By Phil Spalding

cambolc.co.uk,  LinkedIn, BlueSky, Facebook

Brand association is a critical business consideration whether you are one person or 10,000 people. The Brand I am concerned about is mine Cambridge Online Learning Community. It has to be said that my previous public social media account @cambolc on Twitter, lately X has some ethical and trust issues. For instance I would not want my account to suddenly become associated with a hate group owing to X’s moderation processes in the name of free speech (cost cutting). Another valid reason is that I would rather not have my data used to train XAI, now that X has been sold by Elon Musk to; Elon Musk. How that works and the value goes up I am not sure. So for the feel good factor of ethics and basically not sure if X will be a permanent part of the landscape of social media I am discontinuing although not shutting down my use of X. I would shut down if I could but I have difficulty logging in and resetting my password. I can’t. So leaving behind 2400 followers. I am fine with this. So Bluesky from now on.

Having been an early adopter of twitter I was struck how much Bluesky appeals to my social media skill set . Being familiar with the Twitterverse makes the transition to the Bluesky format very easy. I have also discovered the associated app Skylight which integrates Instagram/TikTok/YouTubeShort style videos directly into the Bluesky feed. I recommend checking it out as it is still in it’s early days.

Now begins the hard work of producing interesting content and finding the right hashtag. I like the Starter Pack feature of Bluesky. I have produced my own starter pack. Starter packs are basically a way of curating your most related Bluesky accounts together and sharing these in one hit. As the NBA season is starting and my surname is Spalding, a brand intimately associated with Basketball, so I just had to click on Bluesky NBA Starter Pack.

So far I have attracted 270 followers. So I am going back and revisiting my journey to 2400 followers that I had or have (?) on twitter. The techniques I used have prompted me to go back to the training materials I used back in the day from Google Digital Garage. I might even have the certificate pof completion somewhere.

In conclusion, although my initial reason for adopting Bluesky was the desire to get away from Twitter/X, I am enjoying the experience and am having far fewer issues (none so far) than I do with X.

If you have liked this post please follow on Bluesky or Skylight App, the user id is @cambolc. Or you can scan the QR Code below for my starter pack if you are already on Bluesky. Look forward to hearing from you as we journey into the Bluesky!