Threads — A Guide for Marketers

Meta dropped their new Threads app yesterday, and it got 10 million users in seven hours.

Now that’s impressive.

But what does this mean for marketers? How can we use this new app to its full potential? Are there any dangers?

That’s what we’re going to answer today, starting by explaining exactly what Threads is.

What Is Threads?

Threads is a new “microblogging” platform, very similar to Twitter.

The difference is that it’s owned by Meta, who runs Facebook and Instagram.

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Facebook founder and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is calling it a “public conversations app”.

It’s connected to Instagram, and you can only make an account if you have one on Instagram.

The bonus here is that you bring over your Instagram verification, and users are given the option to just follow all the accounts they follow on Instagram on Threads. You don’t have the risk of impersonators stealing your account name on there, either.

Threads pretty much looks and works in the same way as Twitter.

Users can share text posts (up to 500 characters), images, gifs, links and videos (up to five minutes in length). This means you can write more characters than on Twitter and post longer videos.

First Impressions

The team at Thinkplus have spent a lot (maybe too much) time on Threads since it launched. There are a few things we’ve noticed so far.

At the moment, the user base feels different to Twitter. There are lots of people joining because they’ve seen their Instagram friends posting about it on their stories, but they’re not sure how to use the platform.

They likely haven’t used Twitter or a similar app in the past, so the more text-based, conversational experience is new to them.

This shows us that Twitter users may not make the move to Threads, and Threads users may use the platform in a different way from Twitter.

If you’re a brand that does a lot of marketing on Twitter, you may want to do some research into Threads and how people are using it before implementing the same strategy as Twitter.

Right now, the features on the app are limited, but we expect more to be added in the future.

The main thing that’s missing right now is the ability to search for different topics. This means it’s hard to find the content you’re interested in and difficult to be discovered as a brand.

But, in a similar way to many social media platforms, the more interaction you get, the more likely your posts are to be suggested to users even if they don’t follow you. Users can also repost posts they like from other users.

This means it’s more important than ever right now to be creating content related to your brand that people want to share with others. Perhaps you post the best tips, the best memes, the most relatable content — anything that users are likely to share with others.

More features will be released soon, including the option to interact with users on other platforms through the “Fediverse”. This could be extremely useful for brands who do some of their customer service via social media as this may keep things in one place, giving you the chance to respond to everyone through one platform.

Use Cases

Let’s take a closer look at some of the ways brands can use Threads. If you already use Twitter as part of your marketing strategy, then these will work on that platform too.

Customer service

Because of the conversational nature of Threads, it’s a great place to answer customer questions or handle customer complaints. As these conversations are carried out publicly, it means that customers will hopefully see past questions and answers and get the information they need.

Hopefully being the keyword here.

These interactions can be used as inspiration for an FAQ on your website if you find the same questions are being asked over and over again.

It might sound scary to reply publicly to customer complaints, but it shows you take accountability and are happy to resolve issues in the open.

Product and service announcements

If you’re launching a new product or service, a platform like Threads can be a great place to do it.

If you like, you can use Threads as a more “informal” launch to see what questions customers ask and to get feedback before making a more polished announcement on Instagram, via email or on your website.

If the same questions are being asked over and over again, you can add an FAQ section to your new product or service’s landing page.

Behind the scenes

You may find yourself wanting to share behind-the-scenes content on your socials but feel like it wouldn’t quite fit with your curated Instagram feed; you might also want this content to last longer than 24 hours, like on Stories — Threads might be your answer.

Threads is a great place to share what’s going on behind the scenes in your business. This type of content makes users feel more connected with your brand — showing that you’re not just a business; there are real people on the other side!

Real-time, personal interaction

Threads allows you to have conversations with customers and potential customers in real time.

This can add a bit more personality to your brand and help build a more personal connection with your ideal customers.

You can be more conversational on a platform like Threads, and you may find that your brand takes on a more relaxed and friendly tone of voice.

Some brands have taken a different route and gone for a more unhinged tone of voice.

Proceed with caution! Using a totally different tone of voice across social media doesn’t work for all businesses. Think about what will resonate with your audience, and don’t go too extreme.

Outage updates

If you’re a SaaS company, platforms like Threads are ideal for updating customers on temporary changes or small fixes to your software.

You can update people in real-time if there’s an outage and link people to your Threads account for regular updates if they contact you via email or direct message.

Product/shipping delay updates

The same goes for any issues you’re having getting products to customers. Threads is a great place to share transparent updates with your customers. Delays happen, and honesty’s better than keeping customers in the dark.

Remember, not everyone uses Threads, but this may reduce the amount of emails you get when things are delayed.

Businesses on Threads and Twitter

Lots of brands have already made accounts on Threads.

Right now, it feels like everyone is excited about this new platform, and it’s rare to see businesses sharing the same content they do on Twitter on Threads.

Everything is feeling more playful and conversational.

For example, on Twitter, Salesforce shares a lot of links to posts on their site, but so far, on Threads, they are mainly sharing memes and saying things like “Good vibes only”. They’re also taking part in current trends and conversations.

Brands like Netflix, Bloomberg and Ryanair, who are powerhouses on Twitter, are doing the same thing.

Netflix is acting in a similar way to their Twitter account — posting memes, asking their users questions and retweeting their sibling accounts like NetflixGeeked and NetflixIsAJoke.

Bloomberg, who mostly posts links to their website on Twitter, is taking a more casual approach to Threads and seeking out audience interaction.

Ryanair is bringing its cheeky social media tone of voice to Threads, taking part in relevant conversations and newsjacking the Threads launch.

And it’s paying off well. Lots of people are interacting with their Threads posts, and some are getting double the conversion rate they had on Twitter.

It’s important to remember that this is partially due to the hype of having a new platform to use. It’s likely that after a while, people won’t use the app as much, and this engagement will see a drop.

It’s important that brands find ways to keep their content interesting for the people who do stick around.

Opportunities

With this new platform comes lots of new opportunities for businesses.

Threads gives you the chance to connect with your audience in a new way. Even if you’ve been doing this via Twitter, you’re likely to be interacting with different people on Threads.

From what we’ve seen, many Threads users aren’t Twitter users, so this means you potentially have a new audience you can reach on Threads too.

If you’re making plans to leave Twitter and want to get your audience over to Threads, you can offer exclusive content on Threads to encourage your audience to follow.

For example, YouTuber MrWhoseTheBoss posted a couple of photos on Threads before any other platform.

Dangers

As with any new social media platform, there are some dangers here too.

The first danger with Threads is that it’s all based on hype, and once that dies down, there won’t be as much activity there.

We’ve seen this in the past with platforms like Clubhouse, where people thought it was the next big thing, but now it’s barely talked about.

Of course, the opposite could happen, and this could be the next big platform, but it’s important not to get caught up in the hype.

This is where the next danger comes in — don’t up and leave Twitter.

This isn’t just because the hype is at risk of dying down, though.

It’s more to do with your audience and their behaviour.

There are lots of people who use Twitter as their primary social network who don’t use Instagram or any Meta products.

Since you need to have an Instagram account to sign up for Threads, these users are unlikely to want to make the move to this new platform and would rather stay on Twitter.

If a lot of your business comes through Twitter, then it’s important to analyse how your customers behave over the next few months.

If you see a big drop in engagement on Twitter, then this is a sign that your audience is moving over to Threads. If you don’t see much change and see a low engagement on your Threads account, then you’ll want to keep your Twitter account active.

Predictions

With any new platform, our marketing brains start working hard to figure out what the future has in store for the platform and what we predict will happen. Threads is no different.

There’s a lot of discussion happening about paid ads on the platform.

Mark Zuckerberg commented on a thread explaining that there are no plans to monetise Threads until the platform reaches 1 billion users, which is double the size of Twitter.

So will the platform reach this goal?

We think that it will. Instagram currently has over 2 billion monthly active users, and these users have all had notifications suggesting they join Threads.

There’s also likely to be some people who have inactive Instagram accounts that opt to sign into their account again to join Threads, especially if they’re active Twitter users looking for an excuse to move platforms.

It took TikTok three years to hit 1 billion users, and they didn’t have the headstart or support system that Threads does. Because of this, we expect ads to start appearing on Threads sometime in the next two years.

Secondly, we expect that discovery on the app will improve, and Threads will include an explore tab similar to Instagram or a trending tab similar to Twitter. They might even add both.

This means that it will be easier for users to find posts about topics they’re interested in, and will come into contact with brands posting about those topics.

We’ve also noticed that individual Threads are being indexed on Google. This could mean that in the future, some of the search results consist of Threads, in the same way that Twitter and Reddit posts pop up in the SERPs from time to time.

We also predict that posts from Threads will appear in Google’s Perspectives filter once that rolls out to all users.

Conclusion

It’s important you find a middle ground between being extremely hyped about Threads and not caring at all.

This is the best contender for a Twitter-like app we’ve had for a while, and it’s definitely not something we marketers should ignore, but you don’t need to make any hasty moves right away.

Create an account and test it out. If you have the capacity, allocate someone in your team to take ownership of Threads. They can test it out and report back in a couple of months on how the platform is performing for you and if the user base is still going strong.

So far, people are excited about the platform, so it’s definitely worth making an account and playing around with Threads.