Trip HP

Sprout Social is a great social media tool for social media managers or creators lucky enough to have the budget. 

But it's on the pricier end, at $249 ($199 if you pay annually) per user per month. It’s no doubt money well spent for large social media marketing teams at enterprise companies, but marketers at smaller companies or creators will have to work hard to justify that spend. 

Thankfully, there are plenty of other great social media management tools out there that can do everything Sprout Social can do and more — at a more affordable price point or even for free. 

I’m a former social media manager and creator, and I’ve been around the block when it comes to social media management and analytics platforms. In this article, we’ll explore several the best Sprout Social alternatives, how much they cost, and some of their best features. 

1. Buffer

Price: Free, with paid plans starting at $6 per channel per month

Yes, I am a content writer at Buffer, so I’m definitely biased here. But I’ve worked in social media in some capacity for my entire career, and no matter how many tools I tried, I kept coming back to Buffer.

Like Sprout Social, it allows you to plan and schedule posts to major social media platforms, including Twitter/X, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Google Business Profile, Pinterest, and YouTube (with Threads and Bluesky on the way too). It also connects with decentralized network, Mastodon, something you’re unable to do with Sprout Social. 

The best part about Buffer? It’s incredibly flexible, meaning you can set it up to work for you as a creator, a social media manager, a member of a marketing team at a company, or even an agency. 

Let’s take a closer look at some of the features that rival Sprout Social beyond simple automation and social media scheduling:

Simple collaboration

Buffer is a great option for teams, thanks to its straightforward team collaboration system. With it, you can:

• Add unlimited users on the Teams plan: Each user has their own login and permission levels (more on this below), making it easier to keep track of who is working where. 
• Set permission levels for different users: Choose exactly who can post on each of your social media channels. 
• Set up an approval system: With these different permissions, certain users will require or can ask for approvals on their posts before they’re published, so you can always ensure quality and consistency. 
• Collaborate on ideas: Work together on social media content in Create, a dedicated space for all your ideas. 
• Leave notes for team members: Make comments or suggestions for other users on your plan.

Engagement tools

Buffer's social media engagement tools for Facebook and Instagram are a lot like Sprout Social’s social media inbox: a single dashboard where you can manage and respond to all Facebook Page and Instagram comments in real-time. Buffer will even flag the comments for sentiments (for example, comments with questions, comments that are positive, and those with a negative tone you’ll want to address).

Analytics and reporting

Rather than just pulling all the metrics together (which is already pretty helpful!) Buffer's analytics will help you understand and take action based on your content performance across channels. 

You'll find answers to questions like: "When is the best time to post on Instagram for me?" and "How often should I be posting?"

You'll also be able to get in-depth demographic information on your audience, plus generate user-friendly reports you can download and share (essential in content marketing).

Buffer's paid plans

If you're looking to manage more than three social media accounts or need social media collaboration features, analytics, and engagement tools, here’s a quick look at Buffer’s pricing plans:

• Essentials: $6 per month per channel
• Team: $12 per month per channel
• Agency: $120 per month for 10 channels

If you’re not ready to take the plunge, Buffer offers a 14-day free trial on all of its plans so you can put every feature through its paces first. 

Buffer’s free plan features

If you’re not quite sure you need these advanced features just yet, Buffer also has some powerful functionality available on its free plan — a great option for creators and solo social media managers. 

Here's a look at some of my favorites:

• Schedule content for up to 3 channels: Buffer's free plan lets you publish and schedule up to 30 social media posts (10 per channel) with a drag-and-drop calendar and queue for each platform. 
• Create: A content library where you can save and plan out all your ideas — something I find incredibly helpful in my content creation workflow. It has powerful organizational features, like tags and a board view, to help you keep track of your content.
• Handy integrations to streamline your workflow: Buffer connects with Canva, Dropbox, OneDrive, Google Drive and Photos, Zapier, and more. 
• Start Page: Set up your own landing page within minutes — a great option for your link-in-bio. You can even schedule updates to your Start Page as you would your social channels.
• Buffer's AI Assistant: Creating enough content for all your social media profiles all the time can be overwhelming — which is where our AI Assistant can help. The social media smart AI can create fresh posts for your Buffer schedule, repurpose existing content, and generate unlimited new ideas to help supercharge your engagement, grow your following, and amplify your social media presence.

2. Hootsuite

Hootsuite pricing: 30-day free trial, with plans starting at $99 per user per month for up to 10 social channels.

Hootsuite is another powerful social media management platform. It is very similar to Sprout Social in that it works well for marketing teams (but it does also come at a high price point). It’s a

What’s a struggle that marketers and creators have in common? Finding new and engaging social media content to post. And let's face it, creating every piece of content from scratch isn’t always doable, especially when you’re short on time and budget. Even if you had an all-seeing eye, easy access to a ton of great content exactly when you need it just isn’t the reality for most people.

That’s where content curation tools come in. They help you keep a steady stream of high-quality content flowing without the constant scramble. 

In this article, we’ll explore some of the best content curation tools available and why every creator and marketer should have them in their toolkit.

Whether you’re aiming to boost your social media engagement, improve your SEO, or just keep your audience in the loop with the latest trends, these tools can make a world of difference.

What are content curation tools?

A content curation tool is an application that helps you find and share relevant, authentic content.

Content curation is a smart solution to the constant demand for fresh content. But it’s more than just reposting great stuff. It's about finding, organizing, and sharing the best and most appropriate content in a way that adds value to your audience.

These tools help you sift through the noise to discover gems that resonate with your target audience. They save you time and effort while ensuring you consistently deliver high-quality, new content. In short, content curation tools are like your trusty sidekick in the quest to keep your audience hooked and your brand top-of-mind.

Why use content curation tools?

Content curation tools are game-changers for anyone looking to keep their content fresh and engaging. Here are a few reasons why you should consider using them:

1. Store new ideas: Ever come across an article or a post that sparks an idea for your next big project? Content curation tools help you store these gems in one place, so you can easily come back to them when you need a burst of inspiration. No more lost bookmarks or forgotten links!
2. Track interesting topics: Keeping up with your industry's latest trends and hot topics can be overwhelming. Content curation tools allow you to track and organize interesting topics effortlessly. Whether it's the latest in social media strategies or emerging trends in e-commerce, you’ll always be in the know.
3. Visual language: Images, infographics, and videos are essential for capturing your audience’s attention. Content curation tools help you find and save visual content that can complement your brand's voice. By integrating visuals, you make your curated content more engaging and appealing to your audience.
4. Enhance your content mix: Balancing original content with curated content can keep your feed interesting and diverse. Content curation tools help you easily mix in valuable third-party content with your own, ensuring your audience gets a well-rounded experience.
5. Save time and effort: Manually searching for content can be time-consuming. Content curation tools automate this process, saving you hours each week. They aggregate content from multiple sources, so you can quickly find what’s relevant without endless scrolling.
6. Improve engagement: Sharing high-quality, relevant content that resonates with your audience can significantly boost engagement. By using content curation tools, you ensure that you're consistently sharing content that sparks interest and conversation among your followers.
7. Strengthen your authority: You position your brand as a trusted authority by curating and sharing valuable content from industry leaders and reputable sources. This not only builds credibility but also fosters trust and loyalty among your audience.

In a nutshell, content curation tools streamline the process of finding and sharing top-notch content. They help you stay organized, keep your content pipeline full, and ensure that you're always ready to share something valuable with your audience.

Buffer

Surprised? Don’t be! Buffer isn’t just for scheduling posts – it’s also a great tool for content curation. I should know.

This functionality comes from Create, a content library where you can save and plan out all your ideas. It’s a solid addition to any content creation workflow. It has powerful organizational features, like tags and a board view, to help you keep track of your content.

Buffer allows you to use the Create space on the free plan, but if you want to scale to managing more than three social media accounts or need additional features like collaboration, analytics, and engagement tools, here’s a quick look at Buffer’s paid plans:

• Essentials: $6 per month per channel
• Team: $12 per month per channel
• Agency: $120 per month for 10 channels

If you’re not ready to commit, Buffer offers a 14-day free trial on all of its plans so you can try every feature first. 

Flipboard

Flipboard is a free content curation tool that turns your curated content into magazine-style layouts.

Flipboard allows you to create personalized magazines with articles, videos, and images based on your interests. It makes discovering and organizing the most relevant content easy, with seamless sharing to social media platforms.

Feedly

Feedly is a content curation platform that aggregates updates from your favorite websites, blogs, and publications into one convenient feed.

Feedly helps you stay organized by allowing you to save and categorize content into boards, add notes and highlights, and even prioritize content with its AI assistant. The browser extension makes it easy to save articles from anywhere on the web, and team collaboration features allow seamless sharing and discussion.

Feedly pricing: Free plan with basic features and paid plans starting at $8.25/month.

ContentGems

ContentGems is a content curation software that helps you find relevant web content across articles and blog posts.

ContentGems offers real-time content analysis and uses machine learning algorithms to recommend high-quality content based on your interests. It allows you to create custom workflows, integrate RSS feeds, and use advanced filters to curate content that resonates with your audience.

ContentGems pricing: Free plan with paid plans starting at $10 per month

BuzzSumo

BuzzSumo is a content discovery and analysis tool that helps you find the most popular content and influencers in your niche.

BuzzSumo allows you to discover trending content, analyze social engagement, and identify key influencers. Its features include content discovery, trend analysis, influencer outreach, and social media monitoring. With BuzzSumo, you can track competitors, set up content alerts, and use advanced search filters to refine your content strategy.

BuzzSumo pricing: Free plan with limited features, with paid plans starting at $199 per month.

Scoop.it

Scoop.it is a content curation tool designed to help you discover, curate, and publish content across multiple platforms.

Scoop.it automates the discovery of quality content from across the web, allowing you to curate, organize, and share it through social media, newsletters, and blogs. It also offers features like content hubs, team collaboration, and SEO optimization, making it a versatile tool for marketers and businesses.

Scoop.it pricing: Free plan available Pro plan: $14.99 per month (billed annually)

Quuu

Quuu is a content curation tool that helps you discover, collect, and share high-quality content tailored to your audience.

Quuu simplifies your social media strategy by curating relevant content based on your niche and scheduling it for optimal engagement times. It integrates with major social networks and scheduling tools (like Buffer!), making it easy to maintain a consistent online presence.

Quuu pricing: Free plan available with paid plan starting at $19.79 a month per social media profile

Pinterest

Pinterest is a free visual content curation tool that allows users to discover, save, and share images, videos, and GIFs through customizable boards.

Pinterest helps businesses and creators organize content into themed boards, making it easy to curate visually appealing collections that attract and engage users. By optimizing images with relevant descriptions, tags, and high-quality visuals, Pinterest can also enhance SEO and drive traffic to your website.

Pocket

Pocket is a content curation tool that allows users to save articles, videos, and web pages for later viewing.

Pocket helps you curate content by letting you save interesting finds with a simple browser extension or mobile app. You can organize your saved items with tags and highlights, making it easy to retrieve and reference them later. Additionally, Pocket provides personalized content recommendations based on your saved items, ensuring you always have fresh, relevant content at your fingertips.

Pocket pricing: Free plan available with paid plans starting at $4.99 p

Content distribution is critical in getting your hard work in front of the right people, driving brand awareness and engagement.

Why isn’t it just about developing awe-inspiring content anymore?

Creators worldwide publish about 500 minutes of video to YouTube, 116 blog posts, 1,099 Instagram posts, and six new websites per second.

And don’t even get me started on TikTok (with an estimated 34 million videos posted every. single. day).

Without a solid distribution strategy, even the best creative can get lost in this vast universe of content, failing to make an impact and costing you dearly without generating the intended ROI (return on investment).

How do I know? 

Since 2016, I’ve been the strategy director and principal at Optimist, a growth-focused content marketing agency. In my time helping everyone from startups to corporate clients achieve growth through strategic content marketing and SEO, I’ve seen a lot of content. I’ve witnessed many successes, and some flops.

But, most importantly, I’ve learned plenty about what it takes to build an effective content distribution strategy. Want to know what I’ve learned? I’m going to show you — right now.

Key takeaways

• Shareable content is emotional content. Know your audience and create the kind of copy they can’t help but share.
• Use a variety of content distribution channels where your audience already is to maximize reach. Look beyond major social networks to communities, like Indie Hackers.
• Optimize your content for each platform and channel. This may require using a different tone of voice, resizing your images, or tweaking the copy.
• Repurpose existing content. This tactic can save you time, expand your reach, and help you convey the right message to different audiences. 
• Iteration is the name of the game. Track your performance on each platform. Analyze the results to see what works, what doesn’t, and where you should focus your efforts. 

What is content distribution?

Content distribution is the practice of publishing, sharing, and promoting your content to your target audience.

This marketing strategy relies on online channels like social media, newsletters, and pay-per-click (PPC) ads. However, you can also leverage offline distribution channels, such as magazines, newspapers, workshops, or trade shows. An example would be the print edition of Forbes or Entrepreneur.

From photos and videos to case studies, you can distribute just about any type of content. What matters most is to "package" it in a way that resonates with your customers — and share it on those platforms where they spend their time.

The psychology of shareable content

Even the highest-quality content sometimes bombs. 

So, what gives? What motivates users to share content with others?

A possible answer comes from The Psychology of Sharing, a study conducted by The New York Times on 2,500 internet users. Most participants said they share content online to:

• Define themselves to others
• Build and foster connections
• Make a difference (e.g., change someone's opinion)
• Feel more involved in what's happening around them
• Raise awareness of the causes they care about
• Inform others about the products they love

For instance, 68 percent of respondents said they share content to express their true selves. About 73 percent saw it as a way to connect with others who shared their interests.

Content shared online brings people together. It also gives them a sense of self-fulfillment and makes them feel like they are part of something bigger.

A good example is Dove's Real Beauty Sketches campaign, which revolved around a video aimed at instilling self-confidence in women. At the time of this writing, the video has been viewed almost 180 million times.

Consumers worldwide shared the video. It was their way of saying something about themselves, as well as the difference they wanted to make in the world. Dove’s content gave them a voice and an opportunity to inspire others — making it irresistibly sharable. 

Looking at this example, it's easy to understand that shareable content has an emotional component to it. As a small business owner, you may not have the same budget as Dove or other big brands, but you can craft content that clicks with your audience.

Types of content distribution channels

Content distribution channels fall into three main categories: owned, earned, and paid. Here's what each entails and how it fits into your strategy.

Owned channels

Owned channels include the platforms you fully control, such as your website and blog. It also extends to the marketing lists you build to send email newsletters, physical mailers, etc. as well as the social media channels you’ve set up. 

Owned channels are where you can most closely track and iterate on the success of your content distribution plan. For example, it’s much easier to know if people are reading emails you’ve sent than it is to understand engagement when you’re featured as a guest on another brand’s email list, blog etc.

Additionally, owned channels allow for the most creative freedom.

Think about Tesla founder and X (formerly Twitter) owner, Elon Musk. Many of his posts are controversial, to say the least, but that’s something he can get away with on his own platform — and it certainly generates a lot of attention. 

Entering Twitter HQ – let that sink in! pic.twitter.com/D68z4K2wq7

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 26, 2022

A potential drawback of using owned media channels is that it takes time to build an audience. Plus, you have to create and share content regularly to drive engagement and stay relevant.

Earned channels

Earned media includes user-generated content (UGC), media coverage, social media shares, as well as PR and guest posts your brand pushes out. The most important thing to remember is that earned media channels will always belong to third parties, such as bloggers, news websites, and review platforms, so ultimately, you have little to no control over them.

For example, the reviews left by travelers on TripAdvisor are considered earned media for the businesses being reviewed. 

The great news is consumers tend to trust these content distribution channels.

In a 2024 survey, 36 percent of consumers said they check at least two review websites or apps before reaching out to a local business. Another 25 percent admitted to visiting at least three sites to form an opinion.

Earned channels can drive brand awareness and boost your reputation. In some cases, they may also increase traffic to your site or blog.

The downside is that any brand mentions on these platforms are controlled by other parties. Therefore, they may come in the form of negative, inaccurate, or offensive messages.

The best thing you can do to combat this is to diligently reply to any content you can on earned channels. After all, the same study found that 88 percent of consumers actually prefer businesses that reply to all of the reviews left for them.

Paid channels

Paid media includes PPC ads, sponsored posts, and influencer marketing, which is most often conducted on social media and search engine channels.

The gist of paid channels is that you have to, well, pay to share and promote your content.

For instance, luxury fashion house Coach paid actress Selena Gomez to promote a biker jacket and a bag on Instagram:

June 27, 2024 by simon weiner Internet

When I launched my kids’ spa party bus, Luxe Gather, in 2022, it felt especially challenging given my business is fairly niche and a new concept to many. I knew that building brand awareness would be critical and that showing off the party bus experience would be valuable to help parents get a tangible sense of what we offer.

Given these goals, building a strong Instagram presence felt like a natural fit. Most of our target audience is moms, who I know spend a lot of time on the social platform — 68 percent of U.S. moms use it daily. I also felt Instagram Reels would be the perfect way to show snippets of the party experience.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Luxe Gather Kids Spa & Party Bus (@luxegather)

Ultimately, reels is just one piece of my social strategy and marketing funnel, but it’s created a critical foundation for brand awareness and education. Here’s how I quickly developed the right reels strategy for connecting with customers, how I streamline the process as a busy business owner, and how reels plays into converting customers.

I started with DIY customer research to fine-tune my messaging

Before I created a single Instagram Reel, I wanted to nail down the best way to message my business to catch the eye of my target audience. What do moms care about most when it comes to planning a birthday party for their daughters? What draws them to one party option versus another?

I had some ideas based on my own experience as a mom, but I wanted to hear the perspective of others, too. Unfortunately, like most business owners, I didn’t have the time to do extensive customer research. 

So, I found a more roundabout, DIY approach: reading the reviews of similar businesses. Looking at spa buses in other markets as well as indirect competitors in my area of South Florida (e.g., other kids' party businesses), I compiled what actual moms were saying in their reviews. 

By organizing these thoughts in Notion, I started to see common themes: how special their kids felt, how important cleanliness and customer service was, and how organized the experience was. 

Since launching the business, I’ve also reached out to our customers to ask for reviews or thoughts, and I feed this information back into my “voice of the customer” research.

This has since formed the foundation of a messaging document that I refer back to whenever I’m working on reels. By pulling content themes and copy directly from people who have enjoyed a business like mine, I can give my messaging a stronger chance of resonating with future customers.

I use templates and trending audio to easily make compelling reels

I knew from researching Instagram best practices that consistency is essential for building an audience and keeping engagement high, so I had a goal of posting two to three reels each week. Any small business owner knows that’s a lot of content to create on top of everything else on our plates. So, I found a few ways to make the job easier on myself.

First of all, I am always collecting content. Part of our party experience is that we take photos and videos of the kids throughout the event to send to the parents afterward. With the parents’ permission, I add all of this to a library of footage I can pull from when making reels.

June 27, 2024 by simon weiner Internet

If you’re anything like me, your Gen Z sister is posting on TikTok, your mom is a religious Facebooker, and you spent your (Millenial?) time context-switching between Instagram and LinkedIn. 

You probably miss things that they share if they don’t make it to the family WhatsApp group (if you have one of those, thoughts and prayers). 

But what if you could open your platform of choice and see it all there, in one place? Your mom’s Facebook photos and your sister’s TikToks, all while keeping up with your friends on Instagram and colleagues on LinkedIn.

This is exactly what the fediverse has the potential to be.

The fediverse, not to be confused with the multiverse (that’s Marvel) or the metaverse (let’s not go there), is a decentralized network of interconnected social platforms that promises greater privacy, customization, and community engagement. 

Sounds pretty great, right?

Of course, that reality is probably unlikely, since major social platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok aren’t part of the fediverse (and may never be).

But a growing number of new and interesting networks, like Bluesky and Mastodon, are also part of the network, and even Threads (owned by Facebook's parent company, Meta), is also plugging itself in. If nothing else, this is a sign that a version of the picture I’ve painted above will soon become a reality. 

Of course, said picture is a bit of an oversimplification, and there’s a whole lot of nuance involved in the somewhat nebulous concept of the fediverse. What is it, actually? What networks are part of it? Why should you need to join, as a marketer or creator?

If you’re looking for answers to those questions, you’ve come to the right place. This article will introduce you to the fediverse, key platforms, and some reasons to get started.

What is the fediverse?

The fediverse (“federation” + “universe”) is an ecosystem of connected social media platforms. It works a lot like a federation — the different platforms operate independently but can communicate with each other, allowing users from one platform to interact with users on another with ease.

This is all made possible because fediverse platforms are (mostly) built with the ActivityPub protocol. At the risk of oversimplifying things, I like to think of this as a common language. While all the platforms have their own native language, they can speak and understand ActivityPub and interact with each other. ActivityPub makes them interoperable. 

Other fediverse resources, like this handy guide by SimplyExplained, have compared the ActivityPub system to email: “There are many email providers out there like Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo Mail. I can sign up for Gmail while you can sign up for Outlook and yet we’re still able to send each other emails. That’s because email servers speak the same language: they all use a standard protocol to communicate.”

Another important feature of the fediverse is that it’s decentralized. This means there is no one organization that owns or controls the entire network. This decentralized structure gives users more control over their data and online experience. No controlling organization means no need to make money in the traditional ways social media networks do — adverts. 

What social networks are part of the fediverse?

There are a growing number of platforms plugging into the fediverse. Here’s an overview of some of the most popular ones:

Threads

Monthly active users (MAU): 150 million

Instagram Threads is the first mainstream social media platform to join the fediverse, and Meta's entry is a strong signal that it’s here to stay. 

Threads is a new social media platform that acts like Twitter and looks like Instagram, with a touch of Reddit thrown in for good measure. It’s primarily for “sharing text updates and joining public conversations,” Meta says, though it does support photos, videos, and GIFs. 

Fediverse functionality is available in beta for U.S. Threads users now but will be rolled out more widely soon. 

Check out our beginner’s guide to Threads

Mastodon

Monthly active users: 800K (with a reported 7.2 million accounts created)

Mastodon has also emerged as a strong Twitter alternative, though the microblogging platform comes with a bit of a learning curve. Like the fediverse itself, Mastodon is also decentralized. 

What makes Mastodon unique is the fact that there’s no one global “feed” that all public posts exist in. Mastodon users set up Mastodon instances, or servers, which others can join to share and interact with each other. Mastodon servers all have their own set of rules and requirements.

There are hashtags and lists, and you have up to 500 words to express yourself — as well as the ability to add GIFs, videos, and images.

Check out our beginner’s guide to Mastodon

Bluesky

Monthly active users: 1.4 million (with a reported 5.9 million accounts created)

Bluesky is a decentralized social network created by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. The microblogging platform is very similar to Twitter — you can share posts of up to 300 characters and include photos. Users can follow other users and reply, repost, and like posts.

Unsurprisingly, given its origin, Bluesky is the platform on this list that most closely resembles Twitter and is easy to get to grips with. Bluesky launched with an invite-only offering — users were only able to join if they had a single-use invite code shared by another user — but opened up to everyone in 2024. 

It’s worth noting that Bluesky doesn’t use ActivityPub protocols (it has its own open-source version, AT Protocol, but can connect with other platforms via third-party services). 

Check out our beginner’s guide to Bluesky

PeerTube 

Monthly active users: 21,797 (with a reported 350K accounts created)

PeerTube is a video hosting platform designed to replace YouTube. Or, as PeerTube themselves put it, one that “allows you to create a video hosting website, or a ‘homemade YouTube.”

On PeerTube, developed by Framasoft, a French non-profit, videos aren’t uploaded to a single server as is the case with YouTube, Vimeo, and the like, but streamed peer-to-peer. Users can find content from different videos or channels via search, but there is no ranking algorithm that will surface content they may enjoy in a single place. 

Pixelfed 

Monthly active users: 20,769 (with a reported 245K accounts created)

Pixelfed is a decentralized photo-sharing platform that strongly resembles Instagram. It has likes, comments, direct messages, and even stories. 

As is common for fediverse networks, users must join a server to start creating their own content on Pixelfed, all of which will have their own themes and rules. 

Other fediverse platforms to watch:

• Lemmy: Link aggregator and forum, 45,112 MAU
• Misskey: Open-source social network, popular in Japan, 12,127 MAU
• Pleroma: A flexible, lightweight decentralized network, 12,171 MAU
• Writefreely: Minimalist, self-hosted blogging platform, 4,965
• BookWyrm: The fediverse’s answer to Goodreads, 2,593
• Friendica: A bit like a simpler, decentralized Facebook, 1,751 MAU

Why join the fediverse as a brand or creator?

You’re probably eyeing the data above with skepticism. Why should you join a platform like Mastodon with under a million monthly active users, when Facebook and the like can offer you billions?

While those numbers provide useful context, remember the nature of the fediverse itself — most of these apps are already connected or soon will be. So, it’s best not to consider a single fediverse platform in isolation. 

According to FediDB, a data hub managed by Pixelfed, ActivityPub platforms collectively boast over 11 million users — a number that grew by more than a million people from May to June 2024. This data doesn’t include Bluesky and Threads, as the former doesn’t use ActivityPub, and the latter is still rolling out connectivity. 

In other words, the total number of users dipping their toes into fediverse waters is a lot higher.  

I love how The Verge’s David Pierce framed this: “There’s no mainstream success story yet. Ultimately, it’s not important for there to be one fediverse app the size of Facebook because the fediverse can be the size of the internet. Every app just has to plug in, and it’s already humongous.”

More reasons to consider decentralized social networks:

Make forrays in niche communities: Servers, instances, tags — many of these fediverse platforms offer users the flexibility to carve out their own spaces for communities. If your target audience exists in one of these spaces, it makes sense to meet them where they are. 

Community engagement: These more tightly knit communities lend themselves to stronger connections, m