this post was submitted on 25 Oct 2023
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I think the whole Fediverse isn't made for corporate websites. I don't want to sound too negative here. But the Fediverse is made to engage with people, have discussions and to provide a level plaing field between parties. The point of corporate websites is to push info in a top-down approach and retain strict control over your image. You have the aspect of communication in common. You want to be able to communicate with your customers. But that's probably it. Even if they ask for support, it's often private info and directed directly at you and other people shouldn't be able to read their contact info etc.
Furthermore lots of customers don't want to engage and talk about software for example. They want to buy it and use it as a tool to do their job. Not have a community. But that depends on the exact use-case. I can't imagine a community for pressure-washer customers. But there are also lots of examples with a healty and mutually beneficial communities around software products.
It really depends on your use-case. If I were in your position I'd ask myself what my customers probably want or need and do that. Often that's a static website plus a forum or something like that (and something like a blog for news). And some means to get in touch directly for support.
A bonus of the fediverse is that it interconnects. You could choose two or more pieces if software and combine them if you don't find one solution that fits you.
Yeah, I understand the logic... but what about if we break this barriers? They don't really need a forum. Just a couple of static posts plus a microblogging would be enough. The ability of having interactions directly with the community would be a plus. I am not thinking only on solving their needs, but on proposing the fediverse as a solution to an actual problem so that we get more migrations.
The other way around would be to use something like https://neocities.org or https://silex.me or maybe even https://codeberg.page/
I get that. I'd love a customizable out-of-the-box solution for small companies that is free software and ties in a user-respecting ecosystem. AFAIK they mostly use a CMS. Something like Wordpress can even speak ActivityPub with the correct plugin. But I don't know any good solution to recommend to you. There are quite a few free software (big) eCommerce solutions and management stuff. Other things are more tailored to one task and you'd need several pieces of software and customize it to your use-case.
Keep in mind hosting stuff takes time. And if it's your platform you got to moderate stuff and constantly make content and contribute yourself. I doubt it'll take off otherwise.
And you need something unique that attracts users to your platform in specific. Could be your companies products, your good content, or you being better and nicer to people than other platforms are. Because there are lots of other services out there competing for attention. I could sign up for 15 different federated services today. You somehow need to convince me to choose yours and your instance.
But maybe someone else has a good recommendation for you. Using free software and connecting people is always a good idea.
@h3ndrik @geoma There are other things to consider, like what kind of dependency you want to have to other organizations. You might be a network of small orgs ready to share resources for setting up a collective Mastodon instance. Similar approach with a big entity with enough resources (be those donations, own money, or whatever) to fund all of that. A different case would be just a small project/business that currently uses Instagram for PR purposes, but that wants something alternative
@geoma @h3ndrik we get back to other issues/problems that are discussed somewhere here around on Lemmy. Striking the balance between autonomy and management costs is always hard. That's why probably there is the need to have a service that helps users get paired with the best software given their needs.
As others are saying, Firefish/Calckey might be interesting in that sense.
(gosh, even Friendica has a relevant concept there, but it is soooo unpolished and not appropriate for business.