What the Future of Social Media Looks Like for Designers

Feeling like your social media growth has hit a wall? You're not alone. Design professionals everywhere are experiencing diminishing returns despite increased effort—low view counts, minimal engagement, and the constant pressure to pay for reach.

The Designer Discussions team dives deep into this common frustration and introduces an exciting alternative: Blue Sky. This emerging platform operates fundamentally differently from traditional social media. Unlike conventional platforms where companies own your content the moment you post it, Blue Sky gives you complete ownership and control over your creative assets—a game-changer for designers who invest heavily in professional photography and project documentation.

Blue Sky functions like WordPress for social media, allowing you to post once and have your content appear in multiple formats: a Twitter-like feed, an Instagram-style format called Flashes, and a TikTok-style experience called Starlight. With chronological posting and no algorithm manipulation, your content reaches your audience organically every time you post. Plus, your Blue Sky content appears in Google searches, potentially boosting your SEO when potential clients search for design services in your area.

While it's not perfect—lacking the targeted advertising capabilities of Meta platforms—Blue Sky offers designers a refreshing opportunity to reclaim their digital presence. Our recommendation? Don't abandon your existing platforms yet, but consider experimenting with Blue Sky by repurposing content you've already created. Claim your specialty and location in your username before someone else does, and treat it as another digital portfolio that could reach new audiences with minimal additional effort. After all, as Maria points out, "This is like 2009 Instagram time over on Blue Sky"—a chance to establish yourself early on what could become the next major platform for creative professionals.

If you would like to get the links and show notes for this episode, click on the link below:​

• https://www.designerdiscussions.com/episodes/episode-139-What-the-future-of-social-media-looks-like

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Designer Discussions is a partnership of three experts: Jason Lockhart, CEO of KABMS; Maria Martin, founder of DesignAppy; and Mirjam Lippuner, founder of Get Ink DIY

Episode Transcript

Mirjam Lippuner (00:00):
Welcome to Designer Discussions with Jason,
maria and Miriam.
Today we are talking about whatthe future of social media
looks like.

Jason Lockhart (00:12):
Welcome to Designer Discussions podcast
with Miriam.
Maria and Jason Tune in eachweek where we discuss marketing,
pr and business advice fordesign professionals marketing,
pr and business advice fordesign professionals.

Maria Martin (00:32):
Hey everybody, so do you feel like your social
media growth has stagnated?
Do you feel like you have topay to get that next follower?
And is your video that youspent 20, 15 minutes recording
and editing getting about 100views, maybe 300 views?
If that's the case, thenwelcome to the current state of
social media, and we are allwith you.

(00:54):
We are here with you in thesame situation, getting the same
results and experiencing thesame.
We're all having the sameexperience.
So what I would like to talkabout is what?
What would you like in a socialmedia platform and to really
think about it if you were torefresh the whole concept of

(01:15):
what social media would looklike to you and picture
something possibly differentthan what you've experienced in
the past, right?
So if you've ever thought, wow,it would be great to have my
own social media feed, kind oflike, I have my own website

(01:35):
where I can post one piece ofcontent and it rolls out in like
a Twitter form and then it alsoposts to like Instagram and it
also posts to TikTok all at thesame time, just like we've had
to do in a multi-stepped way,right?
Each one of those platforms.
The written content is owned byone person, regulated by one

(01:58):
person, one group, and has itsown roles.
And then you're posting to, say, a meta platform.
Then you're having to post themto TikTok, and each one of
those are individually owned andthey each have their own format
.
And then you also have to havea posting service, something

(02:18):
that like Hootsuite or Tailwindor I think Planoly was one,
where you would put the contentin and then it would help you
out by posting everything foryou.
So you had this omnipresenceamongst all of the platforms,
and then you'd get somethingkicked back and would be like oh
, the format of that picturewasn't the exact ratio that that

(02:40):
platform wanted, so we postedit to these two, but that one
got missed.
And so you're putting all thiswork in and then you're also
having to have it supported by aadditional platform that
communicates with a lot ofdifferent platforms, right?
So this is what we have beendoing and this is what we've
been experiencing.

(03:01):
But if we look at social mediafrom what our goal was, it was
to post pretty regularly,document what we do, let people
see our best work, our bestphotographs, just giving people
more opportunity to interactwith us.
Right, and that was what wewanted from it.
And then we got into a worldwhere people were paying for

(03:23):
their reach, and then theplatform gave you organic reach
until it got to a point where itwanted you to pay for it.
Then you get into a situationwhere there are bots, so you
don't know if the personinteracting with your business
is a real person or a bot.
So how is the time and energythat you're putting towards this

(03:43):
benefiting your business movingforward?
And maybe the fun kind ofstarted to wear out, because now
you really are having to workreally hard to maintain and keep
up with it and it becomes alittle bit more taxing, less fun
.
So what if there is a platformout there that allows you to

(04:04):
create one piece of content andthen it goes out to a written
format like Twitter, a Instagramstyle feed and also TikTok, and
when you post that content, youown it.
You don't have to sign a waiversaying that the company that
you post the image on owns yourcontent.

(04:26):
The second it's put on it.
So what if there was a solutionout there like that?
And with everything that haspros, everything has cons, so
we'll talk about that too, but Iwant to introduce you to a
concept called Blue Sky.
It is a social media platformthat is set up like a WordPress

(04:52):
or, you might think, a Wix or aSquarespace.
When you join and you postinformation, you have your own
feed and it's yours If you wantto.
There's a toggle button veryearly on when you sign up for
the program that says do youwant to serve this?
Use your computer as a server,which means you have to have a

(05:12):
certain type of computer and ithas to be on all the time.
But, like, you literally haveyour whole entire piece of
content hosted somewhere that'snot owned by these companies and
all it does is curate your feedinto the formats which is
TikTok or Instagram or aTwitter-like feed.

(05:32):
They're called Starlight isTikTok, flashes is their
Instagram and then just Blue Skyis their Twitter feed.
And so what happens is now, withthis format, when you post that
one piece of content, it'sposted according to the time it

(05:54):
was posted, right?
So if you post three times inone day, time it was posted,
right.
So if you post three times inone day, you would go out to
your audience three times andyou would have that organic
reach again, and so maybeflashes did come out the first
week of March, so this is stillreally really new and not

(06:14):
everybody is going to havesigned up for it.
I think it went out to iOS forApple devices in the beginning
of March and it's not live yeton Android, but anything that
you post in the Blue Sky app,which is available for both, is
actually already being curatedin your own Flashes feed, and

(06:38):
it's an exact duplicate for theformat, the frame and everything
.
Except you have more control.
You have more control over howyour content is presented and
you have more control over whohas access to your content.
So maybe that's what you wouldlike.
Maybe you would like to get toown your content and you would

(07:01):
like to have ownership of all ofyour own video photographs and
all that kind of stuff,especially if you're in the
kitchen and bath and remodelingindustry and you paid a lot of
money for these photos and youdon't want them being used to
like train AI or any of thatkind of stuff.
This format would support thatfor you.

(07:22):
Is it relatively new?
Yes, does it have a lot ofusers?
Yes, it does.
It actually does have a lot ofusers, and you can Google it and
see, but if you type in theword like blue sky and a
question like interior designand blue sky on Google, it'll
pull up the interior designposts off of blue sky, so it is

(07:47):
also searched by the internet,and so there seems to be a lot
of benefits to this.
So not everything is puppiesand rainbows.
So let's discuss some of thecons.
Because your data is not beingcollected, it can't run ads.
I mean, it could run ads, butit's not the same as running an

(08:08):
ad on Facebook, where you couldindividually target someone
based on their income and theirlikes and things they do right,
so running ads isn't as viableon these platforms.
If you are an ad-drivenbusiness, if your goal was to
run ads to your town within yourbusiness, so it isn't going to

(08:32):
work in that way, because theyaren't gathering the information
to be able to pinpoint a adcampaign like Facebook.
But you don't have any bots,and so that's the.
You've got one pro with one con.

(08:53):
However, there's not a lot ofpeople on the platform yet, and
I would encourage you to justget your, what you do for work
and the town that you live in asyour handle.
You can have a username that isyour business name.
It could be like Bob andJoanne's Kitchen Design Studio,
but your username could be likeChicago Kitchen and Bath Design

(09:17):
or kitchen remodeling or kitchenrenovation, and so, once again,
like I said, if you type inblue sky and then what it is
you're looking for, it does pullup in Google.
So this is something that youcould have access to an
improvement in SEO and, since itis new, this is going to take

(09:38):
some time to see how it worksout and how it applies to our
standard marketing concepts forour businesses.
However, I just want to lety'all know.
If you're struggling and youfeel like giving up on your
social media, it's okay.
I think we all feel that wayright now, and this is a great
opportunity for you to sign upfor Blue Sky and post every

(10:02):
single one of your professionalphotos to a completely new
audience and see if you can juststart that and that way it's
sitting out there like a littlemini portfolio or mini resume
for you out in the world, justin case someone's looking for
you, or mini resume for you outin the world, just in case
someone's looking for you,because, remember, this is like
2009 Instagram time over on BlueSky.

Mirjam Lippuner (10:25):
So, Maria, would you recommend then because
it's hard to add one more thing, right?
So would you recommend to stillkeep up a presence on Instagram
or Pinterest or Facebook orwherever people are, and do this
, or what's the breaking pointthere?
What's the breaking point there?

Maria Martin (10:47):
So there aren't any companies right now,
platforms that are reposting foryou.
So if you were to post toInstagram, then it would post
over on Blue Sky, like we weretalking about, like Planoly,
tailwind, hootsuite.
They are not set up yet to helppost for you over on Blue Sky.

(11:08):
So posting on social mediaplatforms is not free.
It takes time, right, and ifthe goal for you to post is to
get reach and you're already,have already put a ton of time
and energy into a ton of postson Instagram just reuse that.

(11:30):
Just reuse stuff.
You've already done your bestand latest and greatest post it
over there.
If nothing happens and you postto Instagram because you like
it and you want to and you don'tmind that you're not getting a
lot of reach, then in threeweeks try it again.
It's all about trial and error.
Like, if you're trying it andyou're not getting any followers

(11:51):
on Blue Sky and you're tryingit on Instagram and you're not
getting any new followers onInstagram, it's just time for
you to start experimenting offof the meta platforms and see if
you're getting the same kind ofaudience and reach.
Tiktok is still the best placeto get the largest reach.

(12:12):
There are design firms thatjust video themselves and screen
share their builds on theirscreens and talk about what
they're doing that week.
And they get, and they do itlive and they get these huge,
huge groups of people that justwant to watch a designer sit
behind a computer screen andshow them live how they're
designing a space and giving ita 3D tour, and that is truly the

(12:36):
absolute best way to reach alarge audience.
Are those your people in yourtown that are going to be hiring
you to do a remodel project?
No, and so we do have tounderstand that there's a
difference between being aninfluencer and having a large
audience and targeting thepeople who are in your area.
And if Instagram is supposed tobe a place, that's like a

(12:57):
portfolio, like a mini websitethat has all of your best
projects and it highlights yournewest and latest and greatest
going on in your feed.
Blue Sky is another place to dothat, and all you have to do is
look at it like I'm going topost 10 old projects, 10 old
pictures, 10 old Instagramthings, and then, just in two

(13:21):
weeks, do it again.
And in two weeks do it again.
You've already spent 15, 20minutes creating the piece of
content, right.
Why not just repurpose it and,like I said, trial and error,
check it out, try it out?
There's not a lot of users onit yet there's a lot of users on

(13:42):
it actually, but it's not a tonand just see what happens.
And, honestly, if you can getthe Blue Sky feed where it says
what you do and in the town thatyou're at and that pulls up in
Google with SEO, I don't see thedrawback of having that
available to you.

Mirjam Lippuner (13:59):
Absolutely Awesome.
Well, thank you, maria, ourtrend expert.
We're always learning somethingnew.
Now I have to go check out BlueSky you know, Okay, I'll do it.
I'll do it.
So thanks, Maria.
If you have any questions, asalways, reach out to us and
we'll see you back here atDesigner Discussions in two

(14:21):
weeks touch points.

Jason Lockhart (14:30):
Before your potential clients recognize who
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The Designer DiscussionsAcademy membership with your
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We're here to simplify yourmarketing and boost your

(14:51):
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(15:13):
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