Author: Franz Malten Buemann

Twitter has been going through many changes over the last few months, prompting some brands and marketers to wonder if they would consider leveraging other platforms.

Here are some alternatives if you want a backup in case Twitter changes too much or is no longer the place for your brand. Keep in mind that by including this list of alternatives, we aren’t suggesting that marketers should abandon or majorly pivot a Twitter strategy that works for them. We are merely providing similar platform options for those preparing for potential future pivots.

Top 3 Best Twitter Alternatives
These alternative social media have similar features to Twitter.
1. Mastodon
Launched in March 2016, Mastodon has about 2.5 million monthly users. Like Twitter, the platform allows users to post and follow their favorite people and organizations and like and repost content. However, there is one major difference between Twitter and Mastodon. While Twitter is a single platform, Mastodon is a “federation” comprised of interconnected, independently operated servers.
These interconnected servers are called the “fediverse,” and each server has its own rules. As a user, you can interact with users from other serves outside your own, but the rules of the server you’re assigned determine what you can do. If you don’t like your server, you can switch to a different one, but then you have to abide by the rules of your new server. However, you can keep the relationships and connections you made in your original server as you move to a new one.
Mastodon emphasizes community, therefore marketers may have a difficult time finding their footing for their business in fediverse.
Pro Tip: If you’re interested in pivoting, I’d suggest investing in influencer marketing to connect with your target audience on Mastodon.
2. Hive Social
Hive Social was launched in 2019 and has about 2 million users. The mobile-only app looks similar to Twitter, allowing users to scroll through the platform and “heart” and repost content. Users can also use hashtags to find desired content or audiences. But that’s about where the similarities stop.
Unlike Twitter, Hive boasts a much simpler chronological feed — rather than one that is algorithm-based. It also doesn’t have a character limit, allowing much longer posts that resemble Tumblr posts.
And finally, Hive Social is much more customizable than Twitter. Users can choose background colors for their profile, and add their pronouns and astrological signs. One unique customization feature that stands out is the ability to sync your Apple Music or Spotify account and play a song or two for users visiting your profile.
For now, Hive Social doesn’t have a “verify” feature like Twitter, which can pose a problem for brands and content creators concerned about users impersonating them.
Pro Tip: Should you decide to pivot to Hive Social, you should be aware that the app is only run by three people who are still working out different bugs as more people flock to the app. One bug is the app’s tendency to crash since the massive influx of users.
3. Cohost
According to its website, cohost is a web-only social media platform with over 111,000 users. The platform was launched in February 2022 and is invite-only for now.
Like Twitter, Cohost allows users to follow other users and share, like, and post comments under posts. However, users cannot publicly see a post’s likes or see who or how many people follow another user.
The platform also doesn’t allow ads, doesn’t have a character limit, and it doesn’t have a recommendation algorithm — so posts appear in chronological order and can be pretty lengthy.
Pro Tip: Cohost also stands out because multiple people can co-own a single page — a great feature for brands and content creators doing collaborative projects.

Twitter Alternatives for Building Community
If you’re looking for a social media platform that allows you to build a community around your brand, the following platforms are worth looking into.
4. Reddit
The longest-running app featured in this blog, Reddit was founded in 2005 and has 430 million monthly active users. Reddit is a social sharing site split into thousands of smaller communities called “subreddits.” Each subreddit is dedicated to a particular topic. Most subreddits have their own set of community rules users are expected to follow.
Users can submit links, pictures, videos, questions, and information for other users to vote on. The more likes a post gets, the more visible it becomes. The more downvotes a post gets, the less visible it becomes.
Marketers can host Q&A forums called Reddit AMA’s (Ask Me Anything) to engage with their audience and answer questions about a product or service. Marketers can also be active in subreddits that correspond with the niche.
Pro Tip: Reddit also has Reddit Ads feature that marketers can use to stand out on the website, measure the success of their content, and connect with their target audience.
5. Discord
Discord is a voice and chat platform launched in May 2015, and it now has over 150 million monthly users. Users are able to start and join different servers within the platform to discuss niche topics or connect with their favorite creators.
Pro Tip: The platform doesn’t have any native advertising tools, but it’s a great avenue for brands to discuss with their audience about shared topics of interest in real time.
6. Tumblr
Microblogging website Tumblr was launched back in February 2007 and now boasts 135 million monthly active users. Tumblr allows users to share texts, photos, videos, quotes, music, and more in an infinitely scrolling blog format. The platform seems to be experiencing a resurgence in popularity. In fact, between October 4, 2022, and November 17, 2022, there were over 1 million tweets about Tumblr.
However, if marketers are interested in leveraging the platform, it’s important to note the platform appeals to younger and more alternative crowds. About 2 out of 5 users on Tumblr are between the ages of 18-25 and most media on the platform appeals to millennials and Gen Z.
Pro Tip: Fandom content as well as niche products and clothing lines typically do well on the platform.
Twitter Alternatives for Audio Content
One of Twitter’s most popular features is Twitter Spaces, which allows users to host and participate in live audio conversations. Here are some social media platforms that have similar features.
7. Clubhouse
Launched in April 2020, Clubhouse skyrocketed in popularity at the start of the pandemic when many people were stuck at home and looking for community. The audio-chat app attracted notable public figures and creatives like Kevin Hart, Tiffany Haddish, Mark Zuckerburg, Ashton Kutcher, and Malcolm Gladwell. They would use the platform to connect with fans and promote their work.
While the app has since waned in popularity as other platforms dabble into audio chats, Clubhouse still boasts 10 million weekly users as of mid-2022 — meaning there is still a sizable audience to tap into on the app.
Pro Tip: Marketers can use Clubhouse to have live conversations, Q&As, and panel discussions with their followers.
Twitter Alternatives for Short-Form Content
Twitter is mostly a micro-blogging and text-based platform, but it’s common for marketers, brands, and content creators to post short-form video content. Here are some alternative platforms that prioritize short-form video content.
8. IG Reels
Instagram has 2 billion monthly active users, all of whom interact with IG Reels. Instagram Reels was launched in August 2020 to compete with TikTok. Videos on IG Reels can be up to 90 seconds long, and users can add music, viral sounds, and various special effects and filters to their videos.
Pro Tip: Users can earn money from Reels via the Instagram Reels Play Bonus program. This program is invite-only and allows creators to earn money based on the reel’s performance, the number of reels produced, and the creation of themed reels.
9. YouTube Shorts
Launched in September 2020 to compete with TikTok, YouTube Shorts is the short-form video section of YouTube that boasts vertical videos that are 60 seconds long or less. As of June 2022, YouTube Shorts has amassed 1.5 billion monthly active users and over 30 billion daily views from global users.
Another incentive to pivot toward YouTube Shorts is its future monetization program that will launch in 2023. Starting in early 2023, creators can apply to the YouTube Partner Program by meeting a threshold of 1,000 subscribers and 10 million Shorts views over 90s days. Both current and future YouTube Partner Members will also be eligible for revenue sharing on Shorts, according to YouTube.
Pro Tip: Marketers can tease long-form content like longer videos and podcasts by condensing compelling snippets into YouTube Shorts.
10. IG Reels
Instagram has 2 billion monthly active users, all of whom interact with IG Reels. Instagram Reels was launched in August 2020 to compete with TikTok. Videos on IG Reels can be up to 90 seconds long, and users can add music, viral sounds, and various special effects and filters to their videos.
Pro Tip: Users can earn money from Reels via the Instagram Reels Play Bonus program. This program is invite-only and allows creators to earn money based on the reel’s performance, the number of reels produced, and the creation of themed reels.
11. TikTok
With 1 billion monthly active users, TikTok was launched in 2016 and propelled short-form videos into mainstream popularity at the start of the pandemic. Though there are several ways to monetize content on TikTok and paid ads are available, brands and marketers often have to leverage influencer marketing on the platform to connect with their target audience.
The reason is that many of TikTok’s users are younger and fall into the Gen Z demographic, and Gen Z is less keen on content from brands and more interested in content from people.
Pro Tip: TikTok videos can also be repurposed into Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts to give them a second life in front of a wider audience.
If your current Twitter strategy has remained successful throughout all the platform’s changes, you likely won’t need to look into any alternatives. However, if you’re looking for a new platform to pivot to in the event Twitter changes too much for your brand, you now have 11 new platforms to check out.

💡Learning about experiences and perspectives that are different from our own supports our journey of inclusion by reducing bias, building respect and increasing empathy, while providing an opportunity to celebrate our differences and similarities.At Buffer, we regularly share cultural spotlights from colleagues to connect our global team, and help us understand one another at a deeper level.Here’s a slightly edited version of a cultural spotlight we recently highlighted from Sophie, a Growth Marketing Manager at Buffer.When I was asked to contribute to the Cultural Awareness spotlight, my initial thought was, which country should I talk about?Growing up I had a real hard time answering the question, where are you from? Most often, the answer would be shaped by the perception people had of me versus who I actually was.After some thought, and with some guidance from Katie, I thought I should share with you all the reality of being a Third-Culture Kid (more on that later) and why I believe that led me to becoming a full-time nomad.Creating my own cultureMy mother is Puerto Rican/Spanish, my father is Mexican, but I was born in Milan, Italy, a country not of my own parents’ language, culture, and traditions, with an American passport. I wasn’t truly American because I had never lived in the U.S. (I first moved there when I was 16), nor was I truly Italian because of the colour of my skin, my parent’s unforgettable American/Spanish accent, and my way of doing things that didn’t quite fit the Italian standards. Unfortunately, I couldn’t truly be Latin American either because the only real Latin thing about me was my blood, plus I spoke Spanish with an Italian accent, so that would usually give it away pretty quickly. So, who am I?I’m – what many have coined – a third-culture kid or global nomad. A person that grew up feeling like I was from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. When I was here, I was not one of them and when I was there, I wasn’t like those people either. The definition for Third-Culture Kid/Global Nomad is the following:“A Third Culture Kid (TCK) is a person who has spent a significant part of his or her developmental years outside the parents’ culture and outside their own passport country, usually marked by a residential status that has an expiration date.““[He/she] builds relationships to all of the cultures, while not having full ownership in any. Although elements from each culture may be assimilated into [his/her] life experience, the sense of belonging is in relationship to others of similar background.”In the end, I really don’t want to throw in additional labels, however, understanding that I belonged to something, while some made me feel like I didn’t belong anywhere, helped me feel safe, rooted, and understood.The whole idea of a Third-Culture Kid is that since I don’t belong to neither the culture of my parents, nor to the culture of the country I spent the majority of my developmental years in, nor to the country my passport belonged to, I created my own identity, aka a third culture.That third culture would encompass a mix of foods, traditions, norms, rituals, and celebrations from various cultures around the world. Here are some personal examples: Celebrating Christmas as a Third-Culture KidAs a family, we’d travel to Puerto Rico almost every Christmas and celebrate it with my mom’s side of the family. On Christmas Eve, we’d have arroz con gandules (rice with pigeon peas), lechón asado (roasted pork), tostones (fried, smashed green plantains), and pasteles (tamale-like patties of green banana and meat). Accompanied by salsa music and probably some Cuba Libres. The majority of my Italian friends (and in general most Italians) would head to their cottage in the mountains, gather at lunch on Christmas Day to eat Panettone, smoked salmon tartine, and ravioli in brodo, and then spend the rest of their time skiing. I always envied them growing up. Moving to a new country as a Third-Culture KidWhen I was 16, I moved from Milan, Italy (the biggest northern Italian city) to Solvang, California (a small, sleepy town with Danish-style architecture and many wineries) with my family. The move was quite traumatizing and I experienced a real culture shock. I was enrolled into the high school to finish my last two years (junior and senior year). But I had a really difficult time assimilating with other students my age.I felt that the sense of humour was different, that we didn’t share the same interests.  The days of sitting at a cafe with friends sipping a cappuccino, eating a cornetto, and talking about life for hours were long gone. I felt misplaced, boring, and misunderstood, and it took me a few years to finally start to understand and adapt.Languages typically spoken as a Third-Culture Kid I mainly spoke a very simple English at home with my parents, but went to Italian kindergarten, primary school, middle school, and high school, so I would speak Italian whenever my friends were around. Italy is known for their dialects, i.e. Milanese, Romano, Toscano, Napoletano. But I just spoke Italian with a Milanese/Northern Italian accent and didn’t even understand when Italians spoke in their dialect. The dialects are slowly disappearing, but still today they would be taught and passed on to the newer generations by their Italian grandparents.Family gatherings as a Third-Culture KidApart from my immediate family, I rarely saw my grandparents, cousins, and uncles/aunts. We’d travel during the summer to California to visit my dad’s side of the family (my grandparents had moved to California from Mexico in the 70’s as a part of the Bracero program to work on the railroads) and during the winter to Puerto Rico to visit my mom’s side of the family. All my grandparent’s spoke Spanish, so I would have a hard time communicating with them since I hadn’t really learned Spanish until later in my life.Music, Movies, and Pop Culture as a Third-Culture KidWhile all my friends grew up listening to all the Italian classic music artists, like Mina, Vasco Rossi, Lucio Dalla, and Jovanotti, I grew up on American Classic Rock and Salsa.I obviously feel very lucky to have grown up with that music, but when I was a kid I felt pretty left out at parties or in small gatherings because all my friends knew the lyrics to all the Italian songs, while I didn’t (and they’d often be surprised that I didn’t). Same went with the Italian movies and TV series. I just didn’t really know all the cultural references, sayings, and jokes because I didn’t grow up with them. And in a country like Italy, TV, music, and movies make an enormous part of the way that people communicate, interact, and joke.How creating my own culture led me to becoming a nomadI really can’t say I have a place I’d call home since I moved quite a few times in my life. The first time it hit me was about a year after I had moved to California from Italy. At the time, I would tell people that Milan, Italy was my home, but in going back to visit after I had moved to the U.S., I slowly became less Italian to the point that friends would tell me “wow you’ve changed so much.” That was a harsh reality and the first time I realized I didn’t really have a home or a place I could comfortably be myself. When I think about my upbringing and my possession of multiple cultural identities, it makes sense that I decided to pursue becoming a full-time nomad. Because, over time, I started to feel at ease changing things up all the time and living in different places.I first decided to become a nomad in February of 2020. I was living in San Francisco at the time and the company I was working for went bankrupt, closed down, and fired everyone. I was then confronted with the question of what to do next. I was actually very unhappy in San Francisco. I felt stuck and my life felt monotonous. Not having a job allowed me to think about where and when I had been happiest in the past. The answer: I was happiest while traveling and I actually enjoyed continuously changing environments and pushing myself out of my comfort zone. So I decided to become a nomad.I’m sure most of you are familiar with the term, but for the sake of it, I’ll share it below:“A Global Nomad is a person who is living a mobile and international lifestyle. Global nomads aim to live location-independently, seeking detachment from particular geographical locations and the idea of territorial belonging.” But my desire was to become a digital nomad, so to live a mobile and international lifestyle while earning a living working online. This led me to apply solely to remote-friendly (and most importantly, fully distributed) companies. In came Buffer to make my dreams come true. Buffer was at the top of my list and I honestly keep having to pinch myself to make me realize how lucky I am to work for a company that fully supports this sort of lifestyle. It was unusual at the time, and I will forever be grateful to Joel and everyone else who not only thought that this sort of work style could be possible, but that they did everything they could to ensure that it could be easy to do.Sophie’s work viewHow to start a nomadic lifestyleThere is a lot of thought that went into how I started this nomadic journey, but I’ll try to keep it concise and only talk about the things that could be helpful to others considering embarking on one. Here’s how I approached starting my nomadic lifestyle: I left my apartment in San Francisco so I wouldn’t be tied to any monthly rent or utility bills and moved back home with my parents. I sold or donated all my furniture, kitchen appliances, and unnecessary clothes/shoes/and other items and only kept the essentialsWhile living at home, I started looking for a fully-remote job that would allow me to work from any time zone and countryI also started making a list of all the countries I wanted to visit and all the things I wanted to learn along the way; my list was very longIn the meantime I started to do some research on gadgets and other items that would make my life easier as a nomad, like a bank friendly to international travelers (Revolut, N26), international health insurance, traveling tech gadgets, and much more.Then I had to choose my first spot. The list of countries had narrowed down due to covid-19, so I decided to stick to the EU.I then set two objectives for myself: to learn to surf and to learn a new language.The other things I took into consideration were the fact that I wanted to visit a new country and I wanted my first country to be one that would be accommodating to nomads (reliable internet + easy to meet new people). And so I decided on Portugal.The next step was to book my plane ticket, arrange my first spot, and then let myself trust the process. The scariest moments are the weeks before taking your first flight, everything in your body is giving you signs that you shouldn’t go, and fear starts to settle in. But did you know that there’s no difference, physiologically, between the sensations and symptoms of fear and excitement? For me it’s helpful to keep this in mind and to start to smile when I feel scared of not knowing where my journey will end up. Once you step on that first plane, it all gets easier.My main tips for starting a nomadic lifestyle:Travel light and efficiently. I regret it when I bring too much stuff, especially because I really enjoy buying locally-made things, so leaving a bit of extra space is always nice.Set personal goals before traveling and use those to guide where you’d like to go. I set two goals for myself: to learn/improve a language and to learn to surf. Hence the reason I picked Portugal as the first country to travel to and Central and South America afterwards.Sophie surfing, cooking, and enjoying a meal. In addition, I also set a goal of reading one book for every country I visited; and that one book had to be about the culture and history of the country I was visiting. Don’t try to plan it all out. I’ve noticed that my best experiences came from the lack of an itinerary. There is only so much you can research and the best advice comes from locals. I recommend booking your first plane ticket (one way) and your sleeping arrangement. Then meet new people and ask around. There will always be someone that has already done what you have done and has all the best recommendations.  Or you’ll meet  a local that can advise you on the best, most authentic experiences, whether that be the restaurant they usually dine in or the bar they head to over the weekend with their friends.As a digital nomad, reliable internet is crucial, so there are likely a lot of places you can’t travel to. Before booking your next sleeping arrangements, make sure to ask about their internet speed, and if they don’t have good internet, make sure that you are close to a co-working or cafe spot that has good internet. For example, while traveling in Central and South America, I always felt good if I knew there was a Selina in the neighbourhood or at least in the city. Selina is a hostel specifically made for digital nomads that also has a co-working space.Facebook Groups are the most useful online communities I’ve found, type into Facebook “digital nomad” or “expat” and the place you’re visiting and you’ll be sure to find a Facebook Group just for you. They talk literally about everything, from rental car companies and restaurant recommendations to requests to meet up with other local digital nomads and recs for classes to learn pretty much anything.How long should you stay in a single place? I wouldn’t recommend staying less than 2 weeks, it’s only after that second week that you start to get a good feel for the spot and understand whether you actually like it or not. Go, experience, work, live, travel, but also dedicate some time to volunteer and help the local community in some way. Here are some photos I took while traveling:Sophie’s photographyI also hope that this write-up has given you a glimpse into what life as a nomad looks like. I love living in this way and I’m a big promoter of this lifestyle. Thank you for taking the time to read. Follow Sophie on Twitter and learn more about Buffer’s culture on our Open blog.