Start sharing lemmy posts with them. Don’t tell them to join up. Just like the best way to get someone to listen to a song is just yo play it when they are around, rather then telling them to listen to it.

Give them an instance you think they’d vibe with and tell them to check it out. I know some instances make joining way more complicated than it needs to be or has you write a whole freakin’ essay; but most don’t and are just as easy to sign up and start using as Reddit or other SM.

Unless they are into that kind of thing, don’t talk about federation. The number of comments I’ve seen on various other sites discussing Lemmy confused about how federation works and what it means is extremely high, and for the average person it doesn’t matter. Focus on the the general user experience, and not the tech running it. Especially if you’re trying to convince “normies.”

There’s a whole community dedicated to this topic - [email protected]

Nothing can be easier than going to https://portal.alien.top/, signing up with your Reddit account and seeing your account already subscribed to communities corresponding to your favorite subreddits.

https://join-lemmy.org/ worked for me. I had never heard of Lemmy before someone sent a modmail to a sub that I moderate. They told us about beehaw I think, then join Lemmy. I went I joined and I have been here since.

1. Send them links to posts they would like
2. Goto 1

Share something useful from Lemmy with someone not on Lemmy, when that something does not also contain toxic negativity or vitriol, but is positive, inclusive, and cordial.

Mass adoption won’t come easily. People treat social media just like broadcast and print mass media: they want to follow big names and brands. It’s a change in mindset looking for niche communities instead. Look at Bluesky, it didn’t really take off until big Twitter accounts moved and brought their minions with them.

I send people links to Photon to show people how nice everything is here. Concise, typeable URLs help where possible.

• To recommend Lemmy in general: phtn.app
• When linking a thread: https://phtn.app/post/lemm.ee/63146216
• When linking a community: https://phtn.app/c/[email protected] or https://photon.lemmy.world/c/fediverse
• When recommending an instance: the instance’s Photon front end like phtn.lemmy.blahaj.zone or p.feddit.uk

1. Sign up on lemmy.world
2. Pick some communities to subscribe on https://lemmy.world/communities?listingType=All&sort=TopMonth&page=1
3. For mobile get the “Voyager on Lemmy” app (available on Android/iOS) and log in with your lemmy.world account.

Just send them a link to Lemmy.world with whatever frontend you think they’d like best.

What do you mean? It’s just like signing up for an email account, and you get access to a forum like experience. Same thing for any other fedi app but the UI looks like something else.