July 7, 2023

Threads: How Brands Can Work with Meta’s Twitter Competitor

Sloane Kelley - VP, Social Media

Sloane leads the Social Media and Influencer team at 9Rooftops, where she’s responsible for the strategic direction and implementation of social media programs. With experience across a wide range of industries, Sloane specializes in helping brands and publishers develop social media content that breaks through and makes an impact.

July 7, 2023

With the continued volatility surrounding Twitter, Meta introduced a competitor to Twitter that’s closely tied to its Instagram app. The new platform is known as Threads and it gained 30 million users in less than 24 hours. 

Threads is being positioned as a spot where people can have real-time, public conversations. This may sound similar to how Twitter has been positioning itself. And even the interface of Threads looks a lot like Twitter. There’s a feed that features Thread posts, which can be up to 500 characters long. Links, photos and videos up to five minutes in length can also be included. Within each Thread post, there’s the ability to like, repost or reply. 

While other possible Twitter competitors like Mastodon, Hive Social and Bluesky have sprouted up, they’ve struggled to gain a meaningful user base. Threads could be different. With its Meta backing, creating an account on Threads is incredibly simple. All someone needs is an Instagram account. Some functionality from Instagram is also ported over, allowing users to easily follow the same accounts on Threads that they do on Instagram, for example. 

The new platform is live in about 100 countries, but it should be noted that Threads is not currently available in the European Union due to data privacy concerns. 

How Brands Can Use Threads

For the moment, ads are not part of the Threads experience. The focus of the new app is to gain cultural relevance and a user base first. Ads would likely come later and tie to Meta’s already established advertising pipeline. 

Without ads, there are still ways for brands to embrace Threads, although this may take a certain type of brand to be successful. While Threads is super new, it does appear that its role is likely to be a place for quick reactions and cultural commentary — things Twitter excelled at in the past and Meta didn’t quite have a solution for. 

Threads Attracts Major Brands, Networks

Sports and entertainment brands like Bravo, Major League Baseball and Netflix were quick to join Threads on its first day live. As the creators of various types of content that drive pop culture conversation, these represent the types of brands that would be expected to be a part of Threads and to find success on the platform. 

Brands that tend to play a role in reacting to culture can also find a home on Threads. This won’t be a spot to push products or be overtly “selly.” This will be a spot to be clever — and to do it quickly — offering a brand’s perspective on the topics and conversation happening on Threads. The opportunity will come in both developing Threads posts and in being an active participant in the comment threads. Without ads or boosted posts, the success a brand has on Threads will truly be in the quality of its content, its ability to be relevant and to gather reactions and comments, which at this time would push its visibility in the timeline. 

Threads Offers Brands Numerous Incentives

If your brand fits the cultural parameters of the platform, the reason to be here is to be an early adopter. It’s to be a part of a new space where conversations relevant to your brand are taking place. And done well, it’s a chance to gain recognition for trying something new. 

Threads: Additional Considerations

 As with any new platform or tool, there are a few things to keep in mind with Threads. 

1. Longevity: The platform could fizzle out. That’s a risk. Often, new social apps come out and are hot for one minute and gone the next. While there can still be an opportunity to make a splash in the beginning, brands should go in knowing that this may not last. With Meta’s backing of Threads, however, this app has a better chance at longevity than many.

2. Analytics: Those that work in or advertise in social media may be accustomed to a high degree of data being available. When a new platform launches though, this is generally not In time, this will likely get more sophisticated but for the moment, don’t count on having a lot of data.

3. Publishing Processes: Similar to the notes on analytics, as a new platform, third-party scheduling tools will not yet be available. If your brand requires a publishing queue with various steps for approvals along the way, keep that in mind with Threads and you may need a more manual workaround for publishing and approvals in the beginning.

4. Resources: As with anything in social media, it does take resources to listen on the platform, to develop the right content and to be a part of the conversation. If becoming active on Threads may constrain social resources or limit the ability to be active on other more established platforms, it might not be the time to join Threads or it may be a moment to determine how best to spend resources.

5. Deleting a Threads Account: At this time, there isn’t a way to delete a Threads account without also deleting your Instagram account. In time, this may be corrected but for the moment, it’s worth noting that once the account is created, it cannot be deleted but only deactivated.

If you’re interested in exploring how your brand can be an early adopter of Threads, we’d love to hear from you! 

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