In this #ContentChat recap, Erika Heald is joined by Amanda Changuris, vice president, social media at Spectrum Science, to discuss the potential of the social media platform Bluesky for content marketers. They discuss how it compares to other would-be Twitter challengers, how brands can assess if the platform is a good fit for them, and examples of companies who are driving engagement on the platform.
Follow Erika and Amanda on Bluesky and start your exploration:
- https://bsky.app/profile/erikaheald.bsky.social
- https://bsky.app/profile/amandachanguris.bsky.social
Watch the entire conversation on YouTube or read through the highlights below.
Bluesky vs. Twitter: Rediscovering the Joy of Real-Time Social Engagement
“What really makes Bluesky different from other would-be Twitter or X challengers, is that it feels like a time machine that takes you back to Twitter circa 2010.”— Amanda Changuris
“That was, to me, the heyday of what Twitter was—simple and clean interface, chronological, timeline…when something happened, you went to Twitter to experience it, live with other people. And so that’s really the vibe that I’m enjoying.”— Amanda Changuris
“Big industry events and conferences might be sort of that tipping point where we get enough people paying attention at the same time to have some of those conversations and kind of get that wheel turning.”— Amanda Changuris
“I do really feel like the last two years, marketers in particular have been…feeling a void from how we used to be able to have those event hashtags and to be able to have that real-time back channel happening during your events. People would use [Twitter] to, you know, give you feedback as the, you know, the person putting on the event, but also to find other like minded people.”—Erika Heald
What Content Marketers Need to Know Before Joining Bluesky
“What’s interesting to me is, while they have slightly different names, there are…some features that really do take me back to the way I used Twitter in the past, such as how you can make your own list. So that way, if you want to be able to see all of your content marketing folks—like I have a list of content chat guests—[you can see that feed].”—Erika Heald
Find Your Bluesky Friends with Topical Starter Packs
You can get started with a #ContentChat content marketing starter pack.
“People are always like, ‘Oh, it’s just a Twitter clone.’ But one of the things that’s new is the idea of starter packs.”—Erika Heald
“I know for me, [why I stopped using other social platforms], the problem was I couldn’t find any of the people that I had followed other places whose content I was really interested in, who I wanted to have conversations with and no one could find me either. So, you know, you don’t have those conversations. You know you’re not going to keep logging back in.”—Erika Heald
“On the personal side, I was included in a starter pack that was related to it, the hockey team that I follow, the Washington Capitals. And it was fantastic. I kept seeing, like, a bunch of follows come in, and there was, I could tell that there was, you know, everybody was a Capitals fan. And I was like, ‘okay, hold on, there’s something going on here.’ And I was clicking around and trying to…kind of deduce what had happened. And I found the Starter Pack.”— Amanda Changuris
“On the work side of things, I work with a bunch of clients that are developing products in the cardiovascular space. So there’s Cardio Sky, for example, a starter pack of all people who are interested in cardiovascular health, different aspects of it. Everybody’s studying something different, but it’s that’s a big place to start. And then you can follow the whole starter pack if you want, or go selectively down that list and say, this person’s interested in lipids.”— Amanda Changuris
“Starter packs are a lot of fun, especially because, I mean, nobody wants to start at zero again with the social media platform.”— Amanda Changuris
How to Build a Thriving Community on Bluesky
Start Small with Cross Posting
“Because the platforms are so closely related, if you’re creating content that you’re intending to publish on X right now… you can conceivably cross post to a platform like Bluesky. You don’t have to develop something brand new or change the aspect ratio on a photo, that sort of thing, to at least dabble in that area.”— Amanda Changuris
“Frequently, you know, you’ll start a new platform, but it’ll be so vastly different [from existing platforms], you can’t compare [benchmarks]. You can’t post the same content on Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and X, and have them, have it perform the same. Whatever it is, is going to have to be tailored for one of those platforms to perform and get engagement at all. So at least with [Bluesky], if you are used to having engagement and posting content on X…that gives you an idea of some benchmarks for how you would expect the content to perform.”—Erika Heald
Search for Thought Leaders You Know from Other Channels
“When you are advising clients, either on an individual basis, or, you know, organization-wide business, to get in there and save those handles—which I totally always agree is the best first thing—what do you tell them is the best way to start understanding what their audience looks like? Do you, you know, suggest that they do keyword searches or [look] for high-profile thought leaders and looking at their followers? What’s the best way for people to kind of get their feet wet and, you know, start keeping tabs on the community to understand kind of what the conversations are like?”—Erika Heald
“First of all, I love your first couple of suggestions there. Those are spot-on. Keyword searches and searching for those power users, especially if you’ve been over on X, for example, or if you’ve been on LinkedIn. You know who shows up in your in your comment section, right? You know who’s having conversations that you want to be part of. So look for those people, the people who are leading the conversation in the industry that you’re interested in, and look to see if they’re they’re there on Bluesky.”— Amanda Changuris
Follow Your Industry Thought Leaders to Bluesky
“We’ve had some cases where, especially within the science and research communities, where users that are very active—or have been very active—over on X have left that platform and said, ‘I’m moving to Bluesky. I won’t be over here anymore.’ And so, if they’re driving the conversation that you want to be a part of as a brand, then you’ve got to at least consider is that person enough of a key opinion leader that that should inspire you to move as well?”— Amanda Changuris
“We’re seeing major publications, like key journals, the Journal of the American Medical Association, American Heart Association, all of those journals are, you know, consistently publishing content that they’ve likely created for x I think they’re cross posting, for the most part, onto Bluesky. That’s an easy way to stick your toe in the water and see if the engagement follows.”— Amanda Changuris
Watch the full replay to learn:
- How brands can use the platform for visibility and thought leadership
- Tips to find Bluesky profiles and topics to follow
- Who Erika and Amanda recommend as the must-follow Bluesky accounts for content marketers
