Give them an instance you think they’d vibe with and tell them to check it out. I know some instances make joining way more complicated than it needs to be or has you write a whole freakin’ essay; but most don’t and are just as easy to sign up and start using as Reddit or other SM.

Unless they are into that kind of thing, don’t talk about federation. The number of comments I’ve seen on various other sites discussing Lemmy confused about how federation works and what it means is extremely high, and for the average person it doesn’t matter. Focus on the the general user experience, and not the tech running it. Especially if you’re trying to convince “normies.”