Every social platform has an algorithm. On most platforms, a company controls that algorithm and decides what you see. Bluesky is different. On Bluesky, anyone can create a custom feed — an algorithmic timeline that other users can subscribe to.
This is not a minor feature. It is a fundamental shift in how content discovery works on social media. Instead of one algorithm controlled by a corporation, Bluesky has thousands of algorithms created by individuals and communities. And any one of those algorithms can be subscribed to by all 42+ million Bluesky users.
If you create a custom feed that curates the best content in your niche, every subscriber sees your brand name every time they use that feed. You become the algorithm.
What Are Bluesky Custom Feeds?
Bluesky runs on the AT Protocol (Authenticated Transfer Protocol), an open social networking protocol that decentralizes control of feeds, moderation, and identity. One of the protocol's core features is custom feed generators — services that produce algorithmic timelines based on any criteria the creator defines.
A custom feed can surface posts based on keywords, hashtags, user lists, engagement metrics, language, time windows, or any combination thereof. When a Bluesky user subscribes to your feed, it appears as a tab in their main navigation alongside their default "Following" and "Discover" feeds.
As of early 2026, Bluesky has over 42 million registered users. The most popular custom feeds have tens of thousands of subscribers. Niche feeds — even with just a few hundred subscribers — provide consistent, targeted visibility to an engaged audience.
Attie AI: Plain-Language Feed Creation
Creating a custom feed used to require technical knowledge of the AT Protocol's feed generator API. You needed to deploy a server that responded to feed skeleton requests and processed the Bluesky firehose in real time.
Attie AI changed that. Attie is a feed builder that lets you create custom Bluesky feeds using plain-language descriptions. You describe what you want the feed to show, and Attie translates your description into a working feed algorithm.
For example, you could create a feed by typing:
"Show posts about personal finance, investing, or building wealth that have at least 5 likes and are from accounts with at least 100 followers. Exclude posts that contain cryptocurrency promotions or get-rich-quick language."
Attie converts this natural language instruction into feed logic, deploys the feed generator, and publishes it to your Bluesky profile. The entire process takes under five minutes.
Why Custom Feeds Are a Marketing Channel
The marketing value of custom feeds comes from three mechanisms:
Brand Visibility Through Curation
When someone subscribes to your custom feed, your Bluesky handle appears in their feed list. Every time they switch to your feed, they see your brand. This is persistent, repeated brand exposure that costs nothing and requires no content creation on your part — the feed runs itself.
For our network, I created feeds like "Real Estate Data & Analysis" and "Personal Finance Deep Dives." Each feed is attributed to the corresponding book's Bluesky account. Subscribers associate the feed quality with the brand, which drives profile visits and follower growth.
Content Discovery by Peers
Your own posts can appear in your own custom feed — if they match the feed's criteria. This is not self-promotion in the way that boosting a post is. Your content appears alongside other high-quality content in the niche because it genuinely matches the curation criteria. The context makes your content more credible, not less.
When I publish a blog post and share it on Bluesky with relevant keywords, it appears in the custom feed alongside posts from other credible voices in the niche. Subscribers see it in context, which improves engagement compared to seeing it in a general timeline.
Audience Data
Bluesky's public API allows you to see who subscribes to your feeds. This gives you direct intelligence about your target audience — who they are, what else they follow, and what content they engage with. This information is invaluable for understanding your market and tailoring your content strategy.
Building Your First Custom Feed
Step 1: Identify Your Niche
The best custom feeds serve a specific community that is not well-served by Bluesky's default Discover algorithm. Think about what content your target audience wants to see that they currently have to search for manually.
For book marketing, effective feed topics include:
- Industry news and analysis in your book's topic area
- Discussions and debates in your niche
- Data-driven posts with charts, graphs, or research
- Posts from recognized experts and practitioners
Step 2: Create the Feed with Attie
Visit Attie's feed builder and describe your feed in plain language. Be specific about:
- Content criteria — keywords, topics, and themes to include
- Quality filters — minimum engagement thresholds to exclude low-quality posts
- Exclusion criteria — spam patterns, irrelevant topics, or low-effort content to filter out
- Source filters — optional restrictions on which accounts can appear (or minimum follower counts)
Test the feed output before publishing. Attie shows you a preview of what the feed will look like with recent posts. Adjust your description until the feed quality matches your expectations.
Step 3: Optimize the Feed Metadata
Your feed needs a clear name, description, and avatar to attract subscribers:
- Name: Descriptive and specific. "Personal Finance Insights" is better than "Money Stuff." Include the niche so users know what they are subscribing to at a glance.
- Description: Explain what the feed curates and what quality filters it applies. Users are more likely to subscribe to feeds that are transparent about their curation criteria.
- Avatar: Use a clean, branded image that is distinct from your profile picture. The avatar appears in the feed list, so it needs to be recognizable at small sizes.
Step 4: Promote the Feed
Share your feed link on Bluesky with a post explaining what it curates and why it is useful. Pin the post to your profile. Cross-reference the feed in your bio and on your website.
The most effective promotion technique is simply using the feed publicly. When you reply to posts that appear in your feed, mention that you found the post through your curated feed. This organic promotion drives curiosity and subscriptions more effectively than direct promotion.
Feed Maintenance and Growth
Custom feeds require minimal ongoing maintenance, but occasional tuning improves quality:
- Review feed output weekly — check for spam, off-topic posts, or quality issues that have slipped through your filters
- Update keyword lists — add new terms as conversations in your niche evolve
- Adjust engagement thresholds — if the feed is too noisy, raise the minimum engagement. If it is too sparse, lower it.
- Monitor subscriber growth — Attie and the Bluesky API provide subscriber counts. Track growth to understand what is driving subscriptions.
Feeds that consistently deliver high-quality content grow through word of mouth. Bluesky users share feed recommendations regularly — a quality niche feed can gain hundreds of subscribers organically within a few months.
The AT Protocol Advantage
Unlike other social platforms, Bluesky's custom feeds are built on an open protocol. This means:
Portability. If Bluesky the company changes direction, the AT Protocol is open and can be used by other platforms. Your feed, your identity, and your subscriber base are not locked into a single company's decisions.
Interoperability. Other AT Protocol-compatible platforms can access your feed. As the protocol ecosystem grows, your custom feed's reach grows with it.
Transparency. The algorithm is yours. You control what the feed shows, and subscribers can see your curation criteria. This transparency builds trust that no corporate algorithm can match.
Results From Our Network
I created seven custom feeds — one for each book's topic area — across our Bluesky accounts. Within 60 days:
- Combined subscribers exceeded 800 across all seven feeds
- Profile visits from feed subscribers increased by approximately 40%
- Book-related posts appearing in the feeds generated 3-5x more engagement than the same posts in the general timeline
- Two feeds were recommended by other Bluesky users in "feed recommendation" threads, driving organic subscriber growth
The time investment was minimal: approximately 30 minutes to create each feed with Attie, plus 15 minutes per week for monitoring and tuning across all seven feeds.
Custom feeds are one of the rare marketing channels where you can build audience without creating content. You are curating, not producing. The value you provide is filtering — saving your subscribers the time of finding the best content themselves. And in exchange, your brand sits at the top of their feed list, every day, for free.
For the complete Bluesky strategy and 49 other novel marketing tactics, see The $100 Dollar Network.