Since Elon Musk purchased the social media platform formerly known as Twitter in October 2022, it has lost around 23% of its active users. While all other major social platforms also saw declines in activity during that period, it wasn’t anywhere near as much as X (Twitter).
In an effort to make Twitter great again, former Twitter CEO, Jack Dorsey, created a new social network mirroring the classic Twitter interface and called it Bluesky. In its first day of becoming a public network in February 2023, Bluesky nabbed over 800,000 users. By September 2023, it hit 1 million users. Now, there is an estimated 5.6 million users and counting.
How does Bluesky work?
Bluesky feels very much like Twitter circa 2014. It’s clean, simple and most of all, familiar. We’ve experimented with our own Bluesky account to get a feel for the platform and explore whether it’s a worthwhile investment for our clients. Here’s what we found…
What’s great about Bluesky?
User Control
Bluesky is big on autonomy. You can dictate your feed and how content is moderated so you can have a fully tailored experience.
Transparency
There’s no ‘fake news’ here. Bluesky is one of few mainstream social media platforms that operates on an open-source model to maintain transparency and enhance user experience.
AT Protocol
A key feature of the Bluesky platform is the AT Protocol which allows you to “port” your account between different platforms, i.e. move your account to another social media platform that supports the AT Protocol without losing your data or followers.
What’s not so great about Bluesky?
There’s no paid advertising capability
As with any new platform, content is purely organic and there’s no sign of any paid advertising capabilities in the near future. This limits your ability to target direct customers.
Limited data on user demographics in Australia
While there is some data out there on gender breakdowns and age ranges, it’s not very clear how many of the 5.6 million users are actually from Australia. What we do know is that the vast majority are from the US.
Growing pains
Bluesky is still in its infancy which means there’s a high possibility of bugs and maintenance issues. Although, that hasn’t stopped with Facebook or Instagram either 😂
Should you join Bluesky?
Bluesky has gained much greater traction than most Twitter alternatives, eg. Threads, and is continuing to grow as they release new features and capabilities. Many ex-Twitter users have switched over to Bluesky because it’s much like Twitter B.E. (Before Elon).
Bluesky is very much a ‘blue brand friendly’ platform, so at the very least you should secure a domain name to hold for future use if you’re not quite ready to jump on the bandwagon. (Wondering what on earth is a blue brand? Read here.)
If you want a preview of Bluesky’s functionality, check out our Aston Digital profile here.
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