Written by Beth Tees, Paid Social Executive
Let’s start with the question on a lot of marketers mind, what is Threads and how can we use it?
If you’ve been online in the last 2 weeks, you’ll most likely have come across Meta’s new app, Threads.
In this blog we’re going to share a run down of what it is, 3 key uses for event professionals and the current limitations we’ve found…
Threads has many similarities to Twitter where it provides users the opportunity to share real-time updates and open up conversion to the public.
Mark Zuckerberg explains that the main vision for the app is to “create an option and friendly public space for conversation”.
Who has downloaded Threads?
Threads rose to success with up to 10 million users in the first few hours of the app launch.
Amongst these millions of users we have seen many different businesses follow the trend and sign up to Threads in the app’s first days.
The momentum hasn’t stopped either, with approximately 150 million users, outpacing other similar platforms it has become the ‘fastest-growing’ app in history.’ (Harvard Business Review)
This includes major brands such as Netflix and Spotify showing that even in the earliest days of the app these large brands are already preparing themselves by accumulating followers and establishing their community.
The creation of ads is not yet available on the platform however, this has not stopped the demand for them and advertisers are very keen to be able to start using the platform to boost their brands.
Paid ads will only be available once the platform has reached 1 billion users.
This is a trend that we see with new Meta products where they tend to steer away from ads to allow for the app to feel more fun and organic which will push more individuals to sign up to use it.
3 reasons you should be on Threads as an event professional…
1. High engagement rate
The platform is showing a great engagement rate, many of the posts are exceeding the performance that they showed on other platforms, especially Twitter.
For example, the posts are seen to have an average of an 8x higher engagement rate than what they did on Twitter. (Social Media Today)
This shows how influential the platform already is and how being present on it will help to get your brands message out to your followers and also will help you to gain the attention of a wider audience.
2. High volume of new users
The app is still less than a month old. This period provides a great opportunity for new profiles to grow and accumulate new followers.
This is why it is so essential for your brand to join the platform as soon as possible in order for it to take advantage of this time and gain a good following and interaction with your followers.
This means that when the platform opens up for ads to be run on it you will have established a good presence on the platform which will help to push for the success of your campaigns due to the brand awareness and strong remarketing audiences that this will help to create.
3. Users have moved from Twitter to Threads
Since the launch of Threads the time spent on Twitter has dropped by 60% with more users being drawn to the new platform. (Social Media Today)
The decline in Twitter at the same time that Threads is becoming the fastest growing app in history conveys to us how powerful this platform is already in its early days making it clear how important it is for brands to establish their presence on it.
When other platforms such as Twitter are showing decline it is important that brands turn their focus to Threads and establish their presence on the platform because it is on route to becoming one of the most used platforms and businesses shouldn’t want to be left behind.
What are the limitations?
It is important to remember with any new platform, there are limitations that you need to consider.
1. No paid advertising
There will be no advertising on Threads until they reach 1 billion users.
The rapid growth of the app has been record breaking however, it is thought that it will take a period of time until the platform reaches the target number of users. This limits the content that advertisers are able to put out to only organic for the time being.
2. No hashtags
Threads does not have all of the functions available on other social platforms such as hashtags. Hashtags allow for similar posts to be grouped together in one feed. This proves as a limitation because it will make it harder for brands to spread their message and increase their visibility.
3. No direct messaging
Any conversation that a brand wants to have with a customer will be available for the entire community to view. This means brands have to thoughtful and consider how they are conversing with each individual.