Bluesky runs on custom feeds and follows more than on an algorithm guessing what you want, which changes what a good post looks like. You are usually writing to people who chose to see you, plus whoever finds you through a topic feed. Posts that assume a stranger audience read as marketing; posts that assume a room read better.
That means the intro post matters more than it does elsewhere, and so does replying. Most of what happens on Bluesky happens in the replies rather than in reposts.
Introduction posts
- New here. I build things for small businesses and complain about invoicing.
- Intro: cook, gardener, terrible at finishing books. Say hello.
- Joined properly this time. I post about typography and trains.
- Here for the science feeds and the bird photos.
- Photographer, mostly film, mostly badly lit rooms.
- I write about local history. Ask me about anything with a plaque on it.
Opinions and takes
- The best interface improvement of the last decade was undo send.
- Everything good on the internet is a mailing list with extra steps.
- Custom feeds are the actual feature and people keep underrating them.
- Long posts are usually short posts that were not edited.
- A slow feed is a feature.
- Every platform eventually rediscovers chronological order.
Questions
- What is on your custom feed list that nobody else follows?
- Best book you read this year that came out ages ago?
- What is a niche you wish had more people posting about it here?
- What did you switch away from and not miss?
- Recommend me one account.
- What is the most useful thing you learned this month?
Link posts and sharing work
- Wrote something about why this keeps breaking. Link in the reply.
- New post up, about 900 words, no newsletter signup wall.
- Sharing this because it explains a thing I could not.
- Someone made the tool I have wanted for years.
- Reading this today and it is better than the headline suggests.
Building in public
- Shipped a small thing. It took two hours and fixed a two year annoyance.
- Version one is live and slightly embarrassing.
- Spent the day on a bug that turned out to be a typo.
- Rewrote the onboarding. It is now three screens shorter.
- Talked to users this week and half my roadmap was wrong.
Everyday and personal
- Walked five miles for a sandwich and would do it again.
- The garden is winning and I have accepted it.
- Cooking something ambitious on a Tuesday for no reason.
- The cat has claimed the desk chair permanently.
- Cold morning, good coffee, nothing else planned.
- Found a record shop I did not know about.
Replies and community
- Adding a data point to this from my own experience.
- Disagreeing gently, because the exception matters.
- This thread is the best thing I have read here in weeks.
- Boosting because more people should see it.
- Happy to answer questions about this if anyone has them.
Photos and small posts
- One photo, no caption, from a walk this morning.
- The same window every month for a year.
- Film scans from a roll I forgot about.
- Bird on a fence, and that is the whole post.
- The garden in the rain, again.
- Bookshelf reorganized, opinions welcome.
- A very good sandwich, documented.
How to pick one
Start with the intro post, and make it specific about topics rather than titles, because people find each other through subjects here. After that, alternate between things you know and things you are curious about; an account that only broadcasts gets quiet fast on a network where replies drive discovery. Front-load the actual point, since there is no room for a wind-up. Reply to people for at least as long as you post, and put links in the post itself rather than hiding them, because the reply-with-link habit mostly annoys readers. If you are posting the same idea to several networks, the AI social media post generator will adapt the tone, and the content pillar generator helps if you cannot decide what your account is even about.