@mike I think the "missing link" is actually getting those embedded posts made, like in a blog or news report or even on other social media, where you literally can drag a twitter widget into your wordpress page and you're done. There needs to be a way you can
Drag and drop a mastodon post
Somehow make a way to automatically link their instance user to the instance where the post was made. So you can just "reply" without any back and forth.
Once that's in place, I think you'll find more and more people will use it instead of Twitter, simply because a post on Mastodon from a news agency or a person is more likely to be legit and well thought out. Users here have some expectations that simply don't exist on Twitter.