With the Xodus from Xitter underway, those new to Bluesky find themselves with the arduous task of rebuilding their community of followers. Exactly how to do that is a common question in Bluesky posts among writers.
Fortunately, there are a few fairly easy ways to get followers.
Before looking for any, though, make sure your profile is filled out completely. A missing banner, avatar or profile description makes you look like one of those quickly thrown together bot/scam accounts that frequent Facebook and Xitter. Be sure to include that you’re a writer or author in the description. That helps ensure you connect with fellow writers rather than gardeners and astronomers.
To follow someone, simply click on their name. As in Xitter, a summary of their profile pops up. You then can click “Follow.” A like (clicking that heart at the bottom of their post), reposting (clicking the arrows that face opposite ways), or commenting (do so by clicking the dialogue balloon) increases your chances of getting a follow back.
Starter Packs
The quickest way to find followers is starter packs. These are curated lists of fellow writers. You can find them here. Type writer or author in the search bar and be prepared to be amazed. Hundreds of starter packs will appear.
Not all starter packs are for you. Some are for specific genres (especially romance and science fiction) that you may not write. Others are for specific types of authors, such as LGBTQ+ or those from an ethnic or racial group that you aren’t a member of. Browse through them. Once you find one you like, click onto it. Links to everyone in the starter pack will appear. You can follow them one by one or simply click “Follow All” at the top of the screen to literally follow everyone in the pack.
Don’t expect all to follow back. Many people are very selective about who they want in their feed. I find that bestselling authors and literary journals rarely follow back. In the case of the former, their marketing person is more interesting in getting their author PR than in following everyone on social media. In the case of the latter, their editor is too busy going through the submissions pile.
Lists
Lists essentially work as they do in Xitter. You can find them here. Again, type writer or author in the search bar. As with starter packs, browse through the lists and see if there are any that might be a good fit for you.
When you click onto a list, you’ll get a feed of all of the posts by those on the list. You then can start following and liking posts. There is no “follow all” function for lists.
A side benefit of lists is there are several curated collections of trolls, racists, misogynists, bigots, spammers, content scrapers and bots. Click onto the list and at the top of the screen click “Subscribe.” A pull-down menu appears; click “Block accounts.” Every profile on that list is now blocked.
Feeds
Feeds are curated posts that relate to a specific topic. You can access them on your profile page. Look at the right side of the screen, and you’ll see a list of them under the search bar.
“Writing Community” is a good feed for writers hoping to connect with other writers. Several book editors, literary agents, and artists who illustrate books also appear on the feed. Usually their posts provide writing or self-publishing tips. “Writers and Books” is good as well but more geared toward readers.
You can create your own temporary feed simply by typing a word or hashtag in the search bar. Bluesky users tend to use the same hashtags that they did on Xitter, so #amwriting, #writingcommunity and #indieauthor are popular. There also are Bluesky specific hashtags such as #authorsky and #writersky.
Sky Follower Bridge
One useful tool for learning when your Xitter followers come over to Bluesky is Sky Follower Bridge. It’s an extension that you can add to your browser. Once you connect your Xitter and your Bluesky accounts to Sky Follower, it identifies when someone signs up for Bluesky using the same handle as one of your Xitter followers.
It’s an imperfect system delivering a few false positives, and I’m not a big fan of extensions on my browser. As the Xodus picks up speed, however, it’s the best way to quickly find your old followers on your new favorite social media platform.
Be forewarned that the extension’s usefulness probably has a short shelf life. Xitter usually blocks migration tools, and this certainly serves that purpose.
Final Thoughts
One thing you’ll immediately like about Bluesky is that after you pick up a few followers, interaction quickly follows. That’s because every one of your followers gets to see your posts and you all of theirs. Facebook limits who sees your posts to a small percentage of your friends, and Xitter likewise does the same with your followers.
Xitter also employs a variety of algorithms that hurt your ability be seen; for example, if your post includes a link to your blog post or to an article about writing that is offsite, Xitter reduces your post’s visibility so people won’t leave its website. That hurts your ability to reach and interact with other writers. None of this is the case on Bluesky, however.
When Elon Musk took over Twitter, his initial changes to the social media platform immediately hurt my reach, and each new change only further decreased it. In December 2022, I began experimenting with 20 other social media platforms to see which were best and to establish a presence for when the Xodus finally occurred. While I like some of them – Spoutible and Tribel are fairly decent – none of them measure up to what Bluesky offers. Other than Threads, which really is just all of your Instagram pals, Bluesky by far boasts the most users with numbers increasing every day.
Best of all, it works like Twitter used to work when it was good.
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My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional book editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of writers both new and published. I also offer a variety of self-publishing services. During the past decade, I’ve helped more than 400 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of 80+ books including the Storytelling 101 writing guidebooks, four nonfiction hiking guidebook series, and the literary novel Windmill. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.
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