So What Does Threads Mean - 5 Big Questions

Perhaps Threads offers Meta the possibility of 4 times the controversy for a 3% gain in revenue. 5 questions we should be asking.

1) What does the massive surge of new users mean?

Realistically, “Threads” is less of a new app, and more of a subfeature in Instagram.

These are not so much “new users” persuaded to change their behavior and boldly create a new account, and more instagram users that were intrigued enough to try a new feature by claiming an account they already had.

By making it quick, simple, free, seamless for existing IG users to convert, they’ve done a wonderful job of explosive growth, which exceeds expectations, but should it have?

We should however remember that even though Facebook routinely lies about it’s metrics, and fake accounts are wildly underestimated, in theory there are 2 billion Instagram users ( including 200 million business accounts) so even when Threads hits 100 million “users”, it means 95% of accounts have still not bothered to try something new.

I’d guess over the next month we see threads users rise to 200 million ( about half that of Twitter) with growth start to tail off after 2 weeks.

The fastest growing app ever makes nice headlines, but it means rather little, what really matters is engagement

2) What’s the engagement like?

Rather than the speed of growth, it’s the retention rate that matters. Something we won’t ever really know because Meta decided to make deleting accounts all but impossible for everyone except the most spiteful.

The only metric that will ever really matter is the number of people x minutes spent per day. Zuckerberg’s game isn’t to create the worlds town square but to make a new Times Square, its a play for advertising and data, which is far more dependent on time spent, not user numbers. 

Social Networks live or die based on engagement. They are media outlets that depend on people making stuff for free, posting stuff regularly, posting stuff thats good enough for people to appreciate, and then on people liking, replying to and sharing content.

Google Plus or Circles or whatever theoretically reached 300 million people before collapsing under it’s own weight of emptiness.

These are all metrics that we haven’t begin to digest yet. By making it so easy to join, my sense it we don’t necessarily have the most committed, lively, interested or human people on the site.

• We will slowly learn how many people were creating accounts to claim their names before others did. I’d guess a lot.
• We will learn how many people were forced as agencies to make new pages for the 200 million companies that felt it necessary to have Instagram accounts, or 118m that wanted a Twitter account. I’d guess a lot.
• How many joined quickly in the hope of benefiting from the inevitable early land grab where algorithms can make you. I’d guess a lot.
• How many people are bot farms hoping to sell fake followers to hapless souls in the first few months. I’d guess a lot.
• How many people are people who are curious and wanted to see what it was like, but with little commitment or desire for a new place to express themselves. I’d guess a lot.

If we are to look at users who like the idea of Threads a lot, who have the inclination to invest the hours needed to build out new networks, who plan to stay on the site and continue to make, engage with and consume content a lot, and who wouldn’t just carry on doing this on Twitter , I think we may well find a fraction of users.

3) What does this mean for Twitter.

I’d guess very little. 

Leaving Twitter is a bit like “moving to Canada”, it’s something everyone performatively declares, but few carry through with. The user that Twitter cares about is a power users gorging on content, whipped up into commenting, and who contributes by posting stuff.

While there are millions of these people ever more pissed off by Elon’s antics, enraged by the sites nasty behavior, affronted by advertising, they now have the option of both leaving Twitter AND finding a new familiar home. But I don’t think this is going to happen en mass.  

I was planning on outlining all the main reasons. How it’s another Billionaires data and money grab, the issues of surveillance, the enormous time it takes people to curate their feeds, and many more things, but the main reason I think people won’t leave is because Threads is really really really bad.

When I was 7 years old I once lost a new pound coin in a bush on the way to buy sweets in the Village bakery in Hook Norton. It was the most money I could ever imagine, and for 3 hours I searched in vain, ever more anguished and upset.

At the age of 19 I was detained inside a bare Police station without food, or a book, or a phone, between Greece and Turkey after denied entry for having no Visa. I waited for 21 painful hours for the return train, trying to find interest in the painted walls, the sounds outside and a distant radio. 

Yet it was the couple of hours I spent on Threads that remain the most hopeless, empty, stale, moments in my life. I felt the brutal futility of life enter me, I felt both hollow of meaning, and oddly triggering. For 3 days I’ve now checked it twice a day just to get angry at it’s banal, insipid, platitudinous pointlessness. 

Now I’m sure a percent of Twitter users will move. Those who have Live Love Laugh signs on their walls will find in light hearted, people who like Gary V will find it inspiring and approachable, but right now 97% of Tweets come from 25% of users. That means Twitter is really a group of 100m strange people. 

4) What does this mean for Facebook ( Meta, whatever)

I’d guess very little.

As I said before 2,000,000 people apparently use Instagram each month, and they spend a whopping 11 trillion minutes on the App. 

This creates an incredible amount of data, and an incredible number of rich, page dominate, image based ad units, which work well and are worth a lot of money. 

There really has never been a better advertising platform invented, and as such it brings in around $52 billion a year in revenue for Facebook each year.

These are such big numbers it’s hard to imagine Threads will change much at all. Especially as it will largely be canabalistic, not incremental.

We may see Instagram users love threads so much, they spend the same amount of time on IG, and a little extra time each day on threads.

We may see some people who don’t use FB or IG, create accounts in order to access Threads, to become brand new users.

We may see some Twitter users move to Threads and spend a bit of time there.

But I don’t see this adding up to much ( in the context of the scale of Meta)

• Does Threads give Facebook the chance to attract wealthier, more desirable customers, probably not.
• Does Threads give Facebook the chance to hang on to people who are ageing out of Facebook or Instagram, probably not 
• Does Threads give Facebook the chance to recruit younger, trendier people who choose Tik Tok or SnapChat, or YouTube Shorts, no chance.

Realistically Threads is likely to be of little real benefit to Meta.

They will get a bit more user data. They will get a few more users. They will offer another product to advertisers and a new context for them to buy,

Initially it will work a little. The big name advertisers who once spent money on Twitter will see this as a way to carry on advertising to Microbloggers, without the risk of appearing to support Musk, or the brand safety risk of the context of some of less savory stuff on Instagram.

But long term I can’t imagine threads ever bringing in more than 3% more revenue to Meta.

5) What does this mean for Brands.

I’d guess very little.

Open an account, grab your name, and try to copy your follower graph from Twitter.

Then take the Tweets you currently publish, and after posting them to Twitter, copy and paste the same stuff into Threads.

Threads is both the same and different. It’s the same vessel, the same dynamics, same context, just a different audience, different motivations, different mindsets.

But the whole point of you is that you’re not something to everyone, that you have consistency, values, principles, don’t be two faced, be consistent.

And don’t sweat it too much, it’s not the next Big thing, it's the next Google Circles. It's an experiment. It's not innovation, it's provocation. It's not Meta's future, it's Zuckerberg's grudge.

Cancel all the meetings about what Threads means and go spend your time looking at your customers and figure out how to make it easier for them to spend money with you.

Figure out how to serve them better.

Figure out your marketing vision for 2025.

Anything but this small silliness.