“Is it actually happening?!” That was my immediate reaction when I logged in to Scholastica’s Bluesky account to check on it a few weeks ago.
Like so many in the scholarly communication space, I had been wondering if and when the predicted mass exodus from X (formerly Twitter), coined “Twexit” by The Scholarly Kitchen, would occur in the wake of the Elon Musk acquisition. Myself and members of the Scholastica team shared in rising concerns about the state of X following reductions in content moderation and other changes under its new leadership.
Eager to explore opportunities to engage with the scholarly communication community via emerging X alternatives, we created a Scholastica Bluesky account when the platform transitioned from invitation-only to public registration back in February 2024. But finding active scholarly communication folks on Bluesky was slow going — until that morning a few weeks ago when it felt like everything had changed. I suddenly saw flutters of activity and lots of familiar faces. It felt like Bluesky had come out of its cocoon!
Now that Altmetric announced tracking for Bluesky mentions (on December 5, 2024), it seems the X migration will likely keep picking up speed.
I’m excited to say Scholastica is slowly getting its Bluesky wings now, as am I (pardon my cheesiness!), and engaging in academic chatter there. I wanted to take a minute to share my thoughts on Bluesky so far for anyone else new to the platform or considering joining, as well as the state of scholcomm social media more broadly.
Getting acquainted with #AcademicSky
First, I have to say I’m digging Bluesky so far! It feels much more welcoming and personalizable than X while offering a super similar user experience (which isn’t surprising since Bluesky started as a research initiative at Twitter in 2019 before becoming an independent company in 2021).
If you’re yet to check out the platform, here’s a preview. Bluesky supports text posts up to 300 characters with the option to attach images/videos along with repost/quote post functionality, a “Following” feed, recommended feeds to discover accounts of interest, and search.
While similar to X/Twitter, Bluesky is not the same. Among Bluesky’s distinguishing features is that it is “decentralized,” in that users can host their data on Bluesky servers or a server of their choosing, and Bluesky operates on an open AT Protocol, so users can move their data to other services using that framework. Though there is debate around how decentralized Bluesky is because it owns its protocol, as discussed in this Conversation article. Bluesky also gives users a good deal of control over their accounts, including more robust security features than X and the ability to build multiple custom feeds, so users aren’t tied to a single feed algorithm.
The academic community has been a driving force behind Bluesky’s adoption since many scholars started seeking X/Twitter alternatives, which seemed to really pick up in 2023.
While I understood Bluesky’s decision to start out as an invitation-only platform to allow its developers time to build out core features (and I imagine to build marketing buzz), I didn’t love the idea that it wasn’t accessible to anyone who wanted to be involved in conversations. So, as noted, we waited till Bluesky opened up to create a Scholastica account.
Now that anyone can join Bluesky, I’ve been pleasantly surprised (dare I say delighted?) to find that the scholcomm banter, once attached to #AcademicTwitter and other similar hashtags, is taking off in the new forum of Academic Sky. Scholastica’s account is still nascent (and my personal account even more so), but some ways I’ve been working to grow connections for both that may be helpful for others newish to Bluesky include:
- Searching for organizations and people you know (the obvious!)
- Reviewing and following relevant Bluesky account suggestions (they’re pretty spot on!)
- Adding trending hashtags to your posts like #AcademicSky, #AcademicChatter, #ScholarlyDiscussion, and #ScholarlyPublishing so folks are more likely to find you
- Exploring relevant Bluesky “Starter Packs,” which are curated lists of BlueSky accounts that anyone can make with quick and bulk follow options
For more insight into breaking into Academic Sky, I recommend checking out this LSE Impact Blog post by Ned Potter, Faculty Engagement Manager at the University of York.
Starter Packs are probably my favorite community-building Bluesky feature so far. You can find a searchable directory of them here. Some notable scholarly publishing and academic starter packs I recommend include:
- Scholarly publishing people
- Scholarly Publishing and Communications Folks!
- Research Integrity
- Research Culture
- University presses to follow
- Scholarly Kitchen Chefs
- Academic Library Deans and Directors
- Open research - library teams & librarians
- Researcher development community
We also created a Scholastica Community Starter Pack to connect with our users and help editors, journals, and publishers connect with each other. We’d love to know if you’re a Scholastica user on Bluesky! Just drop us a line in the comments of this post if you’d like to be included in the starter pack.
Lest we forget LinkedIn
So, is Bluesky the new scholcomm social media spot? I think yes, but not the only one.
When discussions of “Twexit” started, various potential X alternatives emerged, including Bluesky, Mastodon, and Threads, among other options.
While not quite a Twitter replacement, there was also one social network that was tried and true — LinkedIn. So, before piloting new platforms at Scholastica, we started increasing our engagement on LinkedIn since we already had a presence there. The 2023 SSP Social Media Survey suggested others were doing the same, and we’ve been happy to find a lot of scholcomm community engagement on LinkedIn.
I’m excited to see Bluesky taking off because I think the Twitter-like format offers a better newsfeed experience than LinkedIn for quick scanning. I also find it more conducive to going down fun information rabbit holes where one interesting post leads to another, especially with the Discover tab feature.
However, I think LinkedIn has carved out a niche of its own. Some aspects of LinkedIn that stand out to me:
- Longer posts sometimes work better: While I enjoy the journey of clicking through threads of short posts on platforms like Bluesky, when someone has something meaty to say, it’s nice to be able to read it all in one go. I like that LinkedIn allows for longer form posts and appreciate those offering insightful scholarly communication updates there, like James Butcher, who regularly posts highlights from his Journalology newsletter.
- Live events: I like how LinkedIn offers opportunities to meld written and video content, in particular, via the LinkedIn Live feature that allows users to broadcast live video or audio to their followers. A fun example within the scholcomm community is “How do you solve a problem with Maria (and Gareth)?,” where Gareth Dyke and Maria Machado discuss scholarly publishing topics like this one on Open Access Week 2024.
- Detailed Profiles: I like that, as a professional social network, LinkedIn also features more robust user profiles than other platforms, so there are more opportunities for individuals and organizations to share and learn about each others’ focus areas and breadth of work.
- Ease of finding related connections: LinkedIn also makes it super simple to spot second and third-degree connections through recommendation features and current connection profiles. I’ve found it easier to quickly find people and organizations I know there.
- Catch-up reminders: I also appreciate the “Catch Up” feature available from the “My Network” link in LinkedIn’s top navigation bar, which includes connection milestones like when someone switches jobs or has a birthday (always worth a shout-out!).
Over the past year, I’ve noticed more publishers and journals joining LinkedIn conversations in my feed and highlighting members of their teams as well as authors and reviewers via LinkedIn @mentions, which I think is a great way to engage with disciplinary communities. As many are still learning about or new to Bluesky, LinkedIn currently feels like a more approachable venue for this type of interaction and more inclusive in the sense that more people are likely on LinkedIn than Bluesky. Though that may soon change!
With that all said, I consider LinkedIn a valuable social network for scholarly communication folks that’s complementary to other platforms and well worth considering if you’re not actively engaging there yet.
Looking to the future: social media remains a critical scholcomm platform
Since the dawn of academic inquiry, scholars have sought gathering spaces to foster the sharing of ideas, from the Greek Agora to the Roman Forum to the Baghdad House of Wisdom…to Twitter.
Ok, it didn’t exactly happen in that order, and social media certainly isn’t a substitute for in-person engagement. However, when the #AcademicTwitter hashtag emerged shortly after Twitter’s founding in 2006; it did seem to mark a turning point by opening up a shared online discussion forum unmatched by previous outlets. It also gave academics a new way to reach the public and expand the impact of their work.
So far Bluesky looks to be the leading Twitter-like alternative, with over 20 million users at the time of this post, and LinkedIn is a well-trodden social territory with around 900 million users to date.
#AcademicTwitter hasn’t gone away yet either, as many remain on X to stay in touch with the follower base they’ve built there and alert followers to their new social media accounts (like many organizations we’ve added Scholastica’s Bluesky handle to our X profile).
Some scholars like Josh Shepperd, a media studies professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and Janet Johnson, author of Political Rhetoric, Social Media and American Presidential Campaigns, have also said they plan to stay on X to remain alert to the information flowing there and engage with a broader audience.
There’s no going back from scholarly social media, it’s just a question of which individual or dispersed social networks folks will gravitate towards and how those networks will evolve. Mark Carrigan, a digital sociologist at the University of Manchester, offered an insightful perspective on the possibilities in this past LSE Impact Blog article.
Only time will tell which direction scholarly and broader social media use will go in. For now, I’m enjoying the blank-slate possibilities that Bluesky has to offer and excited by its potential.
We invite you to connect with Scholastica on Bluesky here, and we’d love to hear your thoughts on this topic in the comments below or on social media!
