Is this your journal with no posts? Come on over to where the skies are blue! And if you find this overwhelming, drop us a line––we can help you navigate this new terrain.
Why Bluesky?
Your audience is here. The social media landscape underwent a massive shift in the past few months––for example, one of our journal clients lost 156 followers on X/Twitter and gained 1,267 on Bluesky. However, other platforms have not shown a similar uptick.
Altmetricsis tracking Bluesky posts. So posting on Bluesky can only help your numbers! (Quick note, Altmetrics will not pick up short links, such as the t.co. links from X/Twitter. Use the DOI in the link!)
The platform drives link clicks. Speaking of boosting numbers, do you like it when readers click on the link to a paper? Other social media platforms de-emphasize posts with links (to keep readers scrolling endlessly), but Bluesky shows your posts with links so readers can follow those links right to your papers!
You might want to flee X/Twitter too. Maybe you are sick of bots and sponsored political content. Maybe you don’t like that people you’ve blocked can still see your posts. We still post on X/Twitter because many plant biologists have not yet made the switch. If you decide to not post on X/Twitter, lock your account but do not deactivate. If you deactivate your account, someone else can use your username.
What do I need to know? The key differences between X/Twitter and Bluesky are that Bluesky doesn’t use an algorithm to push posts into your feed, and blocking people on Bluesky removes them and their posts from your feed––and the people on Bluesky love to use that “nuclear block” rather than giving trolls engagement by quote posting and arguing. Sounds good? Here are some specifics:
Find your audience by targeting your posts to feeds. Bluesky has no algorithm, which means that you have to find your audience in other ways. One way is through feeds, which show a subset of posts that have a specific keyword, hashtag, or come from a specific, approved set of accounts. For example, the Plant Science Research feed (a particular favorite of ours) uses a broad set of hashtags, including #PlantScience and #PlantBiology. But posting with #PlantSci or #Botany won’t get your posts into this feed. By contrast, the Science feed uses emoji (🧪) and only allows posts from a specific set of pre-approved accounts. To find your audience, you need to identify your target feeds and use the appropriate hashtags to engage with your audience.
Follow and engage broadly and collegially.
Find people to follow with Starter Packs. Here is one to get you started!
Use Sky Follower Bridgeor a similar app to find your followers from X/Twitter.
Do NOT automatically follow back every account that follows you. The strong blocking culture on Bluesky means that if you follow someone problematic––such as someone who is “follow farming”––people will block the problematic account AND its followers.
Re-post, reply and promote your fellow posters. Social media (like academia) can be cutthroat, but the vibes on Bluesky are immaculate and you’ll gain engagement by keeping it that way.
Say YES to alt text. Bluesky has a strong tradition of supporting accessibility and that means using alt text in every image. Many people will not engage with a post if the image lacks alt text. Need help composing alt text? Pretend you’re describing the image to me over the phone!
Say NO to AI art. Bluesky has a strong tradition of supporting creators, so if you post AI art, you will be roasted, diced, sliced, and then roundly blocked/muted/unfollowed. Yes we have seen it happen to a journal account (not our client, of course!). Get images from your authors and hire real artists to make your cover images and social media images.
Did we miss any of your favorite tips? Tag us at @planteditors.bsky.social with your additions!
How do I get help? This may be too much work for your social media team. Reach out to us if you need help getting started, or a long-term partnership.
