Bluesky – the new(ish) social media network in town – has been gaining followers rapidly since its recent increase in popularity (largely driven by a desire for people to move away from X and Elon Musk’s behaviour as its owner).
Unlike X, it seems that Bluesky could actually be a bonafide new source of traffic for your website, with evidence from several respected publishing companies.
We take a look into the platform and consider whether or not it could be a useful channel for your business to consider.
What is Bluesky?
Bluesky is a social media platform that looks like and works in a similar way to X (formerly Twitter) and Threads. Users post a short message, which others can reply to, repost or like.
This is displayed vertically and therefore conversations can be had in a threaded way.
A key difference to the established platforms like X is that with Bluesky, you can better moderate your experience on it. This includes creating custom feeds to just see the content you want.
You can also use a website address within your handle, which is a nice way to help promote your website.
Why could it help give me website traffic?
A key reason for this traffic-driving potential is due to the platform’s policy on welcoming users to share links. Recently, Rosie Wang, Bluesky’s COO was quoted as saying “Unlike other platforms, we don’t de-promote your links.”
This seems to be reflected in some evidence that Bluseky published on its blog recently. Several major publishers, including The New York Times, The Boston Globe and The Guardian, have noted that they are seeing higher engagement rates and traffic than the same posts on platforms like X and Threads (Instagram’s rival to X).
Traffic from Bluesky to @bostonglobe.com is already 3x that of Threads, and we are seeing 4.5x the conversions to paying digital subscribers.
— Matt Karolian (@mkarolian.bsky.social) November 26, 2024 at 6:19 PM
By which I mean, I’m pretty sure traffic from
@bsky.app to @theguardian.com is *significantly* higher than the very obvious 2x that of ThreadsThis post brought to you by a reply to @mkarolian.bsky.social on Threads, where it has had just 105 engagements, as opposed to the 18k+ here
— Dave Earley (@earleyedition.bsky.social) November 27, 2024 at 6:30 AM
The claims from these large publishers have also been backed up by some other smaller, independent publishers, who have been seeing similar results.
With a global base of 23.1 million users (as of November 2024) that’s increasing every day, it does therefore offer the potential for you to engage with customers or potential customers.
Even though the population on there is smaller than other established platforms, plus you will have to start from scratch to grow a following, the early indications of higher quality engagement rates do seem appealing.
One interesting aspect to consider is around the tracking of this website traffic. As Dave Earley from The Guardian notes in his comments, the traffic levels could be higher than they can see, as some of it is not being attributed to Bluesky within their analytics reports.
Should I use Bluesky for my business?
Social media can be time consuming and you might be thinking “not another one”. However perhaps it’s a good opportunity to take a step back and think about which platforms are right for your business and your customers.
It might well be the case that some additional time each week/month on Bluesky gives you better ROI than other platforms that you are still using (because you always have used them).
One first step would be to simply set-up an account and explore to see whether you feel your brand fits within the topics and interest areas on it. If it feels natural to be posting your content to users there, then it feels like it could be worth a try.
As with everything in marketing, we highly recommend testing it to see what works, what doesn’t and whether or not you want to invest more time and resources in it.
If you do decide to commit some regular time, then set yourself some simple measures, so you can track how it is performing. This could include follower count, engagements and traffic from it to your website.
And a final word from Bluesky’s Rosie Wang: “Post all the links you want – Bluesky is a lobby to the open web”.
For more information on how to create a social media strategy that works for you, contact us today.
