Getting off Facebook: A practical guide to Bluesky

Bluesky: the Twitter rebuild that learned from Twitter's mistakes — including the algorithm.

This is the second in a two-part series on leaving Facebook. Part One covers setting up a Mastodon account.

Facebook has become harder to love. The algorithmic manipulation, the surveillance business model, the role it plays in spreading misinformation — many of us have been thinking about leaving for years. The problem is always the same: everyone we know is still there.

This guide is for people who want to leave Facebook — or at least reduce their dependence on it — and want to bring their communities with them. It focuses on Bluesky, one of the two leading alternatives to Facebook and Twitter. (The other, Mastodon, is covered in Part One.)

Bluesky vs. Mastodon: Which One Is Right for You?

Before diving into setup, it helps to understand what makes these platforms different — and why you might want both.

Bluesky feels like Twitter rebuilt from scratch. It's fast-moving, highly customizable, and has attracted a large, politically engaged user base — particularly among progressives who left Twitter after Elon Musk's takeover. If you want to reach a broad audience quickly and are comfortable with a social media feed that resembles what you already know, Bluesky is the easier on-ramp.

Mastodon is something different. It's part of the "Fediverse" — a decentralized network of servers that talk to each other using open standards. There's no single company running it, no algorithm pushing content for engagement, and no venture capital looking for a return. It's slower, more intentional, and rewards a different kind of participation: thoughtful threads, genuine conversation, and community-building over follower counts.

The two platforms don't connect to each other, so you can use both. Many organizers do. But if you're going to invest seriously in one, read on — this guide will walk you through Bluesky from account creation to your first week.

Part One: Creating Your Account

Step 1: Go to bsky.app

Visit https://bsky.app and click "Sign up."

You'll provide an email address, create a password, and choose a username. Bluesky will suggest a handle in the format @yourname.bsky.social — that's fine for most people. (Advanced users can later attach a custom domain as their handle, but that's optional and not something to worry about at the start.)

On usernames: Choose something recognizable — ideally matching your handle on other platforms. Unlike Mastodon, you can change your Bluesky handle later, but starting with something consistent saves confusion.

Step 2: Verify Your Email

Check your inbox and click the confirmation link before doing anything else.

Step 3: Set Up Your Profile

Click your avatar in the bottom left corner (on mobile) or the left sidebar (on desktop), then select Edit profile. The fields that matter most:

Display name — This can be different from your handle and can include spaces. It's what people see in timelines and replies.

Bio — Two to four sentences about who you are and what you post about. Set expectations clearly. Something like:

"Organizer and democracy advocate based in Phoenix. Here for the conversations that matter. I post about civic power, local politics, and building movements that last."

Profile picture — Upload something clear and recognizable, even at small sizes. Use an image at least 400×400 pixels. This is what people see in feeds and replies, so it matters more than your header image.

Banner image — Optional but worth doing. Bluesky uses a 3:1 ratio — 1500×500 pixels works well. A photo, a simple pattern, or a plain color all look fine.

Step 4: Privacy and Notification Settings

Before you start following people, visit Settings (gear icon) and review:

• Who can reply to your posts: Default is "Anybody." You can restrict this to people you follow if you want less noise early on.
• Direct messages: Set who can send you DMs. "People I follow" is a reasonable default.
• Notifications: Turn off email notifications immediately — they become overwhelming quickly.

Part Two: The Follow Problem — and How to Avoid It

This is the lesson most guides skip, and it's the most important one in this article.

When you're new to Bluesky, you'll start getting followers quickly — especially if you've posted an introduction. The instinct is to follow back. Resist it.

Here's why: Bluesky's default "Following" feed is strictly chronological — it shows every post from every account you follow, in the order they were posted. There's no algorithm filtering it down to what's most relevant to you. That means every account you follow adds direct volume to your feed. Follow 500 people — including the accounts that post 20 times a day — and your feed becomes a blur. Follow back indiscriminately, and within weeks you'll have a feed full of strangers whose content you didn't seek out, drowning out the people you actually want to hear from.

The better approach:

Follow people because you want to read their posts — not as a social courtesy. Bluesky culture is not Instagram. People do not generally expect a follow-back. Following someone is a statement about whose voice you want in your timeline, not a transaction.

Before following someone back, look at their profile. Do they post frequently? Is the content relevant to your interests? If you're not sure, don't follow — you can always come back later.

Unfollow freely. If someone you followed turns out to post too frequently or off-topic, unfollow. No notification is sent. No feelings are hurt. Your feed is yours to curate.

Use Lists instead of follows for accounts you want to monitor but not feature in your main feed. Lists let you track what someone posts without adding them to your Following feed. More on this in Part Four.

Already followed too many people? Don't worry — you can recover. Go through your Following list and unfollow liberally. It feels awkward at first, but a clean, intentional feed is worth it. Alternatively, some users start fresh with a new account, being more deliberate the second time around. You're not alone in learning this the hard way.

Part Three: One Account or Two?

If you're using Bluesky both personally and for organizing work, you'll face a choice: one account for everything, or separate accounts?

For most people: one personal account. Bluesky culture, like Mastodon's, expects whole humans. Users post about organizing, personal updates, what they're reading, and whatever else is on their minds — all from the same account. Trying to maintain two personal accounts gets exhausting and splits your audience.

What does make sense is a separate organizational account for any group you lead or coordinate. An Indivisible chapter, a mutual aid network, a campaign — these need their own voice, separate from any individual. Organizational accounts should be:

• Strictly for announcements, events, and calls to action
• Accessible to multiple people in leadership (use a shared password manager)
• Clearly distinct from your personal voice and opinions

On your personal account, mention the org in your bio and repost their posts to amplify reach.

The exception: Create a second personal account if you need a space for close friends and family, separate from your public organizing presence.

Part Four: Building Your Feed Intentionally

Bluesky's real power is in how much control you have over what you see. Used well, it's significantly better than any algorithmic feed. Here's the toolkit:

The Following Feed

This is your default timeline — a chronological list of posts from everyone you follow. Keep it manageable by being selective about who you follow. Think of it as your inner circle: the voices you genuinely want to hear every day.

Custom Feeds

This is Bluesky's best feature. Any user can create a feed — a curated timeline built around specific hashtags, keywords, or accounts — and share it publicly. You can subscribe to other people's feeds and pin them alongside your Following feed.

To find feeds: tap the Feeds icon (or the # symbol on mobile) and browse or search. A few useful ones for organizers and activists to start with:

• Discover — Bluesky's own feed of popular posts from outside your network. Good for finding new people to follow.
• Quiet Posters — Surfaces posts from people you follow who post infrequently. Useful for not losing the voices that get buried.
• News — Posts from news organizations and journalists.

You can also search for feeds built around your specific interests — local community, issue areas, or professional topics.

Starter Packs

Starter Packs are curated collections of accounts (up to 150) grouped around a theme, often with recommended feeds included. They're one of the fastest ways to populate a new account with interesting people to follow.

Find starter packs through the Bluesky Directory (bsky.directory) or when someone shares a link. When you open a starter pack, you can follow all accounts at once or browse and follow selectively. Browse selectively — following all 150 accounts from a starter pack carries the same feed-dilution risk as following back indiscriminately.

Lists

Lists are collections of accounts that generate their own chronological feed — separate from your Following feed. They're ideal for:

• Tracking accounts you want to monitor but not follow (local elected officials, opposition groups, news outlets)
• Creating a focused view for a specific topic or community
• Organizing your follows into categories you can switch between

To create a list: go to your profile, tap the Lists tab, and tap New list.

Part Five: Making Your First Post

Once your profile is set up, write a simple introduction post. Bluesky users use the #Introduction hashtag for this, and it's a genuine way for new arrivals to get discovered.

Something like:

"New to Bluesky. Organizer and democracy advocate from Arizona. Here to connect with people working on civic power, voting rights, and building movements outside surveillance platforms. Still finding my feet — say hello. #Introduction"

Don't overthink it. First posts are low-stakes.

Part Six: Learning Bluesky Culture

Bluesky has its own norms. Arriving aware of them helps.

Things that work here:

• Direct, conversational posts — Bluesky rewards clarity over performance
• Replying to people and having actual back-and-forth conversations
• Sharing links (unlike some platforms, Bluesky does not penalize posts with external links)
• Using hashtags selectively — they're useful for discovery, but Bluesky isn't as hashtag-dependent as Mastodon
• Reposting (boosting) with a comment to add context

Things that don't land well:

• Engagement bait ("Repost this if you agree!")
• Automatic cross-posting from other platforms with no adaptation — people can tell, and it signals you're not really present
• Expecting rapid follower growth from passive posting
• Treating follows as social obligations

A note on content warnings: Unlike Mastodon, Bluesky does not have a built-in content warning system for text posts. You can add a content warning to images and videos. For sensitive text topics, the common practice is simply to be clear in your first sentence — something like "Strong take on the immigration situation:" — so people know what they're getting before reading further.

Part Seven: Your First Week

Keep it light. Here's a simple framework:

Day 1: Make your introduction post. Find one or two relevant starter packs and follow accounts selectively. Subscribe to two or three custom feeds.

Days 2–7: Post two or three things — a link to something interesting, a short thought, a reaction to something in the news. Reply to a few people. See what the culture feels like.

Don't do yet: Announce your Facebook departure. Import all your Twitter follows at once. Stress about follower counts.

You're in what might be called "parallel play" mode — low pressure, just learning. Give it room to develop before you make any decisions about how much to invest here.

A Note on Migration Strategy

No one moves their social world overnight. A realistic timeline looks something like this:

Months 1–3: Set up your account, learn the culture, post lightly, build a small following. Stay on Facebook in parallel.

Months 4–9: Begin inviting your Facebook contacts to find you on Bluesky. Start cross-posting major announcements manually. Observe which communities form where.

Months 9–15: Shift more of your organizing energy to Bluesky. Reduce Facebook activity. Evaluate what's working.

Month 15+: You'll know whether Bluesky is your primary platform, a secondary one, or part of a multi-platform strategy. You don't need to decide that now.

The goal isn't to delete Facebook tomorrow. It's to build something outside their walls so that when you're ready to leave — or if Facebook makes the decision for you — you have somewhere to go, and your community is there waiting.

Sharing Your Bluesky Handle

Your Bluesky handle looks like this:

@yourname.bsky.social

Share it in your email signature, on Facebook while you're still there, in newsletters, and anywhere else people might want to find you. Your profile is also accessible as a direct link:

https://bsky.app/profile/yourname.bsky.social

Go Deeper

• Bluesky's official guide — The basics, straight from the platform.
• Clearsky — A tool for understanding your account and your followers more deeply.
• Deck.blue — A TweetDeck-style multi-column interface for Bluesky, useful once you're managing multiple feeds and lists.

Part One of this series covers creating a Mastodon account — how it differs from Bluesky, when to use each, and how to manage both during your Facebook migration.