Bluesky versus Twitter: Engagement Fight

Monday night I had my biggest “hit” on Bluesky. I had been tipped about a forthcoming hyponatremia meta-analysis in JAMA Internal Medicine at Kidney Week and so I was primed when it was posted to the JAMA website Monday evening. As soon as I saw it I posted to Bluesky:

Honey, stop what you're doing, new hyponatremia research just dropped!What's it say?It looks like slow correction is associated with worse outcomes, like death and length of stay!Was it just a small study?No, it was a meta-analysis of almost 12,000 patients!jamanetwork.com/journals/jam…

— Joel Topf (@kidneyboy.bsky.social) 2024-11-19T04:51:11.204Z

(OMG, it is so cool to be able to embed a tweet in a blog post again!

So at the time of this blog post it has 290 likes, 105 retweets, and 41 replies.

The next morning, I saw that my post was gaining steam, so I copy-pasted to Twitter at 9:30 AM. Later that day Swap saw that I posted in both places and declared Bluesky the winner.

So @kidneyboy.bsky.social has 15 times more followers on Xitter (along with algorithm boosting blue check) versus a ‘BlueSky Elder’ coveted label here Same post comparison below It’s a #BlueSky blowout #NephSky

— Swapnil Hiremath (@hswapnil.bsky.social) 2024-11-19T19:29:08.277Z

But the Bluesky post had a nine hour head start . How does the twitter post look now compared to Bluesky?

The Twitter post has 27 replies compared to 41 on Bluesky. I find replies to be the best form of engagement, Retweets are similar at 105 on Bluesky versus 129 on Twitter, but Twitter’s 603 hearts and 388 bookmarks swamps Bluesky’s 209 hearts.

But it really doesn’t matter. I’m all in on Bluesky. I like the philosophy. I like the aesthetic. And it is where my people are.