They may not be spending money to advertise there, but they are still using Twitter posts to promote themselves, their products, and their causes.
Why?
The answer stems from basic Advertising 101, and I am using the example of Mastodon as an alternative platform to Twitter.
Background
All forms of communication from a company or organization are part of their brand promotion. That includes paid advertising, but also every other way they send intentional or unintentional messages to the public. The overarching goal is to makes these messages consistent in giving consumers as many positive "touch point" experiences as possible.
The basic formula for advertising success of "frequency and reach."
Frequency is how many times your target audience receives your positive brand message.
Reach is how widely your message is spread among your target audience.
The goal, of course, is high frequency with high reach. The more often they hear your message, particularly if it appears to come from different sources, the more likely they are to accept it and buy the products or ideas being promoted.
How Frequency and Reach applies to Twitter Alternatives
Mastodon has 9.3 million users and probably more because not all Mastodon servers are connected to the overall "Fediverse" network. Mastodon has no way to buy additional reach for a post, and no good way to even calculate reach.
The numbers today say Twitter has 396.5 million users and 206 million daily active users. Assuming you have the budget, you CAN push your Twitter post to more users, based on people whose profile fits your target audience. Even without spending money, effective use of hashtags is likely to get your message to way more people than those actually following you.
If you consider Twitter and Mastodon in terms of Frequency and Reach, Twitter clearly gives you better potential performance than Mastodon, or any of the other alternative platforms that have been talked up since Elon took over.
Some people still get banned from Twitter for their content, of course, and sometimes it is done unfairly. Still, if you can avoid posts that get flagged for banning, you have a big potential audience. Mastodon and the other alternative platforms have way less potential.
If you're a business or an organization promoting a cause, you need to put the most effort into what will give the most return. That being said, people/businesses/organizations wanting to influence via social media, should diversity and employ multiple platforms. In doing so, they will likely reach different audiences, not just the same people in different places.
Where do Bots come in?
In social media, more frequency tends to get you more reach. The more often you post, and the more people receive your posts, the more people are likely to accept the information as truthful, to like it, and to amplify it by sharing.
For example: This is the fundamental purpose behind using bots to promote political agendas. Robotic or AI-controlled systems post and repost content aligned with their goals, which affiliated bots repost ad infinitum.
Bots boost frequency and reach.
And remember that note above about hearing a message from many different source?. If you hear something from just one source, you may or may not be convinced. If you hear fundamentally the same thing from 20 people in one day, you are more likely to think it is a consensus, even if most/all of them are secretly bots designed to influence you.
Plus in our current political environment, bot content is often programmed to gaslight people into thinking something is NOT true, or that something true isn't.
Thee are millions of people who have dropped their Twitter accounts and gone elsewhere, like Mastodon. More have kept their accounts, but visit Twitter less often.
Businesses and Organizations using social media for brand promotion will use each platform for what it is worth, and put their emphasis and content creation where it gets the best return on investment. The different platforms ARE likely have different people on them, and all of them should be thought of as worthy of receiving the message of your business or organization.
I am enjoying interaction with others on Mastodon way more than I have Twitter for a long time. I have cut way back on the people I follow on Twitter, but still use it to promote my podcast, as well as Facebook and Tumblr.
Don't be mad that big business and organizations are still on Twitter. They're putting their effort where the most people are, just the same way conventional advertising prefers TV shows with big ratings. But the smart companies are diversifying their social media presence, adapting their message content to the dynamics of each, because multiple platforms DO reach different audiences.
