A thread on Threads
Threads is the latest platform from Meta, built by the Instagram team, for sharing with text. Read their official press release on the product launch here. A direct competitor to Twitter (with much less bells and whistles), Threads is worth a look. Nicole breaks down what this new channel means for brands and entrepreneurs in our latest blog post.
Why did Meta create a direct competitor to Twitter?
Meta's decision to launch Threads in competition with Twitter comes as no surprise in the ever-evolving and fairly chaotic world of social media. With Meta's immense resources and dedication to transforming the digital landscape, venturing into the microblogging arena seems like a logical and strategic move. Elon’s beef with Musk also seems like a reasonable reason to speculate, too. Meta didn’t yet have a text-focused platform that encourages public discourse, and there is a demographic of the population who think Twitter is “struggling” under Elon’s control. Zuck is tapping into a portion of society that is craving a fresh alternative to Twitter, capitalizing on the opportunity to capture a significant market share.
But the biggest reason? By introducing Threads, Meta aims to revolutionize the way users engage and share content, offering a seamless and immersive experience that aligns with their vision of a connected and personalized digital world. Holy monopoly. More on this below.
What makes Threads different from Twitter upon launch?
Lack of features, honestly. Hashtags aren’t clickable, there are no polling features or integrations with Giphy. Threads has seemingly no character count, while Twitter’s is 280 per tweet.
But, the connectedness of Threads to Instagram makes it unique to literally any other platform…
Why should I adopt this platform versus the many that have tried and failed?
The allure of seamlessly migrating your existing Instagram community is undeniably attractive. Unlike the challenging process of establishing a new presence on a different platform, which can often span several years in order to cultivate a any sense of community that has been painstakingly built elsewhere, the ability to transfer your current following in its entirety presents an irresistible proposition.
Okok, I’ll get on there. What’s the strategy, coach?
Get on there quick and don’t overthink it too much. You have a stream of brand consciousness as a business owner, let this be the place to spill those thoughts. Honestly, our best strategy is NO strategy. But below is a list of ideas and prompts to keep your Threads account progressing that are unique to other platforms:
Repurpose old tweets and “tweet-style posts” from IG that are relevant
Make sure you are posting 6-8 times a day the first few days of joining the app
Reshare your first few Threads to IG Stories
Consider launching something major on Threads in July versus your planned platform
Get in on the conversations you’re seeing in the wild that spike your brand’s curiosity
Pose customer questions you’ve always wished you could talk through
Re-purpose story content in written form (weekly specials, top products, etc.)
What is Meta’s vision for Threads?
Zuck’s goal is to make Threads compatible with “Interoperable Networks”. See below for what the hell that means in his words. Our TL;DR is this: Threads will eventually be a fully plugged, digital experience beyond its own app, connected to other apps.
Soon, we are planning to make Threads compatible with ActivityPub, the open social networking protocol established by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the body responsible for the open standards that power the modern web. This would make Threads interoperable with other apps that also support the ActivityPub protocol, such as Mastodon and WordPress – allowing new types of connections that are simply not possible on most social apps today. Other platforms including Tumblr have shared plans to support the ActivityPub protocol in the future.
We’re committed to giving you more control over your audience on Threads – our plan is to work with ActivityPub to provide you the option to stop using Threads and transfer your content to another service. Our vision is that people using compatible apps will be able to follow and interact with people on Threads without having a Threads account, and vice versa, ushering in a new era of diverse and interconnected networks. If you have a public profile on Threads, this means your posts would be accessible from other apps, allowing you to reach new people with no added effort. If you have a private profile, you’d be able to approve users on Threads who want to follow you and interact with your content, similar to your experience on Instagram.
The benefits of open social networking protocols go well beyond the ways people can follow each other. Developers can build new types of features and user experiences that can easily plug into other open social networks, accelerating the pace of innovation and experimentation. Each compatible app can set its own community standards and content moderation policies, meaning people have the freedom to choose spaces that align with their values. We believe this decentralized approach, similar to the protocols governing email and the web itself, will play an important role in the future of online platforms.
Threads is Meta’s first app envisioned to be compatible with an open social networking protocol – we hope that by joining this fast-growing ecosystem of interoperable services, Threads will help people find their community, no matter what app they use.
More questions comments, ideas? Email Nicole at nicole@sayheysocial.com!
