How brands and agencies are approaching Bluesky—and how Meta’s new policies could impact the platform

Since Elon Musk acquired Twitter, now X, in late 2022, marketers have been continuously evaluating alternatives to what was once the de facto text-based social platform. Many flocked to Meta’s Threads following its launch in July 2023, but initial excitement quickly faded, and brands have spent the past year and a half outlining and refining their strategies on that text-based platform. With Threads now mired in a bit of controversy due to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s growing affiliation with President-elect Donald Trump and Meta’s recent elimination of its fact-checking system across Facebook, Instagram and Threads, some marketers are eyeing Bluesky as a possible landing place for their text-based social content. Bluesky, a Twitter clone founded by the company’s former CEO Jack Dorsey, has “definitely been top of mind” among VML’s clients over the past few months, Rachael Datz, managing director of social media at VML, told Ad Age. “We have lots of clients asking about [our] point of view, especially since there was sort of a mass shift” of users from X to Bluesky following the presidential election, she said. Bluesky stuns in new App Store ranking[image or embed]— Bluesky (@bsky.app) November 13, 2024 at 12:30 AM Like X, Bluesky allows users to share text, photo and video content and toggle between a main, algorithm-fueled feed and a chronological feed of content from accounts a user follows. Bluesky users can also view or create additional feeds that curate posts related to specific topics (such as science, books or pictures of cats) or assemble lists of specific accounts to view content from in additional, separate feeds. Bluesky added a slew of features in 2024, including hashtags, direct messages and a “trending topics” feed. Bluesky’s app usage in the U.S. surged 519% between Nov. 6 and Nov. 15, according to Similarweb data. And Bluesky’s user base has nearly doubled since the presidential election, surging from over 13 million users in November to just shy of 26 million as of Dec. 30, according to a blog post from Bluesky CEO Jay Graber. While Bluesky’s name occasionally came up in discussions around alternatives to X in 2023, the platform remained in private and invite-only beta until its public launch in February 2024. “There’s been probably a year-and-a-half of [client] inquiries of, ‘What do we do about X?’” Datz said. “Bluesky isn’t the first iteration of this … but it’s definitely reaching a little bit of critical mass. It’s definitely more of a question.” NextGen Marketing Summit Join us for a crash course on Gen Z, DTC marketing and the creator economy Register today Bluesky and brands Only a few brands have begun consistently posting on Bluesky thus far, including Beyond Meat, Calm, American Eagle, Netflix and Barnes & Noble. Several others have set up brand accounts to stake out their usernames—such as Duolingo, Microsoft, Red Bull, PlayStation, Logitech and e.l.f. Cosmetics—but have made few (or no) posts on the platform. Reminder: behind every brand social media account is a real person. And behind that person is a legal department saying "Please don't post that”— Beyond Meat (@beyondmeatofficial.bsky.social) December 18, 2024 at 11:41 AM “We are seeing some interesting initial engagement that says maybe there’s an audience here for us,” said Craig Brommers, chief marketing officer at American Eagle. The brand launched its Bluesky account in November and has been experimenting with different types of content on the platform to determine what resonates most with Bluesky users, he said. While some of that content is pulled from American Eagle’s Threads account, the brand has also created several posts specifically for Bluesky, he said. “Comedy and not taking yourself too seriously is definitely something that is working [on Bluesky],” Brommers said. “We’re posting some content that we probably wouldn’t post on other platforms. We have some fun with other platforms, but this probably is our silliest version of American Eagle, and people do seem to be responding to us pushing the boundaries of that silly version of ourselves.” Reconnecting with online shopping bc nature didn’t work— American Eagle (@americaneagle1977.bsky.social) January 8, 2025 at 12:19 PM Agencies are largely advising clients to claim a username on Bluesky but hold off on heavily investing time and resources into the platform. Although the user base on Bluesky is steadily growing, its roughly 26 million total users pale in comparison to the 275 million monthly active users on Threads (a statistic Zuckerberg cited in Meta’s latest earnings call) or X’s 570 million monthly active users, according to a post from an official X account. “Bluesky is certainly gaining momentum, but compared to X, compared to Threads, it is the smallest of the text-based players at the moment,” said Minda Smiley, a senior analyst at EMarketer focused on social media. “It is a very fragmented landscape, and there isn’t really a clear front-runner. And so it kind of prevents any one of them from achieving the scale that I think Twitter once had in its heyday.” Also read: 10 of the best social media marketing moments of 2024 Additionally, Bluesky, like Threads, doesn’t currently offer any paid advertising opportunities, meaning organic social content is the only strategy available to brands on the platform, Smiley said. Unlike Threads, which is directly connected to Instagram, launching an account on Bluesky requires brands to “set up shop on a whole new platform, which could make it harder for Bluesky” to attract advertisers, she said. “There’s not a single brand that I’ve told, ‘Hey, you need to be on [Bluesky], go build an audience,’” said Maggie Walsh, head of strategy at digital marketing and social media agency Glow. Rather, Walsh is advising clients, particularly entertainment brands, to monitor the conversations happening on the platform to determine if any of the internet communities their brands are targeting have made the jump to Bluesky. “Obviously, user numbers are a big part of [joining a platform], but … having a lot of users doesn’t necessarily mean having a community or a culture,” she said. “We tend to tell people that what will really matter is if the niche communities or fandoms start to really make a home on the platform.” Outside of their interests, little demographic information about Bluesky’s user base is available to marketers, said Smiley. Maggie Reznikoff, senior VP of account management, global, at creator marketing company Open Influence, also pointed to the “access to niche, engaged communities” as a benefit Bluesky offers to marketers, but added that the platform’s “limited analytics pose significant barriers to scaling marketing efforts.” Bluesky’s “lists” and “feeds” features encourage that community-oriented approach to the platform, allowing users to join niche and often interest-based groups on the platform and view separate feeds of content posted by other members of those groups. The ability to “take a little bit more ownership over your personal experience” on Bluesky with these features is “something that is potentially setting it apart from other platforms,” Brommers said. American Eagle’s largely Gen Z audience has been pursuing “more personalized, more curated and more bespoke” experiences on social media over the past year, which has driven a growing number of those young consumers to platforms such as Pinterest and Snapchat, he said. That trend could potentially make Bluesky an appealing destination for Gen Zers, too, he said. “Threads is still so connected to Instagram and the whole Meta machine that I think the difference between [it and] Bluesky is we feel it's an independent, new voice in the marketplace at a time where Gen Z may be looking for something new,” Brommers added. Rewind: Why American Eagle was an early adopter on Threads Bluesky did not respond to a request for comments about the demographics of its user base or the brand presence on the platform. Threads vs. Bluesky Many of the former X users who joined the mass exodus to Threads are now looking at Bluesky following Zuckerberg’s announcement earlier this week that Meta is cutting back on its content moderation systems and replacing third-party fact checking with a user-driven “community notes” feature similar to X’s across its social platforms, including Threads. The politicization of Threads, like X before it, could push more users to Bluesky in their hunt for an alternative text-based social platform, Smiley said. “Bluesky” briefly trended on Threads on Wednesday as both individual users and brands—including American Eagle and even the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission—plugged their Bluesky accounts. Beer brand Samuel Adams poked fun at Meta’s elimination of its fact-checking system in a post it shared across Threads, Instagram and Facebook, joking that “Now that Meta is no longer fact-checking, I’m excited to announce that Samuel Adams has unanimously been selected as the ‘greatest craft beer in history.’” View on Threads Bluesky itself also capitalized on the trending conversation to encourage Threads users to join its platform. Despite these light-hearted posts, Meta’s reversal of its fact-checking policy could truly shape marketers’ approach to Meta platforms, said Amy Luca, executive VP and global head of social at Monks. “As Meta scales back moderation and shifts from fact-checking to community notes, Bluesky is positioning itself as a potential haven for brand-safe content,” she said in an email. Bluesky quadrupled its content moderation team from 25 to 100 people in November and has rolled out several “anti-toxicity” features over the past year to reduce harassment on the platform and automatically detect spam and fake accounts, among other tools. Those efforts could be a “key differentiator” for Bluesky in its competition for new users and brands, Luca said. Indeed, Meta’s decision was a hot-button issue at CES in Las Vegas this week. WPP CEO Mark Read told Ad Age that Zuckerberg’s announcement shocked several WPP clients, many of whom are concerned about the impact the company’s new approach to content moderation could have on their social strategies.

How brands and agencies are approaching Bluesky—and how Meta’s new policies could impact the platform

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