About Social Posting (2024 Edition)

I'm seeing lots of new people joining Bluesky and Threads, and people asking about the difference between them. I consider the current top three platforms to be Bluesky, Threads and Mastodon. A major factor in deciding which platforms to use is which conversation you want to be in and who you want to follow.

Tip: You might find yourself jumping between places to see all the people you want. Try OpenVibe for cross-posting to Bluesky, Mastodon, and Threads and reading Bluesky and Mastodon together in one timeline. (Threads isn't included in the OpenVibe timeline yet, but maybe that will be added in the future).

In 2022, I wrote a guide that was hopefullly simple, but also thorough, about backing up your Twitter account and moving to the Fediverse, mainly Mastodon. Since then, Twitter has become X and the social text posting landscape for "microblogs" has changed. This week, a Terms of Service update is expected to give X permission to use your posts for training AI models. Many people are fully deactivating their Twitter accounts amidst the TOS change on November 15, 2024.

What's the difference between Mastodon, Bluesky, and Threads? Theoretically, these are all part of the decentralized Fediverse, but Threads is tied to Instagram and Bluesky's At protocol doesn't currently have a way to use it that doesn't involve Bluesky.

Mastodon vs Bluesky vs Threads Comparison Chart

Mastodon Bluesky Threads
How to sign up Sign up at the website of any Mastodon server you choose Sign up at bsky.app Go to threads.net and sign in with an Instagram account
usernames look like @yourname@servername.com @yourdomain.com or @username.bsky.social @yourname@threads.net or just shown as @yourname within Threads
Character limit 500 (Character limit is set by each server, but the default is 500 characters.) 300 500
verification Set up links with rel=me in them using your domain name as a username Be verified on Instagram
feed Reverse-chronological feed of things you follow. (users, hashtags, groups). Nothing "suggested", except reposts from people you follow(called "boosts"). Home feed shows people you are following and their activity. There is an option to create custom "feeds" based on lists or things like an OnlyPosts feed, which "For you" feed is the default and uses an algorithm to choose the posts you are shown. Click the "following" feed to see only people you follow.
tags Hashtags are supported and very important for discoverability. Hashtag support was added February 2024 One tag per post is supported, making tags more like categories
owned by The Mastodon open source project is run by a non-profit, and your instance is owned by whoever runs that server. Bluesky, the company, is a Public Benefit LLC. Though Jack Dorsey funded Bluesky, he is not involved in day-to-day development and no longer sits on the company’s board. The CEO of Bluesky is Jay Graber. Meta/Facebook
federation and decentralization ActivityPub allows Mastodon accounts to communicate with lots of other ActivityPub-Pixelfedenabled software on the fediverse, such as Pixelfed, an Instagram-style server as well as other Microblogging variants and many WordPress blogs. Bluesky uses AT protocol. This could provide decentralized federation in the future, but there are not any AT protocol choices besides Bluesky yet. Technically using ActivityPub, federation is in beta and Threads users must enable sharing on the fediverse.

More tips

If there are people that you want to follow for their writing, check for their websites, join their email lists, subscribe to their blogs and newsletters. People like authors, historians, and journalists often have things like these.

Have your own website or homepage, even if it's just a simple page or a link tree. Include the link in your social bio so people can find all the places to follow you. Having your own domain name is best(I recommend porkbun.com for domain registration).

Mastodon

You'll need to sign up for an account on a Mastodon server of your choosing, also called an instance. Before you sign up, please check the server's about page and check out their rules to make sure it's a good fit. I suggest also looking at their local timeline to see what kinds of posts are being made. Mastodon isn't the only choice for your ActivityPub-enabled presence, but it's currently the most popular. With a Mastodon account, you can follow people using other server types like Pixelfed or Sharkey.

How do I choose a Mastodon server?

You'll find many Mastodon instances listed on the Join Mastodon server list or Fedi Garden. Here's a short list of server options - I follow people on all of these servers, or have an account there myself.

How to use Mastodon / Mastodon Apps

More Mastodon Tips

It's easy to become verified on Mastodon. If you have a website, add the link to your Mastodon bio, and link back to your Mastodon profile on your website using rel=me in the link.

Bluesky

To get started on BlueSky, sign up at bsky.app

How to use Bluesky

Bluesky usernames are domain names. If you have a domain name, you can set your domain as your username. You should do this if you can, as it is a form of verification. You can also use a subdomain as a username.

Bluesky has some interesting features like starter packs that people make to help you find people you might want to follow, and the ability to make custom feeds or follow feeds made by others.

Threads

To start using threads, go to threads.net or the Threads app and sign in with your Instagram account. Currently, you can't sign up to just Threads. You'll need to make an Instagram account first if you don't already have one.

The biggest benefit of Threads is that most people already had an Instagram account, so it was pretty easy to get a huge influx of users right away, and everyone already had friends there.

Threads is meant to be a federated service built on ActivityPub, able to communicate with Mastodon and the like. But actual federation is in beta, and users need to enable sharing on the fediverse to use it. If you enable fediverse sharing, people on Mastodon will be able to follow you at @username@threads.net.

How to use Threads