Should You Jump Ship From Twitter to Threads?

Threads, a social media app similar to Twitter, is rapidly gaining popularity. It is on its way to becoming the fastest-growing platform soaring past 72 million users in less than 24 hours.

Threads, released this week by Meta, is a fast streaming social media platform, meant as a replacement for Twitter since the latter’s CEO took over and started making what some consider destructive changes to the social channel.

Should you switch if you’ve established a targeted audience on Twitter that responds to your content? That remains to be seen. 

Twitter CEO Elon Musk has made unpopular changes since he bought the platform, like limiting Tweet visibility, staggered according to verified or unverified users. Other complaints point to inundation by subpar advertisements, too many sponsored tweets, and autonomous profiles. 

While we wait out the disruption by Musk, it is of value to at least check out Meta’s new platform, which is the winning Twitter replacement for now. Mastodon and BlueSky are two contenders – with Mastodon’s monthly active users (MAU) at 2.5 million and BlueSky with only 180K users and a waitlist of 1.9 million. 

But that’s only considering the numbers–just because Threads could reach 100 million users in probably a day or less from now doesn’t mean it’s the right platform for your business or brand. 

It’s all about who you connect with and whether they respond to your content, no matter what platform you use. Does it matter if you’re on a platform with millions of users who are outside your target audience, or if they are, they don’t follow you or engage with your content?

Threads is super simple, like Twitter, because you have a constant stream of posts on your home feed. But, unlike Twitter which offers organizing content and followers with lists, Threads has no way to organize by topic or user. However, you can see Replies and Mentions in separate columns. 

You must have an Instagram account to use Threads. You’ll be prompted to follow your existing Instagram followers upon signing up. Your most active followers will probably follow you back soon. 

Hashtags are not a thing on Threads. A simple keyword search suggests whom to follow but does not show content. The only option to view content is to peruse your home feed. This factor indicates that you will have to spend a lot of time publishing content for your audience to see your posts.

There are privacy concerns, so the app is now unavailable in the European Union. And if you want to delete your account, you must delete your Instagram profile. The only other option is to deactivate one or the other. As a business or brand, it’s your goal to be as publicly available as possible, so these issues shouldn’t be a concern.

Is Threads a Good Marketing Channel for Businesses?

💰Is Meta’s new platform of value for marketers and businesses who want to reach their target audiences? As with all social media platforms, it depends on connecting with the right people and creating content that resonates with them. Threads might be a great place to launch a new aspect of your brand persona. But, as noted previously, whether your audience sees it is a gamble. Interacting with others by following, liking, and commenting on their threads will get you some interaction on yours. Again, you’ll have to work at it.

While Meta’s (Mark (Zuckerburg’s) goal 🎯 with the app is to widen its advertiser base, the same goes for brands/businesses—another avenue to reach your target audience. 

Some naysayers predict failure, like Mark Schaefer’s article “The Case Against Threads.” Schaefer argues that Threads doesn’t solve a problem, as Google Plus, launched as a competitor to Facebook, didn’t before it crashed and burned. He posits that there is already a Twitter, so there is no room for another similar platform. 

But if Musk further degrades the platform, especially by restricting reach, there will be a void, and it’s only a matter of who will win the race to replace it. Will it be Threads, Mastodon, or BlueSky? I have yet to try the others; not enough bandwidth. 

And that is the fundamental problem with any new platform: unless you have a marketing team behind you or your business, how can you add another social media platform to your marketing strategy? Do you want to abandon all your efforts in building up a Twitter audience you connect with regularly? Do you have the time? 

As it’s new, you will have to wait to be able to connect Threads to a social media publishing platform. To regularly post content, it has to be manual for now. You can share your Instagram and Facebook posts to Threads, but photos/videos are only visible partially. They’re more like link posts. I’m sure that will change soon. However, you can share your Threads on Instagram Stories, Feeds, and Twitter😀.

Ultimately, it’s a wait, test, and see what happens. If Twitter does crash and burn, an unlikely scenario with so much at stake (reputation in addition to money), and you need a Twitter alternative, Threads might be the right platform–if your audience is there. And it probably will be as numbers grow.

Please let me know what your thoughts are. Let me know in the comments section below.