When Threads launched on July 5, marketing executive Zarina Stanford was traveling overseas. But even in the remote areas of Italy, the buzz over Instagram’s text-based Threads messaging app still reached her, she told WWD. At her next destination, a marketing event, it was all anyone could talk about.
What a difference a couple of weeks makes. After an explosive launch that nabbed 100 million users in five days, breaking ChatGPT’s record, Threads already seems to be unraveling. Early on, data from online traffic analytics firm Similarweb showed activity taking a nauseating turn, with the daily active user count plummeting from 49 million to 23.6 million in the first couple of weeks and time spent in app dwindling from 21 to 6 minutes. Shortly after, Reuters reported that Meta’s chief executive officer, Mark Zuckerberg, told employees that the app lost more than half of its audience and needs “retention hooks.”
Related Articles
Threads’ fate may seem murky at best, but it hasn’t been sealed yet. Reportedly one of the ideas the company floated was to use Instagram to plug Threads content. The app is on a fast development track as well, as it already pushed out a major update making it easier to see followers and read messages in different languages. The next big change apparently is to bring direct messaging to the app.
You May Also Like
The effect of such changes is hard to predict, but that matters to brands, many of which have been keenly, yet cautiously watching the platform.
The app arrives as companies are currently reevaluating their channel mix, noted Stanford, who serves as chief marketing officer of Bazaarvoice, a platform for user-generated social content and product reviews. In a recent study of more than 400 global brands, she said, more than 67 percent responded that they were looking at their strategies, as in the balance of paid versus earned, and were “doing something about it already…. They are actually moving six to 10 percent of their budget [to organic].”
All efforts on Threads are earned or organic because the platform does not yet support ads — though, as a new member of Meta’s family of apps, this eventuality is practically considered a given.
Until then, many major brands have at least parked new Threads accounts. Others are testing the waters to see what works or if there’s even an audience to sample.
“I’ve been watching from my own personal feed to see which brands or influencers that I already followed are actually getting engagement, and it’s funny to see how hit or miss it is,” Jen Jones, chief marketing officer of Commercetools, told WWD.
Most brands that she’s observed are dipping a toe in by asking a simple question. These companies, mainly consumer-oriented beauty brands, post basic inquiries such as “what’s your favorite eye shadow?” But the content of the answers matters far less than their mere presence. She compared it to “shouting into the void” to see if anything shouts back.
“A few of our customers like Sephora are on there early, and I see them jumping in and trying to probe the audience, like sending a ping out to see who’s here,” said Jones. Brands need to have an “early adopter mentality” with Threads, she added, but those that are active and early in drumming up engagement will have a head start as the platform matures.
The Black Tux, a tech-driven online rental service for men’s formalwear, may be proving that point.
The company wasted no time, signing up on Threads within three hours of launch. “We jumped on, and our first few posts were definitely prioritized within the feed,” Matt Sutton, chief marketing officer of The Black Tux, told WWD.
“We got some good reach and also had built a decent following so far. We’ve had Twitter since 2012, and we have easily more than twice the number of followers on Threads … and we’re seeing much higher engagement per post,” said the CMO, whose account followings number 11,500 in Threads and less than 5,000 on Twitter. The latter — which now goes by “X” — has been seeing user levels and activity drop since Elon Musk bought the platform in October 2022.
For its new messaging rival, the Instagram connection also appears to be key. Sutton calculates that as much 16 percent of The Black Tux’s Instagram fans followed the brand over to Threads.
The other factor is the content itself. The company focuses on fun, casual, “meme-driven“ conversation, often directly with other brands.
“We’ve seen some really fun, great results from that. Like Spanx, Rent the Runway and several others that are in kind of adjacent categories have commented on our posts and vice versa,” he added. “We’ve been commenting on there and that gets more visibility. It also creates a fun conversation between brands.”
Jones advises brands to experiment, try different tactics and tones to see what works for them. They shouldn’t simply map their Twitter or Instagram strategy directly onto Threads, because it’s a different environment with no hashtags, creator incentives or advertising.
“It’ll evolve to be its own thing. It’s just a question of what,” Jones said.
Figuring that out will remain a priority for Instagram and its parent company. What’s clear is that Meta has more runway to work on it, after the tech giant’s latest earnings win. Last week, the company beat second-quarter revenue expectations, with growth of 11 percent pulling in $32 billion, due in large part to stronger-than-expected advertising performance. Shares immediately jumped 7.5 percent and continued floating at 8 percent days later.
That may have less to do with investors’ faith in Threads, however, than their confidence in artificial intelligence, as Meta, as well as Google, Microsoft and others all plan to double down on AI. Indeed, as news of Threads’ downward user traction spread on Monday, the stock has been taking a hit, wiping out most of last week’s gain, at least as of press time.
Plenty of critics will be eager to read into that, but in reality, it’s just too soon to know if Threads will eventually pop its stitches or grow into a social media juggernaut. Even Instagram’s Adam Mosseri knew that on day one, acknowledging in a Threads post that “we don’t even know if this thing is retentive yet.”
Until that becomes clearer, brands should proceed with caution. But, the experts agreed, they should proceed and not let uncertainty hem them in.