A tale of two posts: Tracking views when crossposting from Micro.Blog

There’s been some discussion on Micro.Blog lately about the absence of likes and other typical social media features. I wanted to look at my experience with two recent posts and what they tell us about how posts are viewed on social media. My posts are shared to three timelines:1

  • Micro.Blog (No follower count)
  • Bluesky (198 followers)
  • Threads (420 followers)

As far as I can tell, the vast majority of my posts get limited to no engagement. Micro.Blog offers no engagement metrics. Bluesky shows likes and comments. Threads offers “Insights” on each post that includes engagement metrics.

Post #1: World Cup Watch Party

Social media post about Brazil-Morocco World Cup watch party.

The first was a post about accidentally landing in the middle of a Brazil-Morocco World Cup watch party.

  • On Micro.Blog, I got no comments.
  • On Bluesky, I got one like from a person I did not follow at the time.
  • On Threads, I got 1,074 likes and 24 comments on 13,051 views. Here’s the interesting part… only 83 of those views were from my followers.

Post #2: Slate’s Final Price

Social media post about Slate

The second was a comment on the Slate truck…

  • On Micro.Blog, it sparked a conversation and at least one other post.
  • On Bluesky, I got one like from someone that doesn’t follow me.
  • On Threads, I got a like and a reply on 31 views, only 6 views from followers.

Clearly, if you want people to engage with your posts, the Threads algorithm can provide an audience. Bluesky didn’t generate much activity on either post, but I assume more than one person saw them. For the Slate post, Micro.Blog actually generated a conversation, and another blog post from one of the participants. I decided to follow up with a longer post as well.

These three timelines are different. I use them for different purposes. Is the Micro.Blog timeline quiet? Sure, but it’s full of unique and distinct voices including many I follow from Mastodon. I use Threads to follow pop culture, F1, WNBA, local news, and more. Bluesky has a bunch of academic and political experts that I enjoy following. Each timeline has a purpose. And the character of each is derived from the design of each service.

If I wanted to go all in on metrics, I’d be posting regularly to Facebook (823 friends), Instagram (707 followers), or LinkedIn (750 connections). I wouldn’t have deleted my Twitter account with over 1000 followers. But that’s not why I post on my blog.

I don’t think we’ll ever have a single dominant social media platform. The reality is that I’ve always had two or three different social media channels at a time. In the early days, I used Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. I still use three — Micro.Blog, Threads and Bluesky — but my current setup works better for me because everything is hosted on Micro.Blog and crossposted to other services. I value having all of my content on a single site.

We all use social media for different purposes. One great thing about today’s social media is that we have choices, but having more social media channels available means it’s harder to focus on a single outlet that meets all our needs. Each platform makes decisions that shape the experience, and that’s especially true in the case of Micro.Blog. In fact, I almost wrote a paper for a Ph.D.-level PR theory class a couple of years ago about how Micro.Blog’s structure aligns with Kent & Taylor’s framework for creating dialogic social media. Maybe someday, I’ll get around to writing it.

Bob Wertz is a type designer, Ph.D. student and researcher living in Columbia, South Carolina. He’s been blogging since 2008.

  1. Honestly, four. I still share to Mastodon, but I don’t have any followers over there and don’t expect any engagement. ↩︎

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