What The Heck Is Bluesky and Should You Care? | Step Up Your Social Ep 24

Been hearing about Bluesky in the news and not sure what it is or if it matters for you and your brand?

In this episode of Step Up Your Social, we dive into what it is, who it’s for, tools to check out and a whole lot more.

Listen to the full episode here or wherever you stream podcasts. And scroll down for a full episode transcript.

Find other episodes of Step Up Your Social here.​

Full Episode Transcript

Been hearing a lot about Bluesky recently and not sure why?

Let’s dig in!

Despite the fact almost no one had ever heard of it until after the 2024 election, it’s actually been around since 2019.

It was started by Twitter’s former CEO Jack Dorsey as a decentralized social media platform.

What does decentralization mean in this context? It means the user has some levers of control over how to engage with the platform.

When you log on to Instagram, you see what the algorithm wants you to see. Same with Facebook, TikTok, Twitter, LinkedIn… all of the legacy social media platforms work that way.

Bluesky is a different.

They uses the Authenticated Transfer Protocol, which allows users to potentially move their account between different providers.

It also lets you choose what you feed will look like?

Want chronological, got it. Want to see what’s popular with your friends? You can do that too. Or you can just check out a stream of posts that have at least 9000 likes.

There’s a lot more customization you can do to take control of your feed.

That said, you don’t have to do anything to log on and just start scrolling.

While it wasn’t intended to be a Twitter replacement per se, it does feel a whole lot like old Twitter.

What do I mean by old? Well for one thing, every 3rd or 4th post won’t be from the richest man in the world, who bought Twitter in 2022 and quickly changed the algorithm to require everyone to see his tweets… whether they want to or not.

Bluesky has much less functionality than Twitter… for now…  and there aren’t as many users, so the timeline moves a bit… slower.

But recently there was an emergency in my neighborhood (tragically it was a school shooting). My wife heard the sirens and called me to figure out what was going on. Until a few months ago, Twitter was the only place you could really find real time news about the world.

While their algorithm has gotten much worse over the last few years, when I searched Madison and filtered to new, I still managed to figure out what had happened almost immediately. But then, because I’m actively trying to get away from Twitter (a long, hard habit to break), I ran the same check on Bluesky and was actually shocked to find the same info.

Which is promising for Bluesky’s ability to take Twitter on where it matters — breaking news in real time.

Since it’s inception, in order to join Bluesky, you had to get an invite from a current member.

Bluesky did this because growing correctly is hard. The positive of this — it kept the site healthy and organic. The negative of this — a lot of folks who might have signed up earlier simply couldn’t.

In early 2024, they dropped the waiting list and the invite requirement and their growth expanded… some.

But it wasn’t until Elon Musk turned Twitter into a MAGA promotion tool to help Donald Trump win the 2024 election that the numbers really started moving.

The userbase has more than doubled into around 25 million regular users in the weeks following the election as folks quit Twitter and looked for a replacement.

25 million is still a fraction of Twitter or Threads daily average users, but Bluesky has some real buzz.

So here’s the question for you: should you and your brand be there?

It depends?

Did you use — and find value — on Twitter, prior to the Musk takeover?

If the answer is yes, then you should very seriously consider checking out Bluesky.

You’ll find a lot of familiar faces there (including me!) talking about the kinds of things that folks used to talk about on Twitter before it became the blue check hell hole that it’s become.

If your brand never used Twitter, or you used it but didn’t find much value to it, you probably won’t get much out of Bluesky.

Although, there is one very important factor to consider before writing it off completely — at least as of the time of this publishing, Bluesky seems to be about the only social media channel that doesn’t hate, and actively suppress, links.

What does that means? If you post a link on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn, the algorithm will hate you. You’ll get a fraction of the reach you might have gotten without the link.

Want to share a link on Instagram or TikTok? You literally can’t!

Instagram has some workarounds, but none of them are great.

Why are all these social channels so anti-links? It’s simple — anytime someone clicks a link, they leave. Will they come back? Maybe. But Meta, LinkedIn and Twitter would prefer to not let them leave in the first place.

Bluesky on the other hand claims to be pro-link. Will that change with time? Probably! But enjoy it while you can.

And I’ll say it’s not just them sharing that conceptually. I’ve seen numerous reports from journalists sharing that they’re getting more links from Bluesky than Twitter, despite have 10x less followers on Bluesky.

Which isn’t nothing!

One sure sign that Bluesky has juice? Threads is actively ripping them off!

So if you do decide to join Bluesky, here are some tools for you to check out:

-Follower lists (aka starter packs). Instead of joining and searching for folks sharing content about a specific topic, find a starter pack geared around your topic and you can just mass follow everyone on the list. It’s a very cool way to jump in and get started, without having to stumble around as you get going.

-Left Twitter to avoid the trolls, and frustra ted to find them waiting for you on Bluesky? Bluesky has you covered — along with follower lists, users can also build block lists. You can opt to block all the trolls added by other users, and in one fell swoop banish the worst the internet has to offer from your feed.

-Bluesky also has lists, which work just like Twitter lists. If you aren’t familiar with lists, head back to episode 2 of this podcast — we cover them at length. I built a Bluesky list for Wisconsin politics. If you’re into that, head to my account (search my name or @jlemonsk), check out my lists and subscribe. You can also find lists from other users or of course build your own.

Back in episode 2, we also spoke about Tweetdeck, one of my favorite tools on the internet that let you track all of your lists at once. But alas, Tweetdeck is no more. Elon killed it, along with so many other great features on Twitter. Tweetdeck is now called X Pro and you can still use it… if you’re a paying member. Otherwise, it’s gone.

But there’s a version for Bluesky and it’s great… and free! Head to deck.blue and check it out.

-While this will obviously change eventually, at this time, there are no ads on Bluesky. Which is weird. And nice.

If you do wind up joining Bluesky, definitely connect with me. I’m @jlemonsk.

Have any questions about the platform? Or anything to share? Hit me up anytime on Bluesky or my website, or drop me a line at hello@reverbalcommunications.com.

Happy posting!