In Meta’s latest venture to become the do-it-all tech giant, Threads was born. The Twitter ‘dupe’ entered the social scene at the beginning of July 2023 and spiked a lot of intrigue (and stress from social media managers who had a whole new strategy to consider!) 

A month on from its launch, and with the dust settling, where does Threads fit into the sea of social media platforms, and what opportunities does it have to offer content creators and brand marketers?

What is Threads? 

First of all, Threads is a direct competitor to Twitter. With the masses of changes that have been made to Twitter since Elon Musk took over, including a multitude of paid features, it was anyone's game to replicate the ‘old Twitter’ that we all know and love – unserious, fun, and candid. 

Threads reached 150 million users within 2 weeks, and the top 3 countries (ranked by downloads) were India (33%), Brazil (22%), and the US (16%) – according to stats from Think Impact. 

Thanks to its seamless integration with Instagram, the appeal to get on board with Threads was clear. You can follow the same people you follow on Instagram, on Threads, in just a few clicks, and enjoy hours of endless scrolling due to the algorithm. However, it is worth noting that if you decide Threads isn’t the app for you, deleting your account will mean that your Instagram account disappears too. 

Is it worth creators getting on board? 

Despite its record-breaking uptake upon its release, the number of daily active Threads users dropped by 70% after the first two weeks of its launch, according to Forbes. But this drop doesn’t mean the app doesn’t have the potential to boom amongst the communities who are still well-engaged! And as a creator, if this is where your audience is, then it’s where you should be too. 

Unlike a beautifully curated Instagram feed or an overcrowded comment section on a TikTok video that has gone viral, Threads allows audiences to feel connected to their favorite celebrities and creators. Building a strong relationship with your audience as a creator is essential and Threads creates a space to build audience connection through casual and candid conversation. 

In terms of increasing content viewership, Threads is another place for creators to share behind-the-scenes exclusives, random daily thoughts, and of course, link out to content on other platforms to engage new audiences that they may not have tapped into already on TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram for example. Where’s the harm in experimenting? 

Predictions for the future 

Our wonderful Paid Social Director, Alix Williams, has many thoughts and feelings about the future of Threads… 

1. Paid advertising will be introduced soon. This is because Threads is integrated with Instagram, and this lowers the risk in terms of brand safety when introducing paid advertising, which is usually the biggest roadblock for brands to sign up to an advertising platform. Getting Threads signed off internally is a more straightforward process too, meaning they’ll have an influx of advertising sign-ups.
   
   
2.  The ad platform will likely emulate Meta, but introduce targeting options like Twitter. With Twitter now charging to advertise on their platform and their diminishing user pool, Threads could replace Twitter for advertising for people who are using the platform for those ‘in the moment’ public conversations, something that’s new to any Meta product.
   
   Personally, I can't see Threads integrating with Meta's Ads Manager to prove it's a platform that can stand on its own two feet.
   
   
3. Data utilization and sharing – despite my last comment, I think Threads will have the ability to share your audiences from Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and other Meta products into Threads. For media planners and buyers, this is exciting to be able to target warmed-up audiences because they’re already active across other channels.
   
   
4. Threads will be a perfect middle-of-the-funnel leverager because prospects are already aware of your brand and have conversations about your brand. Get ready to educate them further on why they need your products, and/or your services.

Stay tuned for next week's blog post, as we will be sharing more of Alix’s confessions of a Paid Social Director.