Threads is the new social media app launched by Mark Zuckerberg on Thursday 6th June. It has been described as a text-based conversation app designed to be a space “where communities come together to discuss everything from the topics you care about today to what’ll be trending tomorrow”.
The new threads app was launched by Meta and became the most rapidly downloaded app ever with more than 70 million downloads within its first 24 hours. Many have been asking the question, should we be on the threads app? For our clients in the cybersecurity and tech space, this has been a particularly interesting conversation to have. Let’s have a closer look at the app and whether or not it is worth investigating.
How does the new Threads app work?
Users require an Instagram account to be able to sign up to the new Threads app. Once they have signed up, they can choose to follow the same accounts they follow on Instagram, so long as they have a Threads account.
There have been a couple of details highlighted by users around the sign up process for the Threads app:
- If you do not have a significant Instagram following, you may struggle to build up a decent Threads app following. This is because the Threads app is missing a number of details that help accounts get found (more information on that further down the blog).
- If you were to download the Threads app, but then decided you wanted to delete your account, you cannot do this without deleting your Instagram account, as well.
Are there any similarities to other social media platforms?
It is no secret that the Threads app was launched as a competitor to Twitter, and whilst Zuckerberg claims the app offers an entirely different experience, there are some similarities.
- The text-based news feed feels like a very familiar interface to Twitter. And the addition of photo’s and videos makes it even more similar.
- Users are able to ‘like’ posts with a classic heart’ shaped symbol, very similar to Twitter.
- Content can be re-posted to be shared with other audiences, although instead of being called a retweet, it is called a repost.
What are the differences between the Threads app and Twitter?
Whilst there are some similarities between the Threads app and Twitter, there are some definite differences which sets the two apps apart, and makes once more favourable (for the time being…)
- Twitter is notorious for its 280 character limit on Tweets (unless you have subscribed to Twitter Blue in which case the character threshold increases to 25,000), but on the Threads app, a Thread has a character limit of 500.
- You might have tried to Google Threads and noticed that there is no desktop application. This is a significant element, particularly when looking at the Threads app’s abilities from a business perspective.
- The Threads app does not support GIFs or direct messages which many use on Twitter, so will notice when they are not available.
- We know how much we use Twitter as a platform to advertise on, and so many will be disappointed to see that Threads has launched without any advertising capabilities. Again, this will be a big deciding factor particularly for businesses when deciding whether or not to invest time into the app.
- As previously mentioned, there are a couple of elements that make Threads a less social media SEO friendly platform. The search function on the Threads app only allows users to search for other accounts, and not for trending topics. This will make user experience significantly different from Twitter. The Threads app also doesn’t utilise hashtags which, as we all know are a key feature used across the majority of social platforms as a tool to help users both find relevant content and increase engagement on their content.
Are we recommending the Threads app?
As we mentioned above, the Threads app opens another social platform to get to grips with, and one that will require time and energy (and money) to gain a presence on. It is currently very early days on the app, and it feels like it is in its infancy. The lack of multiple features leaves us both sceptical of whether we should be investing time on the platform, but also intrigued into how Meta will develop the app.
Although we have established that the Threads app has many different features to Twitter, companies should look at their Twitter activity and use this to help them consider what benefit they might see from signing up to the Threads app. So far, the kind of content we have seen from the Threads app wouldn’t suggest that it would align with many tech or cybersecurity companies core messaging, and the lack of advertising would suggest that it wouldn’t be worth it (for now).
We are going to be keeping a close eye on the development of the Threads app and will be adjusting what we are recommending accordingly.
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