Let it happen organically. It will happen in waves.
this post was submitted on 30 Sep 2023
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Asklemmy
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Most people are familiar with the reddit app. There should be a "reddit for lemmy" app that is as terrible as the reddit app
That's the struggle at first, getting a deluge of users that keep people both entertained, AND posting content.
Unfortunately I don't think we've reached that number of users yet and it throws us into a vicious cycle of losing users who were also posters.
I'm not sure how to grow it on our end, other than continuing to contribute to the communities, but I do know that if Reddit keeps following Elon's business decisions, they may end up losing many users as well.
I think a better explanation of how to use it would be good, like that there's not a native app and what an instance is. It took me some figuring how to get here.
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Honestly I would rather let people come in naturally.
endless growth faster than what occurs naturally is cancer
Literally
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It's a difficult issue to overcome. You need an active user base so people have content to view, but people won't use the platform if there's no content.
"Rome wasn't built in a day" - it's going to take time to build the user base.
The first steps here would be to be active, post and reply to content. Try to get friends or coworkers to join, but you gotta give them the caveat that it's early, it's not going to be like reddit now but it could be!
Growing naturally is the best way. No advertising is necessary, not if you like it how it is.
When a platform grows too fast it loses it's identity. If I had to bet I'd guess the recent migration has already stretched what identity Lemmy had before.
- Participate. Comment, post, mod, support the software, make tools to help new users, donate to instance providers, write blog posts, review apps, whatever you're interested in and can do. Don't force yourself too hard cause this is still supposed to be fun and nobody benefits from burnout.
- BE KIND. The more of a wholesome, open community we can create, the better. Don't feed the trolls. Report and move on.
- If you're on other social media, maybe include a link to lemmy somewhere. Cross post lemmy posts, that kind of thing. PR never hurts. Try to stay away from "Lemmy army" kind of posts cause that usually pushes people away more than inviting them in.
All this being said, I'm not sure Lemmy is new-user friendly enough to expand quickly right now. I want my technology illiterate grandma to be able to sign up and use it without help. It's been amazing to join and be a part of this community. Like a lot of others I came here after Reddit API changes and I've loved seeing Lemmy grow.
As a lurker who doesn't post much:
Improve the quality of the platform. Fix the moderation issues. Find a solution to communities being fragmented across multiple servers. Keep improving reliability. And so on.
It will be slower but I think we will get there.
I don’t think Lemmy will turn into “marketing platform” that Reddit is now . And I’m thankful for that!