As a lot of people exodus from Twitter to Bluesky, I want to flag something for people who may not be marketers but are making brand accounts here. I think many people are seeing Bluesky as a 1:1 replacement to Twitter, or that every social media network with a similar interface behaves the same.

A lot of devs still create accounts on the ‘large’ social platforms because it seems like the 'thing that they should do'. They create a Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, etc etc they try to create content for all of them, they follow every article that says you MUST post at X time or nothing will ever be seen, they create content that has no real tone of voice, doesn’t consider a balance of content FOR PLAYERS vs transactional content - etc etc. This is all because they’re not marketers and that’s totally fine! But with the exodus from Twitter, many brands are also making the jump.

Marketing is a buffet. When you step up to the buffet, the table is totally full - there’s a plate of platforms, events, public relations, advertising, branding, community management, platform requirements, required assets, etc etc, everything and anything that might come under the banner of marketing. You absolutely can walk up to that buffet and get ‘just a little bit of everything’ but all you’ll end up with is an overfull plate and a store stomach, and a weird meal that if you presented it to someone else (who doesn’t have your taste) will look at it and go ‘why on earth did you put soy sauce all over that cantaloupe?’ Collecting platforms like candy will mean a list too long, of too much to do, that you can’t possibly complete to the extent you want to.

Jumping to Bluesky just because everyone else is isn’t a bad decision, but it’s important that it’s a decision. If your goal is for it to simply replace Twitter, it can’t and won’t (and shouldn’t!) because it’s not built in the same way. It might be same same but different for the most part, but Twitter is algorithmic, trained (mostly) to encourage negative engagement, and functions very differently. Hashtags on Twitter were a real no no for most larger creators, but on Bluesky they're likely to be one of the main search metrics for a little while outside of lists. I won’t pretend to be an expert - it’s a new platform and I’m enjoying it, but it is definitely different.

Bluesky uses algorithms differently - in that it’s algorithm neutral. It does not use them for people you follow, but lightly engages them in Discover or in any curated feeds you generate. When you post, you’re not focusing on improving visibility of content or potential virality of content, but on personal trust and interest. This is great - you don't have to play algorithmic games to create content that will reinforce this behaviour and repeat these cycles, but it means that surfacing your tweet on a new persons feed is not something that happens easily without someone ACTIVELY sharing your posts, OR without engaging with hashtags etc.

Basically, people need to give a shit about you and what you’re creating and what value you bring more than ever. People are curating their spaces more aggressively now (and should do so!) The reality is, people don't care about brands, they care about people. Many people on Bluesky are actively saying they will not be following brands here. The experience people want has totally changed - and that’s fair. You may find that if you’re super transactional, you won’t get much back from the community, and if you don’t know who they are or share their values, that will be compounded on Bluesky.

Bluesky is probably not going to be a discovery platform for your game in the way you think it is - at least not at first, and that's okay! What do you want to be to your players? To your team? What is actually important and valuable to you? If it’s as much visibility as possible at once to sell your game, Bluesky might not be it, and advertising might be instead, or a spot in a giant showcase, etc etc. If it’s building slow connections with real people who see you and you see them, it might be perfect. Algorithms rule most of our world, but we get to decide how we engage with them to some degree. I’m really excited to be here personally, but I don’t pretend to know it’ll be perfect.

You can absolutely decide ‘we want to be the biggest brand on Bluesky’ and pour your time, effort and energy into this specific platform and figuring out how it works, how people like to engage, and trying to optimise for growth - but you might find that clashes with the general ethos if you’re trying to post Twitter content, or that growth is much slower. You might not! I look at Bluesky as a good alternative to Twitter if you want to continue sharing that kind of short form content, but frankly I think every brand right now should be doing a big assessment of how much they want to play the algorithm game vs slow direct personal connection and growth, and what platforms make sense for them with how fractured the landscape is right now. There’s no perfect right answer - it is different for every team and every person.

You don’t have to be everywhere doing everything as the #1 thing, and you probably can’t.