zircote

Mastodon Post Template

Platform Specifications

Platform Philosophy

Mastodon is part of the Fediverse:

Content Guidelines

Voice & Tone

Best Practices

  1. Content Warnings: Use CWs liberally for anything potentially upsetting
  2. Alt Text: Required for accessibility (images without alt text are hidden for some)
  3. Hashtags: Primary discovery mechanism (no algorithm to surface content)
  4. Visibility Levels: Choose appropriate privacy for each post
  5. Local vs Federated: Engage with your instance community
  6. Link Previews: Don’t count toward character limit (unlike Twitter)
  7. Image Captions: Mastodon culture strongly values image descriptions

Post Visibility Levels

Mastodon offers granular privacy controls:

Public

Unlisted

Followers-Only

Direct

Content Warning (CW) Guidelines

CWs are a core Mastodon norm, not censorship:

When to Use CWs

CW Best Practices

Example CWs

CW: tech industry layoffs, job search
CW: python, code example
CW: long post, software architecture
CW: eye contact in photo
CW: spider (with photo)
CW: uspol, climate policy

Post Structure

Standard Post

 [if applicable]

Thread Post (Opener)

 [if applicable]





🧵 Thread ( posts)

Thread Post (Body)

/

Announcement

 [if applicable]



Details:
• 
• 
• 



# #

Question Post

 [if applicable]





Boosts appreciated for reach!

#

Character Optimization

With 500 characters (and links not counting), you have more room than Twitter:

Content Strategies

What NOT to Optimize For

Hashtag Strategy

Hashtags are THE discovery mechanism on Mastodon:

Best Practices

How Many Hashtags?

Alt Text Guidelines

Mastodon has THE strongest alt text culture:

Writing Effective Alt Text

Examples

Alt: Terminal screenshot showing 'git push --force' command with
warning message: "You're about to overwrite main branch. Proceed? (y/n)"

Alt: Graph showing Python package download trends 2020-2024.
FastAPI shows exponential growth, surpassing Flask in 2023.

Alt: Photo of a golden retriever sitting at a desk with a laptop,
wearing glasses. Text overlay: "I have no idea what I'm doing."

Auto-Generated Alt Text

Metadata Frontmatter

---
platform: mastodon
instance: mastodon.social # or your specific instance
scheduled_time: 2025-01-15T14:00:00Z
source_content: /content/blog/my-post.md
visibility: public # public, unlisted, followers, direct
sensitive: false # mark media as sensitive
content_warning: "python, code example" # or null if none
media:
  - path: /assets/images/mastodon-image.png
    alt_text: "Diagram showing microservices architecture"
    description: "Architecture diagram with 5 services communicating via message queue"
hashtags:
  - Python
  - DevOps
  - CloudNative
  - OpenSource
language: en
reply_to: null # or post URL if threading
boost_from_account: yourbot@botsin.space # if cross-posting
---

Federation Considerations

Understanding Federation

Cross-Instance Etiquette

Boosting (Retooting)

Community Norms

What Mastodon Users Value

Etiquette

Instance Selection

Choosing an instance matters:

Factors to Consider

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Cross-Posting from Other Platforms

If Cross-Posting from Twitter/Bluesky

Bots and Automation

AI Prompt for Mastodon Post Generation

When using this template with AI:

Generate a Mastodon post about  that:
- Stays under 500 characters (or  if different)
- Includes a content warning if covering: 
- Uses CamelCase hashtags: 
- Assumes a privacy-conscious, accessibility-focused audience
- Sets visibility to: 
- Includes alt text description for image: 
- Avoids engagement optimization language
- Uses thoughtful, respectful tone
- References source content: 

Key message: 
Target instance: 
CW tags: 
Hashtags:

Useful Instance Features

Custom Emojis

Filters

Lists

Bookmarks