Increase social media presence

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GNULinux
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Increase social media presence

Post by GNULinux »

in present day most of the youths spend a lot of time on social media
i have seen quite a few of my classmates searching sites like twitter, youtube,instagram and others instead of surfing the web for information on any subject

unfortunately linux mint has almost no Official presence on the social media
the only way you can hope people to know that linux mint exists is by its websites or some linux review websites
naturally this newer generation even if its interested in mint, when it won't be able to find any official verified account on any social media site
they might drop the idea of using mint

if we can increase mint's official presence on various social media platforms we will be able to get more new users to join
youth population will keep on increasing and if we are not able to provide these new people with the information they need we can't expect lots of new users

the newer generation is the one that likes polished looks (obviously most of them won't be tweaking there system much so they want a good looking desktop)
and the impression of how good a distro is comes from how good its website and official social media accounts are, so we need them to be both good looking and useful


so if we can manage to capture the attention of these new generation
we will be able to increase our presence even more

i hope my little suggestion could be of some help
Last edited by SMG on Wed Jun 08, 2022 2:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Old topic locked to prevent spam posts from being added.
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Termy
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Re: Increase social media presence

Post by Termy »

Agreed. Somebody does, however, have to maintain and moderate on these platforms.
I'm also Terminalforlife on GitHub.
Moonstone Man
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Re: Increase social media presence

Post by Moonstone Man »

GNULinux wrote: Thu Jan 28, 2021 8:33 pm i have seen quite a few of my classmates searching sites like twitter, youtube,instagram and others instead of surfing the web for information on any subject
lol - that says far more about the clues your classmates are missing than it does of LM's presence on social media.

Still, I suppose a presence wouldn't hurt but the big problem is moderation and people expecting to have technical questions answered, who is going to do it and who is paying for the effort if devs get involved, not to mention the very high likelihood of profoundly idiotic advice being doled out by every passing Joe Blow who has a great aunt twice removed who once knew somebody in a past life who had read the word 'linux' in a conversation between two complete strangers.

I don't think it's workable at all.
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Lady Fitzgerald
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Re: Increase social media presence

Post by Lady Fitzgerald »

Kadaitcha Man wrote: Thu Jan 28, 2021 11:43 pm ...I don't think it's workable at all.
I agree! There are also the security and privacy issues of social media to be concerned about.

I'm sick and tired of so many people and companies assuming everyone is on Farcebook (it's right up there with thinking everyone has a "smart" phone, or uses Google Chrome or Firefox, designing their websites to work best only with those browsers).
Jeannie

To ensure the safety of your data, you have to be proactive, not reactive, so, back it up!
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Cassandra
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Re: Increase social media presence

Post by Cassandra »

First of all, I apologise for the great length of this post. I recommend that you settle down with the tasty beverage of your choice before attempting to read it.
Secondly, I apologise for my habit of 'crossing the memes'. I hope that my mix of decades-old pop-culture references is still easily understandable ;)

I* think that the best way to promote Mint via Social Media is probably for ordinary users (such as me) to keep on reminding our SM 'audience' that we are using Mint, and that it is really easy to use, really pretty, totally customisable, really secure, and free too :)

Kadaitcha Man and Lady Fitzgerald have made very cogent points about the problems that are inherent in trying to have any kind of 'official' presence on e.g. Facebook - the hydra of 'rumour control' being arguably an even-worse Monster than the cost implications.

'Nudging' one's SM 'friends' through repeated comments on SM about how easy it is to use Mint, how powerful it is, how secure it is, etc, seems to me to probably be the 'best' way to promote Mint.
It would keep reminding folk of the existence of Mint, but without 'advertising' to them, or 'nagging' them, or requiring them to actually click through on to a specific page.

I think that such a 'drip feed' of positive comments from the 'collective' of individual users might provoke 'FOMO', and make other people curious enough to look into using Mint.
I have also e.g. set up a 'guest' account (without admin permissions) on my laptop, so that anybody I know who is interested in having a look at Mint can have a play with it.

There is though, I think, a balance to be struck...

...a balance between what would constitute an 'adequate' amount of non-intrusive promotion, and a level of promotion that would tip-over in to 'aggressive proselytising'.

Cf the infamous joke below:
"How can I tell if a person is a Vegan?
Don't worry - they'll tell you!"

Perhaps the largest obstacle though is human nature.
We are a group of people who were sufficiently interested in 'tech' and were also curious enough to go on to take the trouble of actually examining our options ( :shock: ) before then deciding to try out this weird - not-'normal' - option.
The option of using an OS that isn't a product created for sale and marketed by a major for-Profit Corporation.
We ought to be able to recognise that having done so demonstrates that we are all 'outliers' - most members of our species are incurious members of the herd, and just drift through their lives doing what they assume is 'expected of them' by the herd.

tl;dr summary:
1- Why do so many companies spend so much money on advertising, and keep on doing so, all the time?
2- PT Barnum's remark about how nobody ever lost any money was right.

I suspect that a drip-feed of SM 'nudges' may be the best way to bring other 'prisoners of the Matrix' to 'consciousness', and to then persuade them to stray from the herd and instead join the Mint 'collective'.
Not least because that method will, at first, attract only the brightest members of the herd.
If we can attract the brightest people to it, Mint (& Linux in general) will be taken up by more of the kind of people who will make the 'product' even better, and this will in turn increase the attractiveness of its 'selling proposition' to the 'normal'/'ordinary' majority.

So, yeah; for what it's worth, that's what I* think.

Slàinte,
Cass.


* in my 'esteemed' capacity as Just Another Pseudonymous Shmuck on the Internet :D
Busy, busy, busy! And probably turtles all the way down.
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Re: Increase social media presence

Post by Ninpodeshi »

Cassandra hits upon an important point. The most effective promotion is probably done with a decentralized method.

Here are a few options that I've seen used well on Twitter: (Sorry, I dumped Facebook) (Btw, I'm writing as an advocate, not an evangelist, of the platform.)

First, follow some Linux accounts and Turn On Notifications for tweets from those accounts (go to the account's page and click the bell icon). Then retweet some of their posts that you think are most relevant.

Second, if there is a dedicated group of folks that want to help amplify their message, create a follow-back list. One person makes a list of Linux advocates and everyone on the list can follow everyone else on the list. This creates a nice network. Then, when one of the people on the list Tweets something about Linux, it is more likely to show up in our feeds so that we can retweet it for others outside the list to see.

* Keep in mind that, for most social media, if they are re-shared or commented on, that tells the algorithm to put them into more people's feeds. I've followed the stats on a few of my tweets. My tweets normally are only seen by a few to - maybe - a dozen people. But, when they are retweeted, the amount of people that see them jumps quickly, almost exponentially. *

Third, tag a leader in a pro-Linux tweet. Then, when people search for that account, your post may come up. If the leader thinks it appropriate, they can re-post & then others can follow suit. (The idea here is to give the official account good, positive stories to re-share. I think it's better, though, to maintain a decentralized promotion strategy and not rely on the official account to give us content to share.)


For example, I follow @Linux_Mint on Twitter. I'm currently in the process of setting up an old 32 bit laptop with Mint for a couple of my students. Once it is working well, I plan to Tweet about it and will tag the Linux Mint account and maybe a couple others. Sharing these periodic positive stories to others will do a lot to get people comfortable with the platform, and that comfort level is what is needed for them to give it a try. Setting up a web of fellow adv0cates will amplify our message and create a positive feedback loop for promoting the platform.

MANY of the people I'm connected to online support a lot of the ideas that make Linux great, like decentralization, helping each other when possible, and giving each other as much freedom to pursue ideas as possible. I think many of them would be open to pro-Linux posts, but I'm not connected to a lot of Linux advocates online yet.

Fwiw, I'm a Newbie. My first install crashed badly because of a faulty BIOS, and I do not have Linux on a PC of my own right now (though I plan to put it on my old Win7 machine in the next week or so.) Right now, I'm working on a tough Wifi issue for my student's PC. As I work through the problems, though, I see that these are mostly a result of the Does-Not-Play-Well-With-Others attitude of a lot of proprietary programs/drivers, etc. Once I have Linux on a machine, though, I find that it works much better than before. (Example, my current laptop takes about 30-60 sec to resume from sleep/suspension under Widows 10. When I had Mint on it a couple years ago, I never timed it at more than 15 seconds, and typically it was about 10 sec.)

If anyone is interested in setting up a follow-back list on Twitter, let me know and I'll start one.
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Re: Increase social media presence

Post by KiliWikol »

I agree with you. I also want more people to start using this forum because I can always find great ideas or people who know a lot about Linux. You are right, and we should promote the website on social media apps. For example, whenever I see someone struggling with something or want to share some ideas about something related to this topic, I always send them a link to this forum. If every user of this website does the same thing, I think this website will become viral in several months, with lots of new users.
Last edited by SMG on Sun Apr 03, 2022 10:42 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Removed link advertising social media apps.
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