The Next Big Thing Has Happened. It's Bluesky.

It's been a minute since I wrote an article ON LinkedIn - most of my stuff I write for my website M10Social.com of course. But I recently wrote a piece on Bluesky (a still-very-relevant piece) and figured I'd check in with a brief update now that there is confirmation in my mind that the tipping point has truly happened.

Granted there's no guarantee on what the future will bring in social media but Bluesky appears to be THE LEGIT NEXT BIG THING and it has arrived.

I have proof.

Let's Look At The Detroit Lions

Let's look no further than the one of the favorites to at least reach the Super Bowl, The Detroit Lions shall we? The Lions skeeted (BlueSKY + TWEET = SKEET) for the very first time on 6/26/23. My very first skeet was 9/24/23. This was the point when there was potential trouble on the horizon for Twitter as Elon Musk had started tinkering with the platform like a child with a new Lego set.

The Lions clearly gave it a try to see if the platform would be worth dedicating some resources to, skeeting 54 times between 6/26/23 and 8/6/23. And then, they went totally silent, abandoning the platform for well over a year. I get it - I did pretty much the same thing. I was really getting nowhere, and good content and communities to engage with on Bluesky were scarce. I was a little bummed because X had become a train wreck and I had no interest in Instagram's Threads as a replacement. Threads was bare bones, like a car with roll up windows and only AM radio. Yes, I'm dating myself. In typical Instagram fashion they rushed to copy something no one was interested in them being. Anyone remember when they thought they could be YouTube too with IGTV?

So I checked in here and there on Bluesky to see if anything seemed to be going on and not much was.

I wrote a blog post on 11/9/24 about social media and didn't even mention Bluesky.

I put out a poll on Instagram Stories on 11/11/24 to see if anyone had either heard of it or at least was on it, because it seemed like something was happening... Zilch.

But something was happening, and in the week after the election a million people signed up for Bluesky. The engagement started skyrocketing, compelling me to write this piece on 11/14/24: BLUESKY Ahead! The New Disruption - For Real This Time

Since that article Bluesky has added 10 million more users.

So back to the Lions. Two days after my blog post the Lions reappeared - on 11/16/24. They didn't wait until the end of the season. They were paying attention.

And here's where it gets interesting:

A Quick Comparison

Let's look at a tweet and a skeet the Lions posted just a couple hours ago as I'm writing this:

You can see that it's the same exact content posted at the same time. Jared Goff is only tagged on X because he's not on Bluesky (and he's not active on X).

The Lions on X have 1.7 MILLION followers, and in the first two hours they got 36 comments, 258 retweets, and 1802 likes - if we add those numbers just for kicks it's 2096 interactions.

The Lions on Bluesky have 41.6 THOUSAND followers, and in the first two hours they got 18 comments, 77 reskeets, and 877 likes - if we add those numbers we get 972 interactions.

Yep - the Lions got almost half the engagement on an account with 2.4% of the following.

Comparatively speaking I'd call that crickets on X. Now over the course of 15+ years you're bound to get plenty of inactive accounts along the way. But even though I'm not active on X (okay I was this week for the entertainment of the chatter around Michigan beating Ohio State for the 4th straight time in The Game), I still get multiple requests there per day from bots. The platform is a mess.

But the gap just looking at that apples-to-apples example of the Lions isn't that big. And remember, the Lions are at the very height of their popularity as we speak. Like as in their modern history. They are playing TONIGHT against their rival the Green Bay Packers - the only game on. 11-1 Lions vs. 9-3 Packers. Both battling for first place. If ever there was a moment that Lions fans would be looking for content on social media and following their team it would be right now. So.....where IS everybody on X?

It's just one example but it's not a good one for X. The Lions have been actively building there for well over a decade. They've been actively building on Bluesky for 19 days.

Can you explain it away just by saying that Bluesky is simply the shiny new toy for now? I mean, I guess... but I don't think that's the story. Bluesky is a better platform all the way around and its decentralized structure bodes well for its user experience and future. It's truly for the users, by the users. There are big influencers there like Mark Cuban (whom I've mentioned before on LinkedIn) who are all in and get it - look at this skeet of his (click on it to go right to his profile).

Bluesky Has Hit The Tipping Point

I don't have a really long list of metrics and research beyond what I've already presented to show that Bluesky is over the hump - that it has hit that tipping point. But I say it has. I'm seeing more and more accounts show up every day that have followings on X and even if it runs parallel to X for a while, it's here to stay, it's viable, it's active and it's worth focusing on. I think it's going to eat X's lunch.

I'd be remiss if I didn't tell you to connect with me there! As a matter of fact I created a "Starter Pack" which is a really cool Bluesky feature that will take you to all of the profiles I'm associated with! Click on the graphic below and I'll see you there!