Charities, their leaders and many other social media users have joined social media platform Bluesky this month, with several leaving X (formerly known as Twitter) in the process.
Disability charity Sense, anti-poverty charity Trussell, Scottish children’s charity Children First are among those that have set up Bluesky accounts in the past week, with the latter announcing its departure from X.
Some new Bluesky users, however, are still dipping their toes, with numerous charities yet to post anything on their new account and many keeping their X profiles.
Bluesky, which opened to the general public in February, grew to more than 20 million users this week after seeing millions of people sign up since the US Election on 5 November, which led some X users to consider their continued use of the Elon Musk-owned X platform.
A foot in both camps
Damian Field, head of media and campaigns at Sense, said the charity is “excited to join Bluesky” but has kept an X profile.
“The platform offers a growing space for connection, advocacy and engagement,” he said.
Explaining Sense’s reasons for staying on the Musk-owned platform, he said: “Many disabled people depend on X as a vital space for connection, mutual support and advocacy.
“We believe that abandoning the platform now risks further marginalising those who already face significant barriers to participation in public debate.
“We will continue to monitor developments on X and evaluate whether our presence aligns with our values and mission.”
Jewish security charity CST also began posting on Bluesky this week and has kept its X account.
Asked why it had joined the new platform, a spokesperson simply told Civil Society: “If our audience are now engaging and posting with BlueSky, then it’s a channel we need to have a presence on.”
Taking a leap
Other charities have taken the leap and left X altogether, even if it meant sacrificing a large number of social media followers.
Children First announced this week that it was leaving X because it wants to debate and discuss the challenges Scottish children face “in an environment that is respectful, tolerant and solution focused”.
“We no longer believe that X provides a positive space to achieve our goals to progress children’s rights,” it said in a statement.
“In leaving X we will be losing our largest single social media audience, at a time when children and young people need our support more than ever.”
‘Broadcast rather than engagement’
Cancer Research UK, meanwhile, joined Bluesky over a year ago, when it operated on an invitation-only basis but has increased activity on the platform recently and amassed over 3,000 followers.
Athar Abidi, head of social media at the charity, said: “With increasing numbers of people joining the platform in recent weeks, we felt it was important for us to verify our account and establish our presence there, meeting people where they are.
“We’ve already amassed a considerable following by making the most of ‘starter packs’ available on the platform to find relevant people to follow, who will hopefully want to follow us back, and ensure we’re in the right starter packs ourselves.
“We intend to use Bluesky to raise awareness of our life-saving research, focusing on it as a broadcast rather than engagement channel while we wait and see how things develop.”
‘A good space for charities’
Digital impact consultant Madeleine Sugden, who also joined Bluesky in its early days, said the platform has only “felt like it was a good space for charities” since the end of September this year, with the 5 November US election “an extra big catalyst”.
She said that many Bluesky users have found the platform to be a “breath of fresh air” in comparison to the “negativity and ugliness” that had increasingly taken place on X.
Accessibility features like encouragements for users to include alt text for partially sighted people have also pleased new users of Bluesky, she said.
Sugden has produced lists of charity sector people to follow on Bluesky and recommends that all charities should consider joining, if they are not yet ready to use it fully.
She has already filled one starter pack list of 150 charity users but has also found over 50 charities that have set up a Bluesky account, but not yet posted.
One reason for doing this, she said, is to set up a placeholder account to prevent others from posting in your charity’s name.
However, she said, charities should look to verify their new account and tell followers in other social media channels which Bluesky handle is theirs.
Bluesky appears to be in a honeymoon period with its charity users and others at the moment, but it remains to be seen whether it can retain its popularity and avoid some of the same problems that X has experienced as it continues to grow.
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