“When I first heard about Threads, I thought it was an app for secondhand clothing. But now I realize it’s an app for secondhand tweets,” states Wendy’s (yep, the fast food joint) account in one of their first posts on Meta’s new social media network.
The queen of brand tweets is right: Threads looks and feels a lot like Twitter—sans Elon Musk. Or, put another way: “just Instagram minus pics,” as he sourly described it.
Heck, even the platform’s name is taken from one Twitter’s most popular features.
That said, there’s good reason to believe Threads has potential. Marketed as a “sanely-run” alternative to Musk’s network, the app feels in some ways like a fresh start for brands after the latter’s implosion. But how seriously should marketers take yet another app—least of all one from a maker that recently pulled the plug on an expensive, overhyped promise to revolutionize the internet?
(Remember the Metaverse? It’s technically no more, to everyone’s relief.)
Maybe Threads won’t disrupt social media on the grand scale Meta had planned for the Metaverse. But it does have a shot at least of unseating Twitter—and giving brands a new avenue for connecting with their audiences.
Threads is low-risk, low-maintenance, and quick-growth.
With Threads, being an early adopter has never been easier. Recycled features invite recycled content and make for a gentle learning curve. Plus, the text-first format means writing for Threads is miles easier than figuring out multiple layers of trends, music, and niche references just to produce a 15-second video.
But, beyond ease of use, Thread’s biggest selling point for brands is ease-of-growth. The platform leverages Meta’s massive user base to solve one of the biggest hurdles for any brand jumping on a new social media platform: building an audience. Since it’s connected to Instagram accounts, carrying followers over to Threads is simple—saving marketers from the agonizing experience of transforming yet another zero into six highly-engaged figures.
Another point in Thread’s favor: it’s safer than Twitter—at least for now. Meta’s stronger content moderation and copyright protections mean stronger policing of hate speech, parody accounts, and all the uncertainty and shenanigans that have sent brands hightailing it out of Twitter since Musk’s takeover in late 2022.
But a decentralized platform may soon create challenges.
While it’s still too early to speculate on the downsides of Threads, there are plenty of unanswered questions. One of the biggest? How Meta’s plans for Threads will unfold. According to the official press release, the tech giant’s ultimate goal is to make the app into a decentralized social media platform:
“Our vision is that people using compatible apps will be able to follow and interact with people on Threads without having a Threads account…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.”
While the promise of one app to rule them all may be music to marketers’ ears, not all platforms are created—or moderated—equally. Advertising attorney Andrew Lustigman laid out one of the biggest risks lurking in Threads’ utopic vision: “Those platforms may not have the same moderation standards as Meta, which could result in brand owners’ content being displayed in an unintended environment.”
So much for staying safe from the “free-for-all hellscape” of Twitter—as Musk described it himself last year.
So savor the good vibes—before the novelty wears off.
Neither the prospect of handing over the keys to their content nor Meta’s questionable data collection practices have quenched brands’ growing interest in Threads. Say what you want about Meta, but its advertisement platform is one of the most powerful available to marketers today, and second only to Google’s.
Which is why companies are lining up cash in-hand, for the chance to get their content in front of Threads’ 100 million users. The only problem: there’s no advertising on Threads yet. And Zuckerberg has stated that it won’t happen until the platform reaches 1 billion users.
That makes sense. If Meta wants Threads to gain traction, it needs to get people to like it. And pumping it full of ads is a surefire way to achieve the opposite.
Oh, and there are no analytics either.
What to do in the meantime?
To quote Wendy’s again: “Let’s all savor this text-based platform before it becomes vertical short-form video from no one you follow.”
And above all, write to entertain and connect.
People come to social media for entertainment and connection. And that’s exactly what the best-performing brands writing for Threads are prioritizing right now. Scroll through some of the most popular brand accounts and you’ll catch them poking fun at themselves and their followers, ripping on Threads’ counterfeit features, and @-ing each other. The tone is casual, unfiltered, and—at times—deliciously unhinged.
Threads’ ad-free version won’t be around for long. And writing for Threads is a golden opportunity for brands to unplug from the excess stimuli that have come to define most social media— and connect with audiences at eye level with good, old-fashioned copywriting.
Will usage and engagement wane once the novelty wears off? How well can Threads’ bare-bones interface compete with the dopamine carrousel that are Instagram and TikTok? Only time will tell.
For now, Threads is a playground where the vibe is very much like being at the office while the boss is out on vacation. Sure, there’s some work getting done, but everyone’s mostly just shooting the breeze.
As Old Navy (yes, the family-friendly retailer better known for $10 flip-flops has a surprisingly PG-13 Twitter/Threads persona) put it:
“Competitor”
“Market share”
“KPIs”
Shh those words don’t exist here
And that’s kind of amazing. So, enjoy it while it lasts.
Want help writing for Threads? Get in touch with MarketSmiths today.
