The landscape for social media platforms has undergone a lot of changes in the last few years. In the rush, a few new platforms have risen to the surface. Check out this mini guide to some of these new platforms, and some best practices to help you find your footing if your curiosity is piqued!
Bluesky and Mastodon
Bluesky is a short-form text-based platform. It was launched by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, and happens to look and feel much like that app—even sporting a similar blue and white color scheme. The things that set it apart are its major calling cards: a more user-centric experience, strong community guidelines, and a “decentralized” platform. One major benefit is their ethos around algorithms. If you are burnt out on trying to crack the logic of how content shows up in your feed or the feeds of others, Bluesky may be right for you, as it allows users to curate their own feeds.
Mastodon, another decentralized, short-form text-based platform, is often compared to Bluesky. It is a not-for-profit organization funded by donations and cares deeply about data privacy. Users can host their own servers and set their own community guidelines within them. Truthfully, many of the differences between these platforms are too technical for our purposes here, but if you are interested, check out Bluesky’s and Mastodon’s respective blogs.
For an author’s purposes, the major difference between Bluesky and Mastodon is audience. Mastodon has a much smaller, intimate feel. It also upholds itself as the go-to app for journalists, and it has launched some specialized features to help journalists promote their work and to show other works from their publication. Bluesky has a bigger user base, with 3.2 million daily active users and a wider audience of authors, celebrities, influencers, artists, and journalists as well. They also have a growing reader community at #booksky. Overall, I’d recommend either if you are looking to take more control over your experience on social media. If you find the landscape a little daunting, you’ll like the smaller feel of either app.
Lemon8
If you are familiar with TikTok then you may have heard a bit about this one. Lemon8 is another social media platform owned by ByteDance, and it feels very much like a hybrid of TikTok and Pinterest. When you log in, this app won’t greet you with an infinite feed of videos to swipe through, like TikTok. Instead, the setup is more like Pinterest’s stacked feed of photos and videos that you can click on to see more. Unlike either, Lemon8 is all about designed posts with catchy hooks to tempt you to click, so expect to find a picture of a book stack plastered with a title like “Thrillers with Crazy Plot Twists” or “Underrated Books I Think Deserve More Attention.”
Users can post on Lemon8 in two of the most popular formats for social platforms right now: videos and photo slideshows. If you’re worried about the stylistic prowess of its users, don’t fret. The app hosts curated templates with fonts, colors, and images you can use to take a basic image and make it look stunning.
While its author audience is still growing, one of Lemon8’s most thriving communities is its readers. The bookish community on this app spans a lot of different genres, with horror, romance, YA, and self-help being some standouts. You can locate these communities at the following hashtags: #Lemon8Bookclub, #bookwormsoflemon8, #lemon8bookchallenge, #bookrecommendations.
My recommendation? If you are a frequent TikTok user—especially one who may want a break from video content—give Lemon8 a look. Not only can you take advantage of the photo slideshow feature, but the apps are directly connected, so you can register with your TikTok account and automatically follow/ be followed by the same accounts across platforms. It’s a helpful boost in finding your footing on a new platform.
As of this writing, the fate of ByteDance’s apps in the United States is still up in the air. Depending on how things go, Lemon8 could be banned. With that in mind, if you do find you enjoy using the platform, make sure to remind your audience what other socials they can find you on, just in case!
Substack
Most people know Substack simply as a newsletter platform, but I’m here to report that it is so much more. Newsletters are an excellent format for authors because they provide a place to connect with your most dedicated fans and readers. Drawbacks are that they can be time-consuming and they aren’t a great vehicle for growing your following. Unlike other social platforms with algorithms that can promote your content, newsletters often need to be promoted elsewhere for anyone to know about them.
While Substack can be used simply as a hosting platform for newsletters, Substack.com and its app open up a whole new user and creator experience. Enter a dashboard curated with all the Substack newsletters you follow and the very “tweet-like” Notes, which allow creators to send short blurbs and promote their own new posts or other posts they enjoyed. The large author presence on the platform provides great cross-promotion opportunities. Additionally, Substack integrates a video feed (much like that of IG Reels), live streaming, and audio.
If you are interested in having paid subscribers, look into Substack’s model for this. They take about 10 percent of each transaction; if that’s a major downside, you may want to check out an alternative platform like Ghost.
If you feel satisfied with the platforms you’re using, you don’t need to pour a lot of energy into these other ones. Social media is a game best played by not spreading yourself too thin. However, if any of these seems interesting to you, the best advice I can give is to make an account and start off by feeling it out! Don’t jump to creating content out of the gate—spend your time following accounts you find interesting for inspiration and getting comfortable with the landscape. The benefit of joining these platforms now is that everyone is still finding their footing to a degree. The opportunities to make connections and feel part of the community are much easier to find under these circumstances, so I encourage you to hop right in!
Jacky Bethea is the Associate Manager of Author Development at Penguin Random House.