lemmy and the Fediverse at large IS better than the other platforms. With time it will grow for that reason alone.
What tactics/strategies do you propose?
Post content about things you know about and follow. It could be stuff you see on other social media, local news, anything really.
If you want to get more involved, pick a specific community or subreddit type and see what it needs. How can Lemmy serve that topic as well or better than Reddit could. If it makes sense, see if you can work with the moderators for the subreddit to get an official parallel community going (link to eachother, update rules, add the subreddit mods as mods here).
Can we automate the process?
Only in some cases where it makes sense. Lemmit exists for those that want a feed from a subreddit. Otherwise Time sensitive content, such as deals/sales?
Can we somehow add ai to make it more fashionable?
I think the opposite is needed, don't do any of the random "fashionable" things companies are doing, which actually end up making the experience worse. Areas where it might be nice to have AI might be:
More and better NSFW content isn’t the answer, but it certainly helps!
NSFW thots that post in multiple communities is actually worse on lemmy. Maybe because it's a smaller audience and there are less communities or less posters.
I've blocked several users because I just kept getting the same posts. It doesn't seem to be helping.
Dont
Don't want to. This is good as it is. There's already a fair crack of wowsers here, and that's already too many. The discussion here was pretty amazing a while back, but it's already dumbing down as this place grows.
There’s already a fair crack of wowsers here
Could you translate that?
Lemmy was great as they were coding it. Been down hill ever since.
Interesting argument, so you are saying now we are at the sweet spot?
We've passed it. However, I concede the focused communities are appearing now, which is nice.
Why tho? Just let them use their reddit.
Yeah why care what platform people are using?
They want more content. More users means more content.
Fair.
Linking to Lemmy threads on related subreddits for as long as Reddit allows us to
Don't? The more that come the more this becomes a centrist/conservative hellscape.
politics isnt everything, the more users lemmy has the better. stop gatekeeping foss software, youre only making those 'capitalist reddit pigs' wealthier
I find theres enough content here to satisfy my needs without it becoming an unhealthy addiction. Also it feels like my comment is actually noticed and sometimes replied to by a real person like me. Reddit relt unhealthy in those ways.
Honestly, lemmy and the fediverse as a whole will have natural growth and thats fine - mastodon has been around for like 8 years and is only recently getting a small amount of attention and mainstream usage. Like take the long view - like the really long view like 15 years from now. It'll probably be huge, but until then we will just share memes and have a good time discussing stuff.
I bet their are a bunch of people here on Lemmy from before the reddit exodus that vomited reading that post.
First time I feel like being part of the locust.
Yes, that's me. I like it here, people are nicer in general. When I read some comments on political posts, it reminds me of Reddit and I quit. I don't want them here, let Lemmy grow naturally or not at all. It's hypocrisy I know, but just go look at r/all on Reddit and read the comments and justify wanting them here. Nope.
"We can post about wanting to kill nazis on Lemmy."
I dunno, let reddit keep fucking around and they'll come over. More engagement is always good but nothing gets better when there are more people on it.
lmao get a life bro
I see marketing via AI tools and bots unethical. Many things can be done via conventional marketing.
Also, majority of Reddit users are teenagers. The older generation of Reddit has fled away. We must think twice what target audience we want to bring in. I don't want Lemmy to become a place where alt-wing anti-establishment political leaders bait naïve teenagers and take them into the rabbit hole (aka scenario described in The Social Dilemma).
Maybe we should establish marketing funds that people can donate to. Then use those funds to run ad campaings to promote Lemmy and get people to join. We could even decide where to advertise like only on hackathons or IT conferences or other select avenues.
We could improve Lemmy's features because this is an important factor in the next of content creation. For example: better sync, account migration, more intuitive UX, etc.
If you remember a ton of people left because for these reasons: Confusing sign-up (having to choose an instance), worse UX, having to use third-party sites to explore communities which aren't local, suffering from defederation (my main gripe with Lemmy)
I agree wholeheartedly with what you (and others) have said. I wish there was a way to have one account but be able to use it on all instances. It would also be great that even though instances are decentralized, the content still was consolidated. So basically people from various instances visiting sort of fused/amalgamated communities.
You can use an account on all instances but I think the lack of consolidation is the single biggest problem with Lemmy/KBin tbh (the lack of ActivityPub in some of the other Reddit alternatives also doesn't help).
Obviously there's a smaller userbase here, which is fine and expected but can make some communities feel a little empty. Having basically the same community in multiple places across multiple Lemmy and KBin instances makes that issue a lot worse though - ideally communities covering the exact same topic should be automatically consolidated in the way you describe. And ideally on an opt-out basis for the user - so you see the amalgamated page by default and can see the individual ones if wanted.
@BigBlackCockroach we can already sort of do that? You're from lemmy.world, you're talking to @PrivateNoob from sopuli.xyz, and I'm reading both of you from kbin.social which also lets me follow people on mastodons.
Post Lemmy content on Reddit on the same way X content is posted on Reddit. Those interested will stay.
You mean Twitter?
Sorry, no companies named Twitter. There is one named X, at Twitter.com.
Ex-Twitter
Been a lot of negative comments but I agree that we need to encourage people to migrate here. Been thinking about that myself lately.
I think the only thing reddit has over Lemmy is the number of active communities, and not how big these communities are. If there's 10k people in a community, it's fine. It doesn't help if there's 100k.
But I need the diversity. I need r/soccer and r/chatgpt that are way more active.
I need my snark and gossip subs!
That will happen with a critical mass of users. Maybe it is possible to correlate the foundation/success or just number of subredits with number of active redit users, then we might be able to conclude what number of critical users is necessary for that to happen.
They will leave when they reach their breaking point and not before. Part of this has to do with changes implemented by Reddit the company. Part of this has to do with quality of user generated content. Unless you are going to tank quality by making bad posts on Reddit or running a bunch of bots to do the same, I doubt you'll have much of an effect.
I suppose the only thing Lenny Lemmy can do is advertise and Reddit isn't good at allowing that so I've heard.
I suppose the only thing Lenny can do is advertise and Reddit isn’t good at allowing that so I’ve heard.
If we pay they will put it on the front page 😂
This link, /c/books On any Lemmy server must show an agglomeration of all "books" communities on the whole lenmiverse
Because without this, user are made to flock to the one big /c/books community on the one big instance.
This betrays the initial promise of Lemmy to be decentralized.
Without this, communities will mosly remain small and fragmented
Communities should be easily able to migrate Toa new instance. Users too, 5 clicks at most.
Moderation should be subscription based. A filter I subscribe to and apply, if I choose, to the raw Lenny feed.
The real answer is posting memes on Reddit with a Lemmy watermark so they feel unhip. But please don't, Reddit is currently keeping the Reddit users contained, and that's better for every other platform.
I think it would help if when people googled Lemmy the top results would be a familiar interface with posts. Not a bunch of information about what it is and how to join.
I feel the very specific community topic split is already affecting Lemmy negatively. So I think having larger, broader community topics (e.g. 'commuting' instead of a community for every single option to commute by itself), with more diverse content, interaction and of course more visible activity, would also attract new users.
Right now some communities are so specific, that by its creation, it's a filter bubble by design. And then of course you don't get a lot of content or interaction, as only yea-sayer get accepted.
Interaction requires different approaches, opinions, options and of course people who upvote them even when disagreeing. The reply box is the correct option when disagreeing, not the downvote. That's how Lemmy will sprout.
tl;dr Broader community topics for larger, more diverse and more active communities
I think the lemmy community is great as it is!
Why would you want to increase the number of redditors here?
A baseball bat should do it, I'd think.
With a sock
Relay for Reddit charged me a subscription so I found this place just this week. It's like old Reddit.
Message the mods of your favourite subreddit(s) and ask them if they want to create the same over on Lemmy or should you? :-)
Users who care about privacy and not being exploited and targeted with shitty ads are already here.
The majority are Ben Dovers and don't mind getting fucked.
The best thing about Lemmy is that it's not R.
Or to put it another way, "do any of you have subreddits that can promote Lemmy". That's the only way I envision this.
Or we could buy ads on reddit 🤯
Watermarks!! Just add that cute Lemmy watermark to all Lemmy posts! That will make people come over here for sure!!!
I've been on Lemmy for 3 months and it's frustrating.
I'm assuming there's a shredder in the middle of the funnel, kind of like when that ice machine shreds up a random crony in James Bond prior to the avalanche in that scene in whatever James Bond film it was I forget.
Maybe inviting people to be less extremist and radicalized. If you want Lemmy to be less of a niche and more of a mainstream platform you have to accept normies.
I literally ended up blocking the world news sub because all the posts and comments were circle jerking around the left wing agenda
Yeah the politics are pretty one sided and hostile
It is super political here, which sucks.
lets keep talking about getting redditors here on lemmy which will surely bring the people that arent on lemmy
the fact u said add ai, bros desperate for content just go use reddit some vegetarians still eat bacon sometimes
lemmy sucks my man until we have some actual content itll continue to suck. content has to exist for more content to be created its a self fulfilling prophecy that would likely never happen due to lemmy being weird and not super intuitive in the beginning
i say all this as a reddit refugee and lemmy user though i use lemmy less because it sucks but ive stopped using reddit entirely (except for those long nights if you know what i mean)
Chill the fuck out with the bans, for starters. A lot of people come to these sites to discuss news, and then leave for good when they catch bans for stupid shit like saying "US revolutionaries probably didn't go around murdering entire families." Meanwhile, hexbears are posting pics of pig shit, which is apparently fine.
I mean, I definitely won't suggest this place to anyone at this point because of how toxic .ml has become in particular.
Lemmy is actually worse than Reddit. It's use base appear to be a bigger load of fedora wearing, fart huffing, hive minded l, predictable shut-ins than even Reddit.
You could try attracting users from somewhere a bit more diverse in terms of thought than Reddit.
Create content and participate to make Lemmy more attractive.
Best I can do is talk about Linux.
Which distro?
In German.
That's that Windows program the nerds use, yeah? Do you like it?
That works for me
Then do that. There are many Linux communities on Lemmy, participate in them and try to make them a better place by contributing useful comments and posts.
This is the way
I never have anything interesting to say
I think you just disproved your own point my friend, that was fascinating.
you think what all these idiots are saying is interesting?
just yap its more enjoyable that way
In my case I found that creating a community that was missing here, then regularly populating it with content, has worked wonders. That it was not just a good way to get myself engaged here, as well as to grow the Fediverse, but to attract users from Reddit and other places given a bit of cross-posting.
Seriously, I'm not sure how many people understand that right now, given that new content is generated relatively slowly across the FV, that any new community putting quality stuff out there is going to get a hugely* larger proportion of eyes on it. That's compared to similar communities on Reddit, FB, etc, in which smaller / newer communities tend to get completely drowned out in the ALL streams.
My own niche community (Euro graphic novels) already has 350+ subscribers in less than 90 days. Even for Reddit that's a nice jump-start and growth. Which is why I urge people to jump on this opportunity now, because eventually it's probably going to dry up.
Indeed, maybe it would be good to get this message out to people on Reddit, FB, etc who always wanted to start a sub/community, but the opportunities were 'all filled up' already.