I’ve been in Marketing with a capital M for a couple of decades, and have worked on large-scale online campaigns for companies like Taco Bell, Wendy’s McDonalds, Cancer Treatment Centers of America, Dannon, Toyota, and many more. I have experience looking at engagement data for huge companies, and have seen good and poor decisions made across the board as far as online marketing goes. I’ve also experienced the positive effects of a large user reach on platforms like Twitter and Reddit, and have had my content go viral to the point where it is a top trending topic for days. I understand the pull of a promised number of followers, and the years of work and luck it takes to build that following. 30 year olds today were 12 years old when Twitter launched, it is hard to pivot to building another thing. But I’m imploring agencies & publishers that are not migrating away from X because of their follower count to reconsider. Because the follower count and actual follower reach are two different things.
One need only look at the actual engagement numbers. The accounts created on X still exist, but most account owners have stopped regularly using them.
The follower count on X is an accumulated number, not a current one. It’s like the ticker on a turnstile in an abandoned railway station, showing everyone who passed through over 18 years. That number doesn’t mean the station is packed.
During a recent #kidlit pitch event on X (formerly Twitter—I think it is past time to keep calling it that), an account posted horrific, gory photos to the hashtag. Seeing this sort of content in a children’s book event is something that would have caused a huge uproar at one time. But I haven’t seen any mention of the posts or photos anywhere. I have screen captures, I know they were there.
Why are the publishers/media companies/agents & agencies not distancing themselves from an online space where something like this happens? Accepting the unacceptable? The answer I usually get is that they can’t move away from their follower count.
Without naming names, let’s look at the engagement that major publishing industry accounts are truly getting from their followers on X. Below are reply, retweet, like and post reach numbers from a publishing, education, and media company that has built up 236,000 X followers. Their posts nowadays reach only about 0.2% of that—fewer than 1.5k on average, and they typically get less than 10 engagements per post.
This same publisher recently shared a site-wide 40% off sale to their 236,000 X followers, and this is the engagement they had for that announcement:
Five likes and one retweet, despite their hundreds of thousands of followers. When you look at the post engagements, the sole retweet does not actually exist.
If they opened the window of their corporate offices and shouted at people on the street, would they get a better return on their marketing…?
Another publisher has about 37,000 followers on X—here are some of their recent post engagements:
The two retweets are from the author and illustrator of the book being posted about. If you are on X and see a publisher post, click through to see what the reply is. You will often find “whoohoo” or heart emoji ❤️ replies from the mentioned author or illustrator, without any another interaction from the supposed thousands of followers. No shame for any creators, some of my favorites are among these sole responses, and I would do the same. They SHOULD be responding in support of the posts that are made. But are these posts reaching people who are not already aware of the book? Imagine the Beatles posting about their new single and the only person the post reached was Ringo.
Here is another example—this literary agency has about 9,000 X followers. Posts they share (that aren’t RTs from other accounts) are getting <10 engagements, and reach less than 5% of their follower count.
Here is another fairly well-known literary agency on X, with about 6,200 followers. Even their best-performing posts reach <10% of their followers, and have fewer than 20 engagements.
Is this marketing that works? Is the return on time and effort worth loyalty to a platform where grisly photos are posted to #kidlit-related hashtags? How many of a publisher’s or agency’s followers on X are actual human beings, interested in and capable of buying books? How many followers look like this?
What do engagements even look like for these big X accounts anymore? How many “likes” are starting to come from accounts like these?
How many replies look like the troll gibberish under this post?
All of this garbage ad content pours into #kidlit community hashtags and pitch events:
Automated bots even hijack the picture book events on X to share twisted “AI” book pitches:
Imagine an agent or editor having to sift through this nonsense to find a worthwhile pitch. And again, the horrors of war hijacked the hashtag during the final #pbpitch and posted gruesome, nightmarish photographs of children alongside picture book pitches for children’s stories.
Look at the engagement yourself for kidlit accounts. Pay attention to the volume and interactions they get. If you click through to view the handful of replies and retweets on posts, you will find most are from the authors and illustrators of the books mentioned, employees/other divisions of the same company, a few friends or family, bots or trolls. Not users that you would want to PROMOTE to.
https://x.com/penguinkids
https://x.com/simonkids_U
https://x.com/MacmillanKidsUK
https://x.com/HarperCollinsCh
https://x.com/Scholastic
https://x.com/scbwi
Why Bluesky?
Social media fatigue has set in for many people, and chasing down what the next big thing will be is exhausting. But instead of chasing down the next big thing, expecting it to be automatic, why not join in and help build a new community that works the way social media used to, connecting people? That’s what Twitter was 10-12 years ago, users building a following and trying new things, like chat events and pitch parties. The platform didn’t create those, it merely enabled users to make them happen. If more corporate and agency accounts put the effort into building a following on Bluesky, where there are already thousands of kidlit creators and agents interacting and building a framework to succeed, the positive feeling of discovery through connecting online can return. And you can curate your own content there, without an algorithm deciding what you should see.
Regaining a following is not automatic there, but with the new feeds and lists (ex: Agents, Editors, Illustrators, Kidlit Community, Librarians) that users have created (that contain THOUSANDS of Kidlit-related users posting fantastic content), people WILL find you if you post even a little genuine content and use a #kidlit hashtag. Users have already primed the pump for you.
Case in point—@andreabrownlit.bsky.social recently embraced Bluesky (Jennifer Laughran has been amazing in spearheading this shift), and has just 1.4k followers there as of this post. But ABLA’s recent announcement of their 2nd Chance Inbox already has 139 engagements. That means 10% of their Bluesky followers engaged with their post. Their most recent non-retweet on X had 5 engagements, just 0.022% of their follower count.
Look through the 139 engagements on that Bluesky post—those are from REAL people, relevant to their interests. ABLA has even made a list of their agents on Bluesky, to make it easy for everyone to connect with them.
Mallory Grigg, Senior Art Director at MacKidsBooks, recently posted a call for illustrators on both X and Bluesky at the same time. She has 9,133 followers on X, and just 874 followers on Bluesky. Look at the engagement numbers for each platform.
On X:
Looking through her 46 replies on X, there are 25 responses, two of which are ads, before you get to the responses labelled as “Probable Spam.”
There are legitimate responses that are unexplainably in this spam category, and the rest of the replies are hidden with this warning:
On Bluesky, where she has only 9.5% of the follower count that she has on X, her engagement is actually higher:
The 36 responses to her post on Bluesky have no ads or spam, and there is nothing that could be labelled as offensive content, but there are illustrators sharing samples, attempts to be helpful by referring indigenous artists, and a recommendation for finding the illustrator she’s looking for on the Cartoonist of Color database.
Engagements on X total 3.5% of Mallory’s follower count, while the engagements on Bluesky were 43.2% of her follower count there. Bluesky delivered 378 total engagements, while X delivered 320. Consider what the support of a MacKidsBooks presence on Bluesky might have achieved.
I’ve worked in marketing long enough to know that decision makers often look for receipts rather than results. It’s easy to impress the boss with a big number, and X counts on that. But marketing teams, agents and editors need to convince the decision makers to INTERPRET the data, instead of looking at hollow follower numbers. I believe they will find that the right thing to do completely coincides with the SMART thing to do.
Several of us who have been recommending Bluesky have been receiving pushback that amounts to “The agents aren’t there,” “the publishers aren’t there,” “the schools and libraries aren’t there.”
Why not? Tell them to migrate over. They are posting on X, spending time, effort and marketing paychecks to reach a minimal amount of users who may or may not even exist, and getting the sort of response a flyer on a coffee shop bulletin board would get, if soulless robots drank coffee. If they get their teams to join Bluesky and actually interact with their community, the return would be better, the community would benefit, and their presence will draw more truly engaging followers to the platform.
Gina Perry has even moved her popular #kidlitartpostcard event exclusively to BlueSky and Cara, and it was a great success, with 192 artists posting their art on BlueSky for the 1st event there!
It’s not just Kidlit where these engagement numbers are happening—check this thread about climate science from Katherine Hayhoe, which even breaks down the percentage of negative engagement her post received on each platform:
Why Not …Threads?
Threads does indeed have a lot of users registered, having been easy to onboard for anyone already connected to Facebook and Instagram. But it presents the same issues, particularly for Kidlit creators, that Facebook and Instagram have. Artists don’t want their images used for as fodder for AI learning. The algorithm favors clickbait over conversation. Engagement is lower than on Bluesky, despite Thread’s claim of 175 million users. And the release of Threads in the European Union was postponed amid regulatory uncertainty about how the app will use personal data. Sounds delightful, right?
I informally asked Bluesky users why they were drawn to Bluesky over Threads, and was surprised there were fewer answers about the copyright/AI/privacy issues, and the overwhelming response was Thread’s negativity:
“I really struggle with all the negativity and gossip“
“My Threads is constantly showing me book drama…”
“…started off positive but quickly began to feel like drama and negativity was what drove the algorithm…”
“The threads preview on my IG is always showing me book industry drama and just generally bad vibes.”
“Threads is just an off shoot of Instagram and I find it an hostile environment…”
“Bsky feels more positive / craft / art-focused. Threads feels like a whole pile of drama and I don’t need more!”
Bluesky has a great art community, and it is a safer space for LGBTQ+ people too.”
“More community focus.”
“Better control, to see what you actually want—like all the great feeds…”
“So much positive energy here. I haven’t felt this kind of joy in a long time. Great kidlit crowd. Lots of creative vibes.”
My personal observation is that the platform believes its users would rather see Nestle get in a flame war with Wendy’s or Weird Al Yankovic, and not show the users you really want to follow in a chronological timeline. It’s what a non-Twitter user thinks Twitter was all about.
What Can You Do?
What can you do to get your agency, publishers, SCBWI, school, library, colleagues, etc. to make the change? Share this information with them—refer them to the feeds, lists and starter packs that have been created to help with onboarding. Email decision makers, your agent, publisher, art directors. Recommend they check out Debbie Ohi and her tutorials, Charlene Chua’s illustrator Starter Packs, and my guides for kidlit and the Kidlit Mega Feed.
Tell them they are playing an empty arena on X when they could be playing Bluesky’s packed ballroom.
