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Twitter used to be fun. It used to be my go-to community for real-time reaction to news and sports. Now, it’s mostly useless unless you are looking for Christian Nationalist documentaries or crypto scams. I find myself scrolling through dozens of those just to get a single person I follow or whose name I recognize.
Following Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter, plenty of developers and companies decided they could capitalize on the blowback. Mastodon and Discord were too complicated, Threads was largely useless, and things like Facebook and Tumblr were just old news.
Over the weekend though, something interesting happened. Bluesky is in the middle of its breakthrough moment, having added over 1 million new users since the election. On Saturday morning, I logged on and noticed several accounts posting screenshots showing that the app had become the most popular download in the social media section of The App Store. So what is happening and how should the sports media industry prepare?
Gabby Hinslif of The Guardian theorized that this is not the beginning of the end of Twitter for everyone. That site will still have a place for those that want their jokes about Mike Tyson’s ass with a heaping side of paid posts for alt-right newsletters and t-shirts that will never show up.
Hinslif’s theory is that the Pangea era of social media is over. Rather than the rise of one platform being signs of another’s demise, we are simply fracturing. In time, it will be hard for any one platform, particularly the microblogging sites like Twitter and Bluesky, to be thought of as everyone’s go-to digital townsquare.
What does that mean for those of us in the content business? It depends on the approach you want to take. Do you want to focus on your most dedicated audience or do you want the best chance to be seen by everyone?
Elon Musk bought Twitter with a single goal – make it worse. In service of that mission, he boosted the reach of his own Tweets, rewarded clickbait without bothering to moderate, and turned the blue checkmark from a sign that you were reading content and stories from a reliable, first-person source into a pay-for-play scheme that meant most people would never see any commentary or dialogue of value on the site again.
In short, he was wildly successful and threw in a little election meddling and anti-semitism just for goofs. If that’s enough to make you wash your hands of Twitter, I do not blame you.
I would note that in the content world, eyeballs are important. We all use social media to steer audiences to what we have created. Algorithms are constantly in flux and Mark Zuckerberg was quick to follow Musk down the path of pay-for-play verification and reach, so we can debate just how effective the practice is though.
What we can say definitively is that Twitter is not very popular when compared to Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube. The competition Twitter directly inspired (ie Bluesky) is even less popular. That means there is no “one size fits all” strategy to follow.
Are you promoting with just links? It seems like that was already ineffective, even at the peak of Twitter’s popularity. Are you using videos? If so, do Twitter or Bluesky even make sense? The reach is much greater on TikTok and Instagram.
Maybe the most effective thing you can do as a content creator is to forget about Twitter or any of its alternatives. Stay on the platforms you want to and interact with whoever you think is worth your time. Just don’t count on any of it to be particularly meaningful, especially not in the way Twitter used to be.
These microblogging sites are all about building and curating a community. That’s true for everyone from the guy with three followers all the way up to the Adam Schefters and Dave Portnoys of the world. Logging on only to promote isn’t going to motivate an audience.
Rifting has begun. At best, social media Pangea is on its last legs. It’s time to make a hard choice. Does your content play best with like-minded people? Would the best use of what little time you have be to stick to them or do you want to be transcontinental in this new world? If so, you need to know who you are talking to and what is going to give you the best chance to cut through with them. Links just don’t cut it anymore.
Demetri Ravanos is a columnist and features writer for Barrett Media. He is also the creator of The Sports Podcast Festival, and a previous host on the Chewing Clock and Media Noise podcasts. He occasionally fills in on stations across the Carolinas in addition to hosting Panthers and College Football podcasts. His radio resume includes stops at WAVH and WZEW in Mobile, AL, WBPT in Birmingham, AL and WBBB, WPTK and WDNC in Raleigh, NC.
You can find him on Twitter @DemetriRavanos or reach him by email at DemetriTheGreek@gmail.com.
