Introducing Ello, the New Ad-Free Social Network

Ello is a new social network that has literally exploded onto the social networking scene. It’s in private beta right now, so you’ll need in Invite from someone to get an account. Think Facebook and Twitter combined into one social media network–without all of the ads, retweets, and “likes”. And there’s no algorithm behind their newsfeed or timeline. If someone you’re following or “friends” with posts or says “ello”, then you’ll see it in your feed.

I won’t get into all of the Ins and Outs of Ello and how it works, that’s already been done by Mark Traphagen. And it’s really good, it’s worth a read. But I thought I’d give you some of my thoughts and “tips and tricks” about Ello.

First off, you need an Invite from someone in order to make an account. You have to know someone who has Invites left. I’ve heard that you can buy them for $2.99, but honestly I wouldn’t go that route. Best bet is to look at your friends and followers on Twitter or Facebook to see if they have an Invite. Or just wait. You can request one via the home page of Ello, but who knows how long that will take. If you contact me I might have a few Invites left, but no guarantees. Also, I’ll reserve the Invites for people who have subscribed to my weekly update newsletter (the form to sign up is at the bottom of this post). If you sign up and let me know you need an Ello Invite I should be able to accommodate you.

Ello is just like a lot of other social networks. You friend people. You follow people. And you post. Here’s a sample post:

As you can see, it’s pretty simple: you can post text (even lots of text, and you’re not limited to 140 characters). So feel free to post away. Right now there’s no way to reshare a post: you’ll have to do that manually by copying and pasting someone else’s post.

As for friending people, keep in mind that you can add someone as a friend or ‘noise’. You can see either of those feeds. Think of it as two separate feeds.

If you’re wanting to follow a good number of people, then find someone you trust–someone you know. Then look to see who they’re following and follow those people. Most likely if you know someone, you will know the people who they’re following. For example, here’s the list of people who are following me:

https://ello.co/bhartzer/followers

How to Turn off Ello Notifications
When you follow someone, they typically will get an email notification that you’re following them–unless they’ve turned notifications off. A lot of emails are pretty annoying, so here’s how to turn those off:

Go to your Settings page.
Scroll down to the Notifications area.
Turn off all the notifications, as shown below:

Make sure you fill out your complete profile, including adding a header image and an avatar. Just like on other social media sites, if you still use the default avatar then you just won’t get many followers and it won’t look like you’re serious about using that social network.

You’ll need two separate images:
— A header image (sized 1800 x 1013). Keep in mind that the image will need to be “messed with” a bit, and tested. I added some photos to the image and had to move them down about 100 pixels because they ended up being cut off.
— An avatar. (sized 340 x 340) Most avatar images from other social networks will work, but if you may want to customize this one. It will ultimately be an image that’s in a circle, so keep that in mind.

I’m still testing out Ello, and so far I like it a lot better than some of the other social media networks out there. There are no ads, and if you have a select few people who you want to keep in touch with, then it may just be one that you want to move to. Keep in mind that Ello posts are public if you choose them to be, and there’s a setting for that.

Make sure you follow or “friend” me on Ello, and say “ello”: https://www.ello.co/bhartzer.