Mastodon added a nice feature for journalists and bloggers: when you share a link to an article or blogpost, it adds a direct link to the author’s fediverse profile as well.

Screenshot of a Mastodon post from MacRumors. Cartoon characters smiling and gesturing excitedly, one holding a phone, with the text Comfort Zone, set against a colorful background with adjacent panels featuring additional artwork and text.

For now this only works with big news outlets like The Verge, MacStories or MacRumors. But you can see how this could work for bloggers and other publishers as well. Because your Fediverse account doesn’t have to be a from a text-based platform, it can be your Pixelfed account, a Peertube account or any other account you want to highlight with your post. All it takes is a small piece of extra code in the header of your website. It is a new Open Graph meta tag, the same sort of meta tag that is used to show the correct title, description and optional image when you share a link on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or other social network.

Not only does this new meta tag increase the visibility of the author on the Fediverse, it also validates the correct Fediverse account. It can also help to highlight Mastodon accounts on search queries in ánd outside of the Fediverse. It makes it easier for readers to follow the correct author on the Fediverse.

I have added the meta tag to my template, to be ready for a future Fediverse update. When my posts are shared, the correct profile is added to it. I like it.

More information on the meta tag and background of this move is on the Mastodon blog and Matthias Ott’s post.