Our lives revolve around social media. Whether you’re live-tweeting the latest Love Island gossip or scrolling through thousands of TikToks, we pretty much live by it. Over the last few months, the OG social media platform, Twitter, has gone down a spiral of changes, making a social media manager’s life a nightmare.
Twitter users want change, but Elon Musk just isn’t giving it. Here comes Mark Zuckerberg to the rescue. Yesterday, Zuckerberg launched Meta’s newest app: Threads. With over 10 million users 7 hours after the launch, Threads is a likely contender to our beloved Twitter.
What is Threads?
Threads is a new text-based social media platform for sharing live updates and joining public conversations. It’s basically Instagram’s version of Twitter. Meta’s vision for Threads is similar to Instagram and aims to “[create] a positive and creative space to express your ideas” in text in addition to image and video content.
You can connect and follow with your friends, favourite creators and others who share a love for the topics you’re interested in. Or choose to go big and be a creator. Threads allow all users to share their own opinions, thoughts and ideas, and build a following of like-minded fans.
You might think, “No one is going to download ANOTHER social media platform”. Well, you’re wrong. Big brands are opening the Threads door to engage and entertain more of their followers. For example:
- Monzo, Gen Z’s favourite bank – 3,972 followers and have so far posted once.
- Netflix, the no-password sharing streaming service – 728k followers on their US account and 69k on their UK account.
- Prime Video, your other streaming bestie – 146k followers.
What features does Threads have?
Threads has many similar features to its rival, Twitter, and since it’s only in its initial phases, we’ll likely be welcoming in much more soon.
Let’s dive into what’s available now:
- Instagram-only access: You must have an Instagram account to log in. You can customise your profile once it’s transferred and make it private or public. You can follow the same accounts you do on Instagram and find new creators to interact with.
- Accessibility: Threads has screen reader support and AI-generated image descriptions so all users can interact with Thread posts.
- Live feed: Like Twitter, Threads has a formatted feed of threads posted by people you follow and recommended content from others. You can like, reply, repost and share Thread posts directly to your Instagram story or elsewhere.
- 500-character posts: Users can now post up to 500 characters long compared to only 280 characters on Twitter. You can include photos, links and videos lasting up to 5 minutes. Perfect for those who enjoy mini monologues.
- Block out the bad vibes: On Threads, you can hide specific words, filter out thread replies containing blocked words and unfollow, block, restrict or report a fellow user.
Threads is available in over 100 countries for iOS and Android, but not desktop. For most Europeans, they will have to hold off for a while. This is because Meta’s new app faces a range of issues with European regulators over the treatment of its user data.
Goodbye Twitter?
We secretly hoped for the misogynist, Andrew Tate, to train Elon Musk for an epic cage fight with Mark Zuckerberg. But alas, we got Threads instead. Zuckerberg’s “friendly” rival hopes to alleviate the problems Twitter users have experienced.
Over this year, Musk removed the OG blue tick and replaced it with the subscription add-on, Twitter Blue and restricted unverified accounts to viewing 1,000 tweets a day (600 the day before). The latter was a temporary change to address “extreme levels of data scraping” and “system manipulation”.
To address extreme levels of data scraping & system manipulation, we’ve applied the following temporary limits:
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 1, 2023
- Verified accounts are limited to reading 6000 posts/day
- Unverified accounts to 600 posts/day
- New unverified accounts to 300/day
For many Twitter loyalists, this might have been the final push. At Trio, we’re excited to see what happens – will it be the death of Twitter or will both compete in a fair fight? Share your thoughts with us and follow us on Threads 👀.
Is Threads right for you?
As social media specialists, we know a thing or two about social media strategy. The first thing you need to consider is whether your audience is on there. If your audience is exclusively on LinkedIn, Threads might not be the place to be. If you already have an existing following on Instagram, it’s makes sense to move to Threads.
Don’t forget – analyse your current data, speak to your audience and find out for yourself. Every brand is different.
Looking to advertise? Threads has launched without ads and analytics as it’s still in its infancy. As it’s part of the Meta family, we’re expecting to see this brought in soon. For now, build your organic social strategy and engage with your audience without the ads.
Contact Trio, the social media experts
Creating phenomenal content is what we do at Trio. We’re a Facebook Marketing Partner and have experience in running successful paid and organic campaigns across Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and more.
Contact our team to learn how we can transform your social media marketing strategy.
