The emerging social network Bluesky has reached critical mass, with enough users leaving X and joining the platform for it to be considered a legitimate X replacement; at one point last month it saw a million new users joining daily.
For universities, this presents a unique opportunity to rebuild communities that have become harder to reach elsewhere: huge numbers of academics and researchers are now on the platform, which has led to an influx of departmental accounts being created.
I set up the University of York’s library profile just over two weeks ago. Within nine days we reached the total number of followers it took us nine years to get on X, and we now have more than 5,000 people in our network – we’ve also found engagement to be much higher. And it’s not just us: others have posted comparisons showing increased – and more positive – engagement on Bluesky.
If you’re new to the platform or considering setting up a profile, here are some tips to get you started.
Complete your profile before you start following people
Accounts with generic avatars and no biography or introductory text are often perceived as likely to be bots so users often don’t follow back and sometimes auto-block. I recommend writing an introductory post explaining who you are and what you’ll bring to Bluesky, before going on that following spree. You’ll thank me later.
Be useful
To make Bluesky a valuable platform for your academic community, one of the most effective steps is to encourage and assist your audience in transitioning to it from X. I’ve done this in two key ways for my library – one was to write The researcher’s guide to Bluesky, which proved a very popular early post, with more than 500 reposts so far. The other was to create a University of York starter pack, so people from the institution can instantly find and connect with each other.
A “starter pack” on Bluesky is simply a curated collection of accounts, which people can follow all in one go. Anyone can create one. If no starter pack for your university exists, simply search for relevant accounts (academics, researchers, departments and so on) and create your own – everyone will find this useful, and as a bonus everyone who clicks “follow all” will automatically follow your new profile too. You can also ask to be added to any relevant starter packs that already exist, which is a great way to accelerate follower growth early on.
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Know your target audience and create tailored content
This advice applies across all social media platforms. We need to know why we are there and who we are there for. I’ve yet to see evidence of many undergraduates (or even taught postgraduates) on Bluesky, and Instagram and TikTok already reach those groups extremely effectively. As a result, our Bluesky content is specifically aimed at academics and researchers, and this focus has really helped our network grow.
Often the best way to build a community online is to post a mixture of things about your department, and things relevant to or adjacent to your organisation. For example, this post that featured photos of York was popular among our target audience because it was about York – there was no informational or promotional message involved on this particular occasion, and that’s fine.
Make your content accessible
Bluesky has better accessibility options than most social media platforms I’ve used. I’d recommend accessing settings, finding the accessibility section and toggling the switch marked “require alt-text [alternative text, which is a brief description of an image] before posting”. This way, all of your content is accessible to readers with visual impairments. Here’s a great resource on how to write alt-text descriptions.
Be proactive
Bluesky is very X-like in lots of functional ways: you can post up to 300 characters at a time, you can repost, you can like, and so on. The crucial difference is the lack of an algorithm on Bluesky’s default “following” feed. There’s no endlessly auto-refreshing content, just posts from the people you follow in reverse chronological order. So you will need to follow relevant accounts to make your feed useful, and then start getting involved: join conversations, ask questions, repost useful things and hit the like button. The aim is to cultivate community rather than just broadcast your departmental news.
You can also send and receive direct messages on Bluesky, and you will probably get enquiries that way. Ideally, users should be able to ask you questions via the chat function even if you don’t follow them: the toggle switch that enables this is not in settings but rather in the chat area itself.
Bluesky’s atmosphere is one of excitement and positivity, in contrast to X. Creating accounts now allows university departments to help shape a new movement right at its inception and provide essential academic comms for hard-to-reach groups. Bluesky may well be worth your time.
Ned Potter is faculty engagement manager at the University of York and the author of The Library Marketing Toolkit (Facet Publishing, 2012).
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