How and why to use your domain name as a nickname on Bluesky
As I write this, Bluesky is clearly the social media website du jour, with tens of thousands of sign-ups per day. Hardly surprising, given where users are fleeing from. I’m there, as @james.crid.land.
Yes, @james.crid.land - my domain.
Now, look - I don’t want to throw any shade on people that are signing up, but if you are involved in tech or are a brand then you should be using your own domain.
There are four hundred bazillion reasons for this, but the most obvious ones are:
Verification
I am the only person who has access to the james.crid.land domain. Nobody else has it. So, if my handle on Bluesky is @james.crid.land then that is verifiably me. Literally nobody else can set this up. This is the verification tick you need.
You can read it out
“You can follow me on Bluesky - I’m @james.crid.land over there.” Especially when reading this out, your domain will always be better than a Bluesky account out, which is probably @somethingweird2242.bsky.social - even “bsky” is not going to be that easy to read out on a conference stage, on a podcast or a radio station.
You keep your existing followers
This is a name change, not a new account - so everyone that followed @somethingweird2242.bsky.social will still be following you when you change it to @somethingweirdpodcast.org
You’re guaranteed to get the handle you want
If you’re David Jones, you (probably) stand no chance of getting @davidjones.bsky.org because it’s an incredibly common name. In fact, it’s the second-most popular name in the UK alone. And anyway, the event manager at SEGA has got there before you. But with your own domain name, well, that’s a different matter. You’ve done the hard work of getting a domain already. And it’s yours! And nobody else has it!
Especially if you’re a brand
If you’re David Jones the expensive Australian department store in Australia, you have to stoop to the embarrassment of @DavidJonesStore on X, because your brand is the same as the second-most popular name in the UK. But, since you probably spent the price of a large house on buying your domain name, you can use that investment to the full, and use @davidjones.com instead. Because it’s yours!
It shows you know what you’re talking about
If you’re a Chief Information Officer or someone similar who professes to understand digital technology, then you should be able to add a TXT record to your own personal domain. If you have neither a) the skills to add a TXT record to your personal domain, or b) your own personal domain, then you should question your life choices. Luckily, the one I link to here knows what he’s talking about.
It even works for staff, too
It’s a bit more complicated to set up, but yes, if you want all your staff to use an official nickname on Bluesky, you can. You can get @kyle.kiis.com.au and @jackie.kiis.com.au both set up, if you want to. You can even get it, with a bit of coding, to update automatically with your internal account system, so when Kyle gets fired, his Bluesky handle no longer works. (But Kyle can change it to his new employer’s @kyle.2day.com.au if he wants to, or even to @unemployedkyle@bsky.social, and he won’t lose any followers - as Bluesky says, “For handles that get invalidated, all of the account’s data will still be secure — the owner will not lose any posts, followers, etc. We will provide an in-app option to simply pick a new handle.”)
Here’s how you do it
Bluesky has a guide to do it. It takes a minute or two, and it’s easy to do providing you have control over your own domain. All you need to do is add a TXT record.