A Study on Consumer Insights and the Use of Video Tutorials to Enhance Understanding of Using the Mastodon Social Media Platform

Abstract

This research aimed to study in-depth consumer data on the use of the Mastodon platform, an alternative social media platform to Twitter (X), study the guidelines for creating video tutorials for using the Mastodon platform, and study the effectiveness of YouTube tutorials on knowledge and understanding of the use of the Mastodon platform using an experimental-based research method.

Consumer insights were obtained from interviews with 11 target groups who had never used Mastodon before, focusing on the behavior of using the Twitter (X) platform as a primary platform, as it is similar to Mastodon. The results of the study found that most interviewees used Instagram as their primary platform, followed by Twitter (X) and TikTok, using Twitter (X) mainly to follow content about celebrities and news, and wanted videos to be easy to understand, interesting, and not boring.

From the in-depth interviews on the guidelines for creating video tutorials, it was found that most interviewees wanted videos that were 4-6 minutes long, focused on concise, clear, easy to understand content, had interesting storytelling, and did not require seeing the speaker's face. Additionally, having concise explanation in each step and using visual cues, such as zooming in and using arrows on desired areas, have been received positively from the interviewees for being easy to follow on.

Video tutorials on YouTube were created, according to the guidelines obtained from the interviews and evaluated for the effectiveness by using a pre-test and post-test with two sample groups: a small group (nine people) and a wider target group (37 people for the pre-test and 23 people for the post-test). The test results showed that the average scores of both groups increased after watching the video, indicating that the video tutorial is effective in increasing knowledge and understanding of the use of the Mastodon platform. This research contributes businesses and content producers who want to use video content marketing strategies and video tutorials to create knowledge and understanding about products or services, as well as for users who want to start using Mastodon.