@meganmariehart@mastodon.social regarding hashtags or not - I follow many hashtags for specific interests. If you can find a good (i.e. relevant, not spammy, many followers) then they will work well for you. Otherwise, you rely on follower networks. Regarding the burden on running your own instance - I haven't (yet) set up my own fedi instance (although I have tinkered with the code for some) but I think it needs more resources and more work than a bare bones website.