Have you recently migrated to Mastodon and would like to add it to your site’s social links here on WordPress.com? Here’s how:
1. Add the Social Icons block to your site; Mastodon is already included.
2. Add Mastodon to your site’s Social Links Menu.
At the moment it will display as a generic link icon since there is no official Mastodon icon there, yet. (See my social menu at the very top right.) That’s been a request since at least 2018, so I’m hoping it will now get some serious traction. Add your voice to this forum request.
3. Set up Add-to-Any in your site’s Sharing buttons; it includes Mastodon. (*see #5 below for update)
Creating this sharing button gets done in a place you might have never seen before (or forgotten about) in your WP Admin dashboard. Adding the button cannot be done in the default Marketing>Sharing Buttons of your dashboard. Not to worry! The process is pretty much automatic, you just need to click the right places. You can follow along below. Note that you do need to be logged in to WordPress.com at the time you do this.
Head to the Add-to-Any for WordPress.com website and after entering your WordPress.com subdomain (the “example” part in the above screenshot), click the blue “Install on WordPress.com” button. That will automatically open the needed section in your WP Admin dashboard on your site where you’ll continue.
In your dashboard, click “Add a new service” and next, in the pop-up window that appears, click “Create Share Button”. The information needed to create the button is filled in automatically. Just click the button!
Now you’ll see the newly added “Add-to-Any” button under “Available Services” on that dashboard page. Drag it from “Available” over to the “Enabled Services”, rearrange as desired, and click the Save Changes button located at the bottom of that WP Admin dashboard page.
Done! Open a Post or wherever your site’s Sharing buttons are enabled and you’ll see your new Add-to-Any Sharing button. Give it a click and share your post.
When you click the Mastodon sharing button you’ll be asked to log in to your Mastodon instance. It took a few tries before I managed to get this right but when I did, I was presented with a fairly bare bones toot that I could edit before publishing.
Why is it worth the effort to add the Add-to-Any button (NAYY) to your sharing buttons? Currently it’s the only option for sharing your blog posts to Mastodon. There is an open forum request to include Mastodon in Publicize, but we’re not there yet. Add your voice to the request or open a new support request.
4. Bonus Method added December 2022:
You can now add your Mastodon profile to Gravatar‘s verified services in your profile links.
5. NEW! Social sharing button added March 2023:
We no longer need to install Add-to-Any to share our posts to Mastodon! 🥳
WordPress.com/Jetpack have recently added Mastodon to our currently available Social Sharing buttons that can be added at the end of Posts and Pages. You’ll find it under Tools>Marketing>Sharing buttons>Edit Sharing buttons.
Mastodon is an open source social networking project where all “instances/servers” are operated, maintained and moderated by volunteers. You can support the project by donating money or your expertise. Given the number of new accounts over the last ten days, that might not be a bad idea! (Here’s a toot from a data scientist who’s keeping records.)
https://mastodon.social/@estebanmoro@datasci.social/109370594042274810
(No, no Mastodon embeds yet either.)
Do you think this is really Twitter’s swan song? The former head of Twitter’s Trust & Safety shared his thoughts about the future of Twitter under its new leadership. (Note that this link may only be available for a short time.)
As always, the information in this post is correct as of publication date. Changes are inevitable.
WPcomMaven 
Thanks for the info . . . I won’t be using it, but thanks.
. . . every time I look into Mastodon, I’m reminded of just how structured I am. I then panic and run away.
I’m still getting my feet under me there and am constantly checking that my slip isn’t showing. (I think you have to be of a certain age to understand what that last bit means.)
Thanks for this information, Jen. It’s helped me a lot because I was unsure how to create a sharing button for a social media platform WordPress does not have a button for. I used to be able to do it (years ago, I created one for Flipboard), but as the dashboard has changed, I lost track of how it can be done.
I’ve never heard of Mastodon. Can you recommend it? Is it something every blogger should have?
Hi Hugh, glad you found it useful. Yes, that part of the WP Admin dashboard has not had a direct link for a long time.
Since the takeover at Twitter, and the resulting further nosedive in civility (if it ever was civil), many folks have either moved to Mastodon as an alternative social network, or have accounts on both. In my case, most of the people I follow on Mastodon are web developers or designers with a sprinkling of other folk. As a tool for bloggers, IMO it’s not really integrated enough yet (no easy embeds, no publicize, etc.) to justify opening an account only for that reason. Would you use it in spite of those drawbacks?
Thanks for explaining a little more about Mastodon, Jen. I’m still using Twitter, but I will need to look for something similar if it crashes. Over the years I’ve been blogging, I’ve tried out many new social media platforms, most of which seem to shrink away and never bring any extra traffic to my blog. It sounds like Mastodon won’t do that quite yet. However, I’ll give it a go if it changes and becomes as popular as Twitter.
Hugh, Here’s another time-sensitive link to an article in the NYT for further insight.
Thanks for these really helpful tips, Jen! I’ve added the button on my social icons block, now to tackle the ‘share this’ button for Mastodon. I’m still finding my way over there. Mastodon seems to work best on desktop (rather than mobile) and the Metatext app is more intuitive to use (and faster loading) than the Mastodon app itself on an iPhone (which is what I use). Good for my brain to try something new! Thank you again.
Hello again, Josephine, you’re welcome. I’m glad you found this post helpful and I hear you on still finding your way. It sounds like you are further along in your explorations than I am. I downloaded the Mastodon mobile app for Android and after a couple of days uninstalled it since I wasn’t using it. My peeps are still mostly on the Twitter and I have an app timer for that! 🙂
Only one word of caution if you decide to install the Add-to-Any button. While it is very easy to do, for some reason the Sharing Label text (“share this post”) might get messed up. Just correct it if so and then save your changes.
Thanks for visiting.
Thanks for these tips, Jen. A timer is invaluable to my mental health and to modern life!