You might have recently heard about a new social media platform entering the scene – you might also be thinking, another one?
After TikTok and BeReal, it has been a question of what would be the next platform to rock the boat. Now Threads has hit the scene. Created by Meta, threads is a platform for short posts or updates with a 500 character limit. Sound a bit familiar?
The new app will compete against Twitter, which has been in the news more often than not since Elon Musk took over. Most recently as Musk announced limiting how many tweets you can read on Twitter per day – which wasn’t well received. It’s no surprise that Threads made a notable impact reaching a million users in just seven hours, compared to Twitter which took 780 days. Although it’s important to note as a Meta based platform, the app is more accessible as sign ups have been made significantly faster as you can use your Instagram account.
So should you be on it?
At the moment, we wouldn’t recommend using it specifically as a marketing tool, especially if Twitter wasn’t a part of your marketing strategy to begin with. However, it’s a good place to start a conversation and start learning what’s going on within the new platform. Treat it more casually, a place to have genuine conversation rather than trying to drive sales. Eventually, we will be able to see how Threads has grown and whether it will overtake Twitter with its daily active users.
Consider that during the pandemic, Twitter was used as the go-to platform for quick updates and since Musk has changed the verification system on Twitter – it’s possible that important news and information will make the shift to Threads. So it’s important to note that Threads does fill a gap that Twitter once held.
It’s still early days and Threads isn’t without its problems. Users quickly realised to delete their Threads account they would have to delete their Instagram account as well. Meta is already looking into changing this. Most notably, there are still data-sharing concerns and this is why it is yet to be released in the European Union. There are concerns regarding how the app will use personal data and sharing users data across multiple platforms. It may be a benefit that when you create your account, you can easily follow the same users on Instagram on Threads, but it is a security concern.