Threads; the fastest-growing social media platform of all time. On its launch day in July, users spent an average of 21 minutes engaging with the app, but fast-forward to today, and it is just 4 minutes.
So, what happened?
We tuned into a Threads debrief hosted by Cat Anderson, Head of International Marketing at Sprout Social, with guests Matt Navarra, social media consultant and industry expert, and Richard Cook, Senior Social Media Manager at Monzo, to discuss.
The panel agreed that the secret to the record-breaking initial success was mostly due to the novelty of a brand-new social media platform being launched by major player, Meta – something that is such a rare occurrence, users couldn’t wait to get involved. This was closely followed by the unified dislike for all things Musk, and the appetite for something along the lines of a text/image focused sharing platform that strictly *wasn’t* Twitter. Sorry, ‘X’.
Another bonus of signing up to Threads was that it was done through the user’s Instagram account, meaning every follower the user had on Instagram, became a follower on threads as soon as they signed up. Et voila – an instant follower base, and no more painful follower building from scratch.
After the initial excitement of having a new social platform to sink our teeth into (or hyperventilate into a brown paper bag about if you’re a social media manager working on multiple clients at an agency) the buzz started to die down. The benefits? It wasn’t X. The downsides? Questionable privacy practices, opaque algorithms, and no keyword search functionalities.
However, for those who persevered and continue to persevere… keep going!
Whilst Threads is still in the process of finding its brand identity, it has totally nailed image sharing in a way other social platforms haven’t (how cool is the panoramic carousel feature?) Flaws and functionalities are being ironed out and updated on the daily and users are continuing to post.
Final takeaway? Threads will grow in importance, relevance, and standings in the social channel order, but this will be a slow migration over from X (and a slower process than the initial clamour suggested).
Best practice for clients? Be experimental! (But have reasoning behind said experiments)
And to round up this Threads thought piece, a quote from Richard Cook-
“There’s no such thing as failure on social, it’s always something we can learn from.”
Couldn’t have put it better ourselves.
