Threads was born as a much-hyped alternative to Twitter/X. One year later, let’s see how the massive growth has resonated with earned audiences. At AGM, we monitor cross-platform trends closely to effectively optimize a client's organic social strategies.

Is Anybody Out There?

At its inception, Threads gained an impressive 100M users and officially doubled to 200M this month. During the Meta Q2 2024 Earnings call, Mark Zuckerberg expressed his excitement for Threads and its continued innovation.

“But the thing that I think is just super exciting about Threads is that we've been building this company for 20 years, and there are just not that many opportunities that come around to grow a billion-person app.”
“I mean we're almost at 200 million. So it's a really good milestone, I'm excited about that.”

Popular brands and media companies are sharing innovative content seeking commentary from audiences. Since Threads is a fast-paced platform, we’re seeing companies tap into cultural moments like Nike's Paris 2024 Olympic-related threads. Others like Wendy's, use the platform for playful prompts and to engage the growing platform community.

Give the People What They Want

After the Threads’ launch, there was skepticism and complaints about the lack of features. They took these to heart and began rolling out a slew of new features.

• We're still waiting on that chronological feed, but users can toggle between “For You” and “Following” personalized feeds.
• Soon after launch, they enabled the ability to @ mention someone on Instagram who has yet to sign-up for Threads.
• By December 2023, search functionality was available across the globe.
• Gone by the wayside is the # symbol, make room for tag phrases!
• To encourage in-the-moment conversations, they still limit users to 500 characters and only one tag per post.

Seeing a massive opportunity, Meta has also developed new functionality to cultivate Threads by promoting it more heavily across Instagram. As of May 2024, global users can cross-post any Instagram post to Threads, similar to the Facebook feature. Suggested content is typically from people you follow on Instagram or based on similar search topics. Threads users on Instagram will also notice suggested Threads posts in their feed and a shortcut in the navigation sidebar. With embedded native reminders, Threads saw exponential growth of its active users.

Testing Threads

Depending on your wider content strategy, we recommend testing on this platform with text-forward posts to attract new audiences.

• Cadence: Implement at least monthly or weekly posts to start engaging with audiences on this platform.
• Cross-posting: Part of the appeal of Threads is the ability to cross-post. If awareness is a primary KPI, we recommend you begin cross-posting to Threads from Instagram. Leverage the Meta ecosystem to bring your content to audiences wherever they are.
• Focus on The Text: Flex your creative muscles to master the art of words through innovative content that sparks clever conversations.
• Trendspotting: Consider this new social frontier to build upon your existing Instagram community by tapping into cultural moments or engaging other brands.
• Monitor Performance: Analyze monthly posts and channel performance to identify what content attracts audiences to optimize your cross-platform content strategy.

Not sure where to start? We assist brands with competitive brand audits to identify opportunities for paid, owned, and earned strategies. Click here to get in touch.