I’ve been asked a few times around BlueSky and whether or not that’s the new Twitter for the public sector.
It’s a reasonable question to ask.
But I’m going to be slightly less on the excitement gauge than others.
Firstly, the data argument. The numbers are not yet there to compare it to X, formerly Twitter. BlueSky is not in the top 10 of social accounts used by UK people.
There are thought to be 20 million BlueSky users globally and in all likelihood the UK there will be hundreds of thousands of users. The platform is dwarfed by Meta’s Threads which has 275 million monthly users in late 2024.
Secondly, there’s the subjective yardstick of the question ‘is this the new Twitter?’. Well, if it was, we wouldn’t be asking ourselves that question.
In the 1990s, when cricketing all-rounder Ian Botham’s powers were on the wane a platoon of candidates were wheeled in and out as ‘the new Ian Botham’. So we had David Capel, Phil deFreitas and Derek Pringle all hyped as the next big thing only to fall below that once-in-a-generation benchmark.
It was only when we stopped looking for the new Botham that we got Andrew Flintoff. And he was his own person.
How to approach a new channel like BlueSky
I’m going to fall back on some good advice when dealing with BlueSky. I’d recommend the same to you.
It’s the same advice I used for Google Plus, Google Wave, Mastodon and other next big things. I’m going to spend some time with them under my own steam to see how they work and suggest you do too. A month minimum. Only when the smoke and mirrors clears I’d think about using it in earnest as a corporate account.
While you spend time off your own bat with BlueSky you can start to see if there’s value for you. If there is, fantastic. You may connect with some really interesting people and you’ll tap into good knowledge. This may be as far as it goes.
The watching brief approach also gives you the chance to be on the front foot with the organisation. You will get the chief executive or some senior person asking about what you’re doing with BlueSky. They’ll have read something, you see,
So, get ahead of that, be proactive, do the research and tell them you’re doing the research. You don’t want to be put on the spot. You absolutely don’t want to be ordered to do something you don’t think has value.
Understanding BlueSky
Alan Morrison on LinkedIn has written a useful opener to understand BlueSky. Rob Preston has also blogged on BlueSky from a charities perspective. I also enjoyed Madeleine Sugden’s post on BlueSky tips.
If you’re used to old Twitter you’ll find some features are familiar.
By all means reserve a corporate BlueSky account in the meantime but I wouldn’t be investing serious time into it just yet. If you do, do so as a trial.
In the public sector, there is still value in X/Twitter as a platform to reach journalisms and MPs.So, for me right now the filter for your corporate Twitter should be content you want to pitch to journos and politicians.
I keep saying this, but there’s been more change in the past 12 to 18 months with the media landscape than there has in the past 12 years.
That’s not going to change.
Understanding this is how we’ll earn our money.