Let’s Evaluate Our Bluesky Experiment
When we started our Bluesky experiment in November 2024, the app had 20 million users. It has 32 million now, but it hasn’t fully taken off in our region — and that’s fine with us!
We saw Bluesky as a space for meaningful connections and professional learning, where fewer notifications can be a bonus. Then again, we are still not at the stage where checking on GH Unpacked becomes a habit to enough team members.
In our announcement we promised a starter pack but, honestly, we don’t have enough active posters yet to justify it. We also wrote:
Our mission is to create a vibrant community and a cool medium for like-minded people who care about our transboundary region and planet — its nature, cultures, prosperity, and peace.
Bluesky still lacks group chats, which doesn’t help community-building. That said, about 75% of our current 133 followers had no prior connection to the Gorilla Highlands idea, meaning we have definitely expanded our circle.
What the app does already offer is longer video (3 minutes), which enhances storytelling — and we’re eager to do much more video in 2025!
Let’s revisit our original ambitions:
• a digest of thought-provoking content
• inspiration for meaningful action
• a communal experience that fosters connection and collaboration
We can claim we’ve done a bit of the first two by daily curating quality stuff. If you have been following our feed, your understanding of what is happening in the region has received quite a boost! (And if you aren’t of the kind to “think, share and care”, you may not be our target audience.)
This feels like a good time to reaffirm something: GH Unpacked isn’t meant to be about broadcasting to millions or engaging potential tourists (we have GH Travels for that). It’s supposed to be deep and “for us”.
Our next step? More original content. With a new 20-member volunteer media team, we’ll soon see what we can achieve!
Your next step? Well, if you believe in what we’re building, please take this 5-question survey to help us serve you better.
[…] week we invited you to dive deep with us and reflect on how we’ve been using Bluesky. The survey is still open — we’d love to hear your thoughts! But now our focus is shifting from […]
[…] On our Instagram page you can see the “Audience Poll” highlighted. Your ideas and opinions matter, so please drop us a comment!And if you recall Gorilla Highlands Unpacked from the last newsletter, we were running it daily for three months before taking a thinking holiday. To define its future, we’ve launched a brief 5-question survey. […]