Social Media Plans for 2025

Social Media Plans for 2025

We’re working on our plans for post-Google and post-Twitter publishing. I thought to share them with you, so you can see what we’re doing, why and tell me in the comments what I might have overlooked.

The post-Google future

Google is causing headaches for people. The difficulties are coming from a couple of directions. Giant Freakin Robot has discussed their problems with getting search traffic from Google. From the other direction, people may not even get to Google’s search results, because Google is reading websites and regurgitating the answers through its own AI. This doesn’t always produce accurate results, but it does keep people on site where they can sell adverts.

We’re funded to promote botany. We don’t need to sell adverts here to exist. While it helps show our funders we’re getting use, you could read us on another host and we’d still be doing the job we’re funded for. So our plan is, if we can, to post items directly onto social media items as threads, chains of posts put together, as well as here. We can track use to a degree by using the botany.fyi links as a counter, with the exception of Bluesky, which is more difficult.

Visitor numbers on the weblog are nice for the ego, but if it’s more useful for you to see news inline with other items on social media, then it makes sense for it to appear there as well. It’s helpful to remember it’s your use of what we do that matters, not our use figures.

We can’t post everything directly to social media. As you’ll see, this post gets a bit long.

The post-Twitter future

We can post threads to Mastodon, Threads and with some effort to Bluesky, whose 300 character limit is a nuisance compared to Mastodon and Threads’ 500 character limits. Twitter, with 280 characters, would be even more difficult. It would also be pointless as Twitter throttles posts with links in. So does Threads to a degree, but nothing like as much as Twitter, which is approaching Facebook levels of throttling.

Putting aside any ethical concerns about Twitter, we’re now paying for tools to post items to Twitter, where they won’t be seen, or else manually spending time to post items that get swatted. I sometimes get things wrong, and so do all the other authors here. It’s important that you can see the papers we’re talking about. That’s not likely to happen with Twitter. It’s not that no-one will see us on Twitter, but rather the time and/or money spent reaching those people could probably be better spent elsewhere. If you do have ethical concerns, then you need a very good reason to remain on Twitter.

Your situation is likely to be different, so there may be good reasons to remain on Twitter, or reasons you left much sooner. For us, we’ve remained on Twitter to point out where we’re moving to. Originally our posts gave directions on where to find us on Mastodon, Threads and Bluesky. More recently, it’s just been Bluesky as that’s the site most like Twitter for people to move to. We’ve made a note on the News in Brief articles that they are cross-posted to Bluesky, Mastodon and Threads, so people coming across from Twitter can see other sites have advantages.

We think most of our active Twitter followers have got the message, so we can either freeze or delete the account. The Twitter account will remain up until at least the New Year, after which I’ll be looking to delete it, unless someone can suggest a very good reason not to. My view is we don’t belong there anymore and, if we’re no longer trying to aid people leave the site, we don’t need to be there.

Moving to Bluesky

One of the reasons people don’t want to leave Twitter is losing their network, which I sympathise with. I think it’s one of the reasons that mass adoption of Mastodon didn’t happen, because it can be difficult to find people there. Bluesky has eased some of this problem with Starter Packs.

Starter Packs are collections of accounts and feeds, bundled together that you can sign up to in one go. Click on a starter pack, and you’ll have a bunch of like-minded people to follow and give you something to see in your following feed. For example, here’s a starter pack of botanical journals, we’ve put together. Join using this, and you’ll be following Annals of Botany, New Phytologist, Nature Plants and others. But you don’t only have to use one starter pack, and you’d be missing out on a lot if you did. I’ve added a list of starter packs to the end of this post.

You can take a bit of Twitter with you

We’re not aiming to bring across our Twitter archive. For journals there is value, if you’ve used direct links or DOIs to link to your papers. Pulling across your Twitter archive will mean Altmetric will credit you with Bluesky links. The way to do this is through using BlueArk. You download your Twitter archive and hand it over to BlueArk who will upload it to your account. This isn’t as risky as it sounds, as Bluesky allows you to create and rescind passwords for specific apps.

For connections, the Sky Follower Bridge extension on Chrome will help find the people you follow on Bluesky and connect you to them. This is probably an extension that gets more useful as more people join. Though it’s also the kind of tool that could be shut down on the whim of the tool running Twitter.

Another way to find people is through @theo.io’s Bluesky Network Analyser. Enter your handle @botanyfan.bsky.social or whatever and click ‘analyze’. This will start looking to see who the people you follow are following. The magic happens when you select the ‘Sort by proportion’ option. This highlights the accounts that people you follow follow, and that other people tend not to. Basically it finds people in your niche, and it’s a great way of finding smaller, but important, accounts.

The Bluesky Algorithm(s)

There is no fundamental algorithm on Bluesky. The people you see in your following feed are the people you follow. Their posts are ordered from most recent, and descending. What happens if you take some days off, do you have to scroll through all the posts to see if you’ve missed something? No.

As well as the Following feed, you can also follow custom feeds. These can have an algorithm. An example is Plant Science Pulse. This is a feed of people posting with the #Botany, #PlantScience or #PlantBiology hashtags. But remembering to use hashtags each time is a pain, so we also automatically include people on the Botany Auto list. Not everything these people post is Botany, but the posts most likely to rise to the top of the algorithms are botany-based. Plant Science Pulse shuffles these posts to find the posts from the last 24 hours that are most liked and reposted. Another feed is Botany Reposted which takes the feeds from the same source from the past 48 hours and orders them by reposts descending.

While we’re seeing plenty of starter packs, so far there’s not so much activity around feeds, beyond some comparatively simple hashtag and word searches. I’m looking into how I can open up management of Pulse and Reposted, so it’s easier to add people into the feeds.

We’re not just on Bluesky

We plan to stay on LinkedIn, Mastodon, and Threads for the foreseeable future, along with auto-posting to Facebook. The reason for the focus on Bluesky is that it is so much more open and searchable than the other networks, which makes it easier to keep up to date with what is being shared.

Mastodon is a good network, but is built more around privacy for understandable safety reasons. There is exchange of ideas on Mastodon, but remembering to use the right hashtag is critical there, which isn’t friendly with how the casual user uses social media. Threads is a puzzle. I know some people like it, but to me it feels like it’s waiting for the ads to turn up. In theory, thanks to ActivityPub, we only need to be on just one of Threads and Mastodon, but in reality there’s quite a divide in culture so for now we’ll remain on both.

I’d like to find a workflow that helps information pass between the networks, so an interesting comment on one network gets seen on the others. This will take a little time. We have been posting the same information out across all networks before, which is a lot simpler than mentally juggling multiple independent networks.

While we’re leaving Twitter, you don’t have to

Botany One is leaving Twitter because it’s the best thing for us to do. It might not be the best thing for you to do. Some of the chatter I’ve seen around Twitter is one-upmanship about how soon people found Twitter intolerable and how terrible other people are for stopping there. If Twitter is where your support network is, then you have my sympathy and I understand why you’re there.

I’m still on Facebook. Not often, Facebook moderators have a much greater taste for racism than I do. But a good chunk of my friends are not going to leave. They’re dead. Facebook is where I can go back and see their accounts on special days. I can understand why someone might have a similar relationship with people on Twitter.

I appreciate that a lot of people have an attachment to Twitter in one form or another. Some will be sad we’re leaving. Others, angry that we stayed as long as we did. But to be honest, the network has degraded to the extent that most people won’t notice we’re gone. If we were just leaving Twitter then there wouldn’t be a blog post. However, the other social networks give us an opportunity to try making things a bit better than before, rather than just different, and it’s worth talking about that.

That list of Bluesky starter packs

All starter packs created and curated by the people named with them.

  • Academic Journals – Plant Science & Botany
    by ‪@tkedmunds.bsky.social‬
    Plant Science and Botany-related academic journals, broadly defined. 
    Also available as a feed.
  • Algal Appreciation
    by ‪@brackenlab.bsky.social‬
    Algae in science, art, food, everything!
  • American Phytopathological Society (APS) plus
    by ‪@quesadalabncsu.bsky.social‬
    Follow all the APS and related accounts with one click!
  • Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF)
    by ‪@lizkoziol.bsky.social‬
    Starter pack for everything AM fungi.
    AMF, Mycorrhizae, Plant-fungal relationships, Mutualists, Symbionts, Endomycorrhizal fungi
  • Arctic Plant Ecology and Vegetation change
    by ‪@robertgbjork.bsky.social‬
    People working on plants in the Arctic and are dedicated to understanding how plant communities in the Arctic respond to environmental changes, particularly due to climate change.
  • Aus plant science
    by ‪@hikemaydon.bsky.social‬
    Australian plant scientists, very broadly defined – past, present, future
  • Black Plant Scientists (botany, forestry, etc.)
    by ‪@saralilplants.bsky.social‬
    A starter pack with Black researchers, practitioners and organisations working with plants (e.g. botany, forestry, plant ecology, crop science, herbaria, botanic gardens, etc.)
  • Bluesky Botany
    by ‪@greenwingstours.bsky.social‬
    A curated collection of botanical groups and plant people from around the growbe!
  • Bluesky Botany
    by ‪@miandering.bsky.social‬
    All things Botany and Plant Ecology.
  • Bluesky for Plant Science Researchers Part 1
    Bluesky for Plant Science Researchers Part 2
    by ‪@somssich.bsky.social‬
    This starter pack helps you to immediately connect to #PlantScience Feeds and other Plant Researchers on Bluesky.
  • Botánica en España
    by ‪@adriangr.bsky.social‬
    Starter pack de cuentas con contenido botánico en España. ¡Avisa para añadir más!
  • Botanical Collections
    by ‪@docbroc.bsky.social‬
    Samuel Brockington’s assembly of institutions and people in the botanical collections world: gardens, arboreta, museums, and herbaria
  • Botanical Gardens
    by ‪@jardinbotanicoclm.bsky.social‬
    The Botanical Gardens are on Bluesky!
  • Botanical Starter
    by ‪@shellygaynor.bsky.social‬
    A collection of Botanists to follow!
  • Botanical, Science Illustrators & More!
    by ‪@justintylertate.bsky.social‬
    A starter pack of botanical, science, wildlife, mycological and paleo-illustrators, doing what they do in a variety of media: digital, water colour, pencil crayon, et cetera. 
  • British and Irish Lichenologists
    by ‪@aspenecology.com‬
    Everyone lichen in Great Britain and Ireland. Get in touch with me @aspenecology.com if you should be in this starter pack, but I’ve inadvertently missed you out! Likewise if you’d like to be removed.
  • Bryology
    by ‪@bryomedina.bsky.social‬
    People and accounts fond of bryophyte research, identification, photography, etc. Let me know if you want to be included!
  • Canadian Plant Sciences Starter Pack
    by ‪@uhriglab.bsky.social‬
    Follow your favourite Canadian Plant Scientists!
  • CEPLAS Starter Pack
    by ‪@linusboernke.bsky.social‬
  • Cereal killer accounts
    by ‪@nikolaiadamski.bsky.social‬
    This is a list of scientific accounts from the small grain (mostly wheat and barley) plant community.
  • CGIAR People
    by ‪@cgiar.org‬
    A (certainly incomplete) list of CGIAR folks on BlueSky.
    Are you a CGIAR staff, scientist or affiliate? Send a us a chat and we’ll add you to our starter pack.
  • Critical plant studies
    by ‪@plantperspectives.bsky.social‬
    A starter pack for those interested in (critical) plant studies. The list includes academics, artists, writers, practitioners and more working with plants and plant–human interactions in all possible spatial, temporal and cultural contexts.
  • Earlham Institute community
    by ‪@earlhaminst.bsky.social‬
    Our scientists work at the forefront of genomics and data-intensive bioscience.
  • Ecol/Evol Society Journals
    by ‪@hilaryrosed.bsky.social‬
    Society journals in ecology and evolution. Skewed towards plants, but happy to take recommendations for others!
    (Also includes journals with missions that support science instead of profit.)
  • Forest Biodiversity and Conservation
    by ‪@mattbetts42.bsky.social‬
    Starter for those interested in all things biodiversity and forests.
  • Forest Ecology
    by @dovciak-lab.bsky.social‬
    Scientists working toward a better understanding of how forest ecosystems function across ecological processes, taxonomic groups, and levels of biological organization (from organisms to biomes). The list is now full. To grow your network: follow folks, get followed, re-post.
  • Forest Genetics
    by ‪@katrinheer.bsky.social‬
    Hey everyone working on genetics and genomics of trees – thought it would be nice to gather here! Please join!
  • Forest Management, Policy, and Stewardship
    by ‪@sampowersreed.bsky.social‬
    Researchers and practitioners looking to conserve forest biodiversity, soils, biomass, wildlife, and structure in a rapidly changing climate.
    Looking for prescribed burns, assisted migration, community forestry, irregular shelterwood, & more on Bluesky? You are in the right place.
  • Forestry Organizations
    by ‪@modernforester.bsky.social‬
  • Forestry Starter Pack
    by ‪@philipchambers.bsky.social‬
    Find forestry and forest-related people and accounts.
  • Friends of Parasitic Plants
    by ‪@saltyecoevo.bsky.social‬
    A group of researchers is interested in studying parasitic plants at all levels and areas.
  • Gatsby Plant Science Education’s Starter Pack
  • by ‪@gpsep.bsky.social‬
  • Grassland Ecology and Management
    by ‪@wagnermarkus.bsky.social‬
    People and instututions working on the ecology and/or management of semi-natural (agricultural) and natural (prairie, steppe, savanna) grasslands
  • Herbarium related
    by ‪@angelajmcd.bsky.social‬
    Any account representing a herbarium, herbarium staff, and herbarium friends.
  • INRAE
    by ‪@phildelacote.bsky.social‬
    Agriculture, Environment, Food, Forests.
    A starter pack with colleagues from INRAE units & from multiple disciplines.
  • Kelp Forest Ecologists
    by ‪@jebyrnes.bsky.social‬
    Folk who study kelp and kelp forests
  • Mast seeding Starter Pack
    by ‪@jalene-lamontagne.bsky.social‬
    Folks who study mast seeding – the patterns of synchrony and variability in plant reproduction over time.
  • Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research
    by ‪@somssich.bsky.social‬
    A collection of scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research (MPIPZ) in Cologne, Germany.
    Only the finest Plant Science Plant Research and Cat Pics.
  • Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactions (MPMI)
    by ‪@somssich.bsky.social‬
    A Microbiome of Plant Scientists who are interested in studying all facets of Plant-Microbe Interactions.
  • MPI of Molecular Plant Physiology’s Starter Pack
    by ‪@mpi-mp-potsdam.bsky.social‬
    Follow our scientists
  • NCState Entomology and Plant Pathology
    by ‪@quesadalabncsu.bsky.social‬
    Follow current and past members of the NCState Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology with one click!
  • Oregon State University Botany and Plant Pathology
    by ‪@osubpp.bsky.social‬
  • Paleobotanists Starter Pack
    by ‪@ezequielvera.bsky.social‬
    Those who study plants of the past.
  • Paleobotany and Palaeobotanical Art
    by ‪@palaeojules.bsky.social‬
    A starter pack of paleobotanists, paleobotanical artists, botanists, and people who regularly post about fossil plants! Also, a bunch of people who post about modern plants relevant to paleobotany.
  • Phenology
    by ‪@benrlee.com‬
    A collection of ecologists that study how environmental conditions affect the timing of organismal life history events (i.e., their phenology).
  • Photosynthesis Research
    by ‪@gustaf23.bsky.social‬
    Everyone working on photosynthesis research
  • Phycology/cryptogams (algae, lichens, moss, ferns)
    by ‪@janousekwild.bsky.social‬
    Folks working professionally or otherwise interested in phycology, mycology, bryology, etc).
  • Plant Biodiversity
    by ‪@khan-awais.bsky.social‬
    Passionate to share the efforts in characterization, utilization, and conservation of diversity of plants, and most importantly to celebrating the richness of plant diversity and advocating for its conservation for the future.
  • Plant Biotechnology
    by ‪@forscherrobert.bsky.social‬
    All about biotechnology with plants: In vitro culture, genetic engineering, genome editing etc.
  • Plant Breeding and Genetics
    by ‪@harsimargill.bsky.social‬
  • Plant Ecophysiology
    by ‪@bsa-ecophys.bsky.social‬
  • Plant Epigenetics
    by ‪@plantepigenetics.ch‬
    Starter Pack of plant researchers investigating the fascinating field of plant epigenetics.
  • Plant Evolution
    by ‪@barkerms.bsky.social‬
    Scientists researching the evolution of plants and plant diversity – including population genetics, plant genome evolution, plant speciation, plant systematics, and macroevolutionary patterns of plant diversification.
  • Plant Functional Traits Course alumni
    by ‪@hilaryrosed.bsky.social‬
    Students & instructors of the international Plant Functional Traits Course. The PFTC offers hands-on training in different applications of trait-based ecology & open science within a real-life field research setting. Keep in touch: use #PFTC to share plantfunctionaltraitscourses.w.uib.no
  • Plant Health and Biosecurity
    by ‪@green-goddess.bsky.social‬
    This is a starter pack of the relevant people and organisations associated with the above on the platform to get you off the starter blocks. 
  • Plant Low-Oxygen Research
    by ‪@isplore.bsky.social‬
    Stay up to date with the latest research and updates in Plant Low-Oxygen Research! We will update this list as more scientists join the blue space.
  • Plant Microbiome Starter Pack
    by ‪@utrechtpmi.bsky.social‬
    Utrechtpmi’s favourite Plant Microbiome Scientists – let us know if you want to join us!
  • Plant Microscopy and Imaging
    by ‪@somssich.bsky.social‬
    Microscopy and Imaging of Plants is extra challenging. Here are the experts.
  • Plant modelling scientists
    by ‪@insilicoplants.bsky.social‬
    A starter pack for scientists involved in developing computational algorithms, software, models, and tools to advance plant sciences. This includes researchers in mathematics, computer science, omics, plant biology, crop science, ecology, and forestry.
  • Plant pathogen and microbiota researchers
    by ‪@tlowepower.bsky.social‬
  • Plant Proteostasis
    by ‪@suaybuestuen.bsky.social‬
    Let’s gather everyone from the plant proteostasis community here in this starter pack!
  • Plant Science Journals, Societies, & Institutions
    by ‪@planteditors.bsky.social‬
    Journals posting articles about plant science on BlueSky. Also departments, institutes, and societies.
  • Plant Success Centre Members Starter Pack
    by ‪@coeplantsuccess.bsky.social‬
    A pack of Centre Members who are on Bluesky!
  • Plant Virologists
    by ‪@annealiz1.bsky.social‬
    Hoping to find all the Plant Virologists on Blue Sky!
  • Plant-herbivore and plant-pathogen interactions
    by ‪@annekempel.bsky.social‬
    A starter pack about researchers interested in plant-herbivore and plant-pathogen interactions.
  • Plants, pollinators and their interactions
    by ‪@ndevere.bsky.social‬
    Scientists working on plants and pollinators. All welcome
  • Pollination ecology & floral evolution
    by ‪@rorrodew.bsky.social‬
    Pollination ecology and floral evolution community group
  • PPS Sheffield Starter Pack
    by ‪@sheffieldpps.bsky.social‬
    Welcome to the Plants, Photosynthesis, and Soil Research cluster at the University of Sheffield! This pack is your way to connect with our interdisciplinary researchers working to tackle the pressing challenges in plant science and soil health and photosynthesis research.
  • Sainsbury Laboratory Cambridge University (SLCU)’s
    by ‪@slcuplants.bsky.social‬
    Our SLCU Community – postdocs, students, PIs, technicians, research assistants, professional staff and alumni who create our amazing community! 
  • Science and Plants for School’s Starter Pack
    by ‪@saps-news.bsky.social‬
  • Seagrass scientists and conservationists
    by ‪@boardshortsben.bsky.social‬
    People who study seagrass meadows, use them as model systems to study other cool things and associated species, and people who work to protect them.
  • Seed Science and Seed Ecology Starter Pack
    by ‪@wagnermarkus.bsky.social‬
    A starter pack of people and institutions working on aspects of fundamental and applied seed science, including aspects such as seed longevity, dispersal, and germination.
  • Starter Pack MPI-Bio & FML Researchers
    by ‪@mpi-bio-fml.bsky.social‬
    Follow our researchers and alumni on Bluesky!
  • Stomata!
    by ‪@bc247.bsky.social‬
    Interested in plant gaseous exchange and/or abiotic stress responsiveness? Or perhaps stomatal development? Or both? Here’s a non-exhaustive list of scientists working in the area(s) 
  • Suberin Starter Pack
    by ‪@suberinnetwork.bsky.social‬
    Suberin researchers
  • Tropical Plant Ecology (List 1)
    by ‪@brunalab.bsky.social‬
    Tropical Plant Ecologists (Broadly defined)
  • UK Botany
    by @botanycornwall.bsky.social‬
    A feed of people sharing anything and everything about UK plants! Not necessarily complete, please ask if you wish to be added!
  • Wetlands and peatlands
    by ‪@scootjd.bsky.social‬
    People working, researching and studying all things wetlands and peatlands
  • Worldwide Orchids & Other Wildflowers
    by ‪@mariposanature.bsky.social‬
    An illustrated flora of BlueSky botanists, plant-hunters, and wildflower enthusiasts.
  • #TurfTwitter
    by ‪@krisjmahoney.bsky.social‬
    Collecting turf and turfgrass adjacent folks

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