“Vital onboarding strategy for the emerging social media systems”
“Our findings go beyond Bluesky: they point to a new framework for launching successful social platforms,” said Dr Onur Ascigil, Lecturer in Computer Science at Lancaster University and Principal Investigator of the study. “Starter packs are becoming a vital onboarding strategy for the emerging social media systems that are seeking to attract users from dominant platforms.” The researchers believe their findings could help platform designers and policymakers promote more equitable and trustworthy online spaces.
Starter packs can be created by anybody on the platform and generally aim to rapidly create new, or recreate existing, communities. Starter packs were adopted rapidly by Bluesky users, with more than 335,000 created in the first six months of their launch, the researchers found. They accounted for up to 43% of people following others in Bluesky during peak periods, and contributed to nearly 20% of all follow relationships across the full study period, from June 2024 to January 2025. Users included in starter packs received up to 85% more followers and posted 60% more than similar users not included.
“While only 6.25% of users were members of a starter pack at the time of the study, the outsized impact of these starter packs highlights how a relatively small mechanism can significantly influence network formation and user visibility,” said Dr Ascigil. However, the researchers also found that starter packs tend to reinforce existing communities rather than create new ones. They help users with already-large followings grow even more. The researchers say this raises concerns about deepening popularity inequalities.