Have you heard of Bluesky? It's being billed as the 'next big thing' in social media, back to what Twitter was before it X. And it looks a bit like Twitter, which perhaps isn't surprising when you know that Jack Dorsay (Twitter co-founder) was part of its set up (although is no longer involved). Benefiting from disaffection with Twitter/X during the recent elections, Bluesky has been gaining thousands of users daily, currently estimated to be 21 million but that seems to be growing fast. The image above (source: Similarweb) gives October 24's user demographics. I can find Alistair Campbell, The New Statesmen and others with active profiles on there but, for example, I understand the Prime Minister has "no plans at present" to join.
How does it work? Much like Twitter/X, it lets you post short (300 character) messages and images. You can reply to others, repost and like. It now also allows you to direct message. You can search for people, follow, mute or block accounts.
So far, so similar....
So the question is: is it really the brilliant new social media platform that we should all be jumping on? I've joined, of course, but mostly for research purposes at this stage. I've certainly heard people rave about it, and there is perhaps an argument for joining early to get the @handle/domain you want. But the real answer - for marketing purposes - has to be "only if it's where your audience are". So ask your customers: if they are all over Bluesky, then you probably should be too. (My suspicion is that they probably aren't, yet, but I'd be interested to know the answer!)
