First Draft Club
“Write in Public” | Posting open to anyone, join as a member for accountability and rewards. Learn more at firstdraft.club. | @firstdraftclub
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The Unwritten Rules of Farcaster: You’ve Got to Contribute
Farcaster is in a constant state of flux. The team is always experimenting, and the meta is always changing. This makes it hard for new folks to find their place. The Leaderboard is not helping.
Many casters are using it as their metric for success here, and it’s measuring the wrong things. Turn off notifications for it and do not let it dictate your worth or how well you are doing.
If you want to do well, you have to do one thing: contribute.
Content is not the only way to contribute, but it’s going to be the most noticeable this summer. When I joined Farcaster, it was drilled into my head that it was a text-based social network, and I fought that for a long time as an artist…but things are about to change.
With the upcoming push for video, Farcaster may be graduating from cozy corners to look a lot more like traditional social media but with a Web3 backbone. Don’t believe me? Look at the leaderboard and see what’s cashing in.
In this new era, content may be king. Find your niche, show off your whole authentic self, and you may be able to rise above the noise. But if your strength isn’t in creating, you still need to find a way to stand out.
✎﹏Become a Collector and Curator
If you can’t create your own content, cheerlead those who do. Highlight underrated creators. Look for hidden gems on the network. Find artists, writers, photographers who need a boost. Buy their work. Show off your awesome collection. Tell people why you bought it and support it. Why is an article worth reading? What speaks to you about a piece? Help curate the content you want to see more of and things that inspire you.
✎﹏Build Cool Shit
Dust off your coding skills and build some mini apps. Find a v1 frame that was awesome and recreate it as a mini app, especially if the original developer has moved on. Vibe code away and build something. Mini Apps get noticed and highlighted by the team and other developers.
✎﹏﹏Build Community
If you can’t find a tribe here, build your own. Start your own channel. Start your own group chat. Make your own cabal. Bring your friends from other platforms and give them a place to land. Communities and friendships are the backbone of what makes Farcaster special. Most of us want to see them thrive and evolve. If you can’t find a cozy corner, make one.
✎﹏﹏Become an Enthusiast Participant
Maybe none of the above is for you, and that’s okay! Reply. Guys do really well on Farcaster. There is value in making connections and friendships by talking to people authentically. Join audio spaces. Go to IRL events. Host spaces and IRL events if none are nearby. Give developers great feedback about their products. Compliment art and photos you like. Ask thoughtful questions. Seek out people looking for feedback (but avoid engagement bait!) and jump into conversations by putting your best foot forward.
No matter how you choose to contribute, it’s going to take work, time, and effort. It won’t happen overnight, but you will find your place if you put in the energy. 72 replies
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** Unregrettable Minutes ** (my /firstdraft )
Wednesday, /gmfarcaster had an interesting discussion about how different social media platforms make you feel about your time spent there. @adrienne noted that Elon's metric was 'unregrettable minutes.' And that's been in my head since hearing it. (BTW, many such cases on /gmfarcaster )
I think about how much time I spend here on FC, but I don't think I have many unregrettable minutes. If you scroll longer here or go down a rabbit hole, it's probably about learning or engaging, not the finer points of a meaningless squabble. (most weeks, most cases! 🤷♂️)
And then I was thinking, @nounishprof & @adrienne put in a lot of time to build /gmfarcaster , not a lot of financial reward. I bet it's not a lot of regrettable minutes. And then this week, of course, @tako-unik & @pauline-unik building /los-fomos ...I bet their building isn't regrettable minutes *AND* I bet that was just as true for them a month ago before the crowdfund was even an idea. (I'm just thinking out loud, not speaking for anybody.) And we could list others, but those projects & builders come to mind in the moment.
I think you could spend regrettable minutes here on FC, but it seems different because most people have a reason to be here that's bigger than other platforms. It can take a bit to recognize this reality and find that reason if you are new. But once you do, minutes become harder to regret.
If you made it this far, I'm curious about your thoughts...is it (far) easier to spend time on FC in unregettable minutes than other places, and if so, why? If not, share those thoughts too. 3 replies
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[i wrote a testimonial for @know's one-to-one sessions]
For 6 weeks I spent Sunday mornings with John. Sundays were, and are, sacred to me; Sunday is the only day off that I share with my partner. Time is not trivial, and Sundays are more intentional than the others. Time spent with John on Sundays was always worth it.
I met John online, that sort of serendipity that you don’t recognize until later on. I was overwhelmed at the time, kicking off a period of transition, willingly [timidly] approaching meaningful change in my professional life for the first time.
I was looking for something. Something to ease my thoughts, or more-so rein them in. Trying to take ownership of my time [a type of control that I was ill-prepared for] I reached out to John. He had casually reintroduced me to meditation through his Beings Club a couple weeks prior, so i asked him for help diving deeper. Generously, he offered me his time.
He asked me why I was here, what my intentions were, what I hoped to get out of it. I was hoping for that sort of light hearted introspection, someone friendly to casually ask me a few questions I had wanted to ask myself, but not in a therapy type way. John’s a very relaxed and friendly guy, comfortable to open up around. Intentional with his words in a refreshing way.
We started with the traditional seated meditation practice. Walking me through what it is, the intent, what to do, how to sit, etc. The initial goals being: practice daily, be mindful, be intentional, be gentle. Sparing the details, we met every week for 6 weeks, talking about my experiences from the week before. Each week he offered new perspectives, thoughtful conversation regarding the practice, and always suggested a new practice — a fresh way to experience being, throughout daily life.
The concept of engaging with the world intentionally has changed my life. A frame of mind that’s neither better nor worse, just real. It’s both hard as fuck and incredibly easy, confusing and freeing. Crazy concept really, experiencing the world like it’s just the world and you’re just you. Moments, emotions, environments, and situations as they happen. Acceptance.
There’s no such thing as spoilers here. I could outline, word by word, every idea/practice that he walked me through, but it wouldn’t be a brush stroke to the painting that is John’s spiritual friendship. Frankly, I wouldn’t, and didn’t, reach out to anyone other than John for guidance with this practice / experience / what have you. While romantic, and slightly cliche, the individual sharing the idea is often more important than the idea itself. 2 replies
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Engagement is a Two Way Street
I’ve seen a lot of chatter on the timeline that engagement has been weird for the past 2 weeks.
We’ve either all gotten worse at casting, the hype of “pro” has worn off, or the team has been experimenting with the algorithm and we are staring to feel the effects.
Maybe it’s a combo of all 3 and we need to take some action.
1. Clean up who you follow
2. Change your Feed Setting to see All Replies for a week
3. Reply to every thoughtful comment & ignore low effort replies
4. Hack the recency bias in the algorithm
5. Turn on “Super Follow” (notifications) for your favorite casters or friends you want to see more
6. Change up how, when, and where you cast
7. Audit your own profile (handy Dune query below)
1. Clean up who you follow
You can’t make people follow you or engage with you, but you can save your engagement for those who engage back. If you are being truly thoughtful and authentic and someone never replies to you (and you don’t have a spam label so you know they can see you!) then stop wasting your time and move on. People are busy, notifications are buggy, spam labels are real. But if someone ignores you, move on. Even a like is enough. If they give you zero interaction back, try someone else.
Here’s a quick tool to see who is still around.
Don’t follow spammy people. Save friends who are mislabeled as spam.
https://recaster.org/tool/follow-checker
2. Change your Feed Setting to see All Replies for a week
Farcaster is now letting you decide how many replies you want to see. I encourage everyone to change this setting to all for at least a week. Many casters have been in the shadows and you can help them be visible again. Some accounts are inundated by AI automated accounts and won’t be able to use this setting, but most people should be able to try this for at least a week. Block automated accounts liberally. Give real casters a chance.
https://farcaster.xyz/v/0x1e17bba1
3. Reply to every thoughtful comment. Ignore low effort replies.
If you want engagement you have to give it too. You don’t have to be a reply guy if it’s not your thing, but if people are taking the time to engage with your casts, take the time to reply back to authentic thoughtful comments. If someone is in broadcast only mode and never engages back, reevaluate why you are replying to them in the first place. Is their content amazing? Does it make your Farcaster experience better?
4. Hack the recency bias in the algorithm.
The algorithm really loves whoever you last interacted with. So if you haven’t seen someone in a while or they haven’t seen you in a while, you’ve got to teach the algorithm what and more importantly WHO you want to see! If you let it decide for you, you won’t see the people you want to see the most. You’ve got to force and train it.
5. Turn on “Super Follow” (notifications) for your favorite casters or friends you want to see more
Sometimes the algorithm doesn’t show you what you want to see and you have to force it. Turn on notifications for a few people for a week and interact with their casts more. This is a good hack to get the algorithm to show them to you more in the future, if it behaves. I’ve had to keep them on for a handful of people who don’t cast often. The algorithm really likes when you cast daily.
6. Change up how, when, and where you cast
Videos don’t do that great here. Neither do photos or mint frames along. While we may want to share our content this way, the algorithm doesn’t love it. This is a text based social network and that has to be respected. Add more text around your content and try more experiments with text based casts.
A great cast may not do well if most people aren’t online. Try casting at different times and experiment.
Channels can be your place to find your tribe. There are thousands. Look for channels with very active hosts. They may have notifications on for their channels and be more excited when you choose to cast there. You can’t get a spam label interacting inside of channels so it’s more welcoming to new folks who are still trying to find their way.
7. Audit your own profile
You can use this Dune query to see how you cast. Put in your own FID and run it. Then compare it to some other casters that you admire and you think are doing well. Comparison is the thief of joy, but benchmarking is the only way to truly figure out how you are doing in Farcasterland.
https://www.dune.com/jkavithamahesh/farcasterprofile 42 replies
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