Bluesky's Big Moment: Should Your Business Care?

19 November 2024

The social network Bluesky has surged past twenty million users this month, adding a million a day at points, as waves of users leave X following the US election. It's the fastest platform shift we've seen since Threads launched — and the questions from business owners have started arriving.

What Bluesky actually is

Think early Twitter: text-first, chronological options, no ads (yet), and a culture that's currently allergic to hard selling. It's built on an open protocol, meaning users can eventually take their audience between compatible services — a quietly radical idea after a decade of walled gardens.

Our honest advice

• Claim your name. Registering your business handle costs nothing and prevents squatting. Do it this week.
• Watch where your customers go. Journalists, academics, and tech and creative audiences have moved in numbers. Local trades' customers largely haven't. Follow your people, not the headlines.
• Don't add a platform you can't feed. A dead profile is worse than no profile. If your Facebook page is already gathering dust, that's the job to fix first.

Platform migrations are a recurring weather pattern now. The businesses that cope best own their audience elsewhere — an email list — so no exodus can strand them.