Last Updated on 07/20/2023 by てんしょく飯
Meta’s new social networking service, Threads, has seen a surge in registered users in the first week after its release. This must be a painful blow to Twitter.
Amid expectations for the rise of a new social networking service, DIGIDAY has covered the future prospects of Threads from the perspectives of users, engagement, and monetization, and summarized them as follows.
100 Million Registered Users in First 5 Days
Threads is experiencing the fastest growth of any existing social media platform. Its momentum has even surpassed that of TikTok, which was considered to be the fastest in terms of user expansion.
On July 10, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced in a post on his Threads account that “this past weekend, Threads surpassed 100 million registered users. He said that the number of registered users grew that much in just the first five days after the app was released, even though most of the new registrations were spontaneous and no promotions had been implemented yet.
Threads became available for download on Google’s Play Store and Apple’s App Store on July 5. According to Zuckerberg’s post the following day, July 6, the number of registered users was 2 million in the first two hours after the service was launched.
Let’s compare the two in terms of the time it took to acquire users. According to data platform Statista, Threads’ rival Twitter took two years to reach one million users. Instagram took two and a half months, and Facebook reached one million users in 10 months. Twitter, 17 years after the app was launched, recorded 237.8 million monthly active users that can be monetized in its Q2 2022 financial results. If Threads, which has already surpassed 100 million users, continues to grow at this pace, it will not be long before it surpasses Twitter in user base.
It is difficult for any brand to gain a large number of followers within a week of launching an official social media account, even if they focus their marketing efforts on it. However, Threads, under the Meta umbrella, has made it possible. Users can take over information from their own Instagram accounts and follow all accounts they follow on Instagram on Threads, and while awareness of user accounts, including brands, plays a role in increasing followers, the smooth integration between the two apps has only encouraged more users to sign up. However, the smooth integration between the two apps is certainly encouraging users to register.
As Jago Sherman, head of strategy at influencer agency The Goat Agency, points out, the user registration process is made easier because of the meta-operated Threads.
The possibility of switching to Threads
Newly released social media platforms generally have high user engagement. This was the case with Clubhouse and BeReal. A similar phenomenon is now happening on Threads.
Amidst the great turmoil that has accompanied Twitter’s missteps over the past eight months, the launch of Threads, with its Twitter-like functionality, has caused many consumers and marketers to turn their attention to the potential of the new social media platform. In fact, according to a poll conducted by market research firm IPSOS on July 6-7, shortly after the launch of Threads, nearly half (46%) of Twitter users in the US said they were likely to switch to Threads.
Brand marketers who want to de-Twitter have high hopes for Threads. They see an opportunity to appeal to Gen Z consumers by reducing video production costs and diversifying their content strategy,” said Michael Harding, head of social media at Designit, a design firm with strengths in mobile and digital media.
While videos up to five minutes in length can be posted to the Threads feed, the maximum video that can be posted to the Twitter timeline is only 2 minutes and 20 seconds. Harding’s statement may be spot on.
Threads for Engagement
Website Planet, a web development service, compared 30 brands with Twitter and Threads accounts, and found that Threads currently has the edge when it comes to engagement rates.
In the case of CNN, Twitter had 61.5 million followers and Threads 329,000 at the time of the survey. However, the number of “likes” on the company’s Twitter account was only 168, while the number of likes on Threads was 717. The same was true for Reuters, which had 209 likes on its Threads account with 165,000 followers compared to 32 likes on its Twitter account with 25.7 million followers. In addition, Vogue Magazine, which has 14.9 million followers on Twitter and 787,000 on Threads, also received 6477 likes on Threads compared to 4075 likes on Twitter.
According to the website Planet, 87% of the 30 brands surveyed had higher engagement on their Threads accounts than on their Twitter accounts, with an average of 8 times more likes on Threads than on Twitter, On average, Threads received eight times as many likes as Twitter.
Threads is clearly outpacing Twitter in engagement rates right now,” Sherman said. Threads now reminds me of the early days of TikTok. Back then, there were more registered users than content creators for TikTok, which led to higher engagement rates for various types of posts.
Maury Lopez, founder and CEO of Sparo Marketing, a digital marketing agency, expects that in the early stages of using Threads, most brands will likely follow a content strategy similar to Twitter. Since Threads does not yet include advertising, brands will need to take the appropriate steps to establish true engagement with their audiences.
The revenue outlook is
From both the marketer’s and the brand’s perspective, building an audience base and expanding engagement in social media is desirable. Most important, however, is the possibility of monetization through advertising. On the other hand, for Meta, which posted 7% YoY revenue growth in Q1 2023, the biggest concern must be whether Threads’ contribution can further boost the company’s revenue. If experts are correct, Threads will bring a significant increase in revenue to Meta.
Some media outlets have reported that Threads could generate $8 billion in annual revenue over the next two years, citing Evercore ISI (Evercore ISI) analysts’ estimates.
Brands and marketers that are already running experimental initiatives on the Threads platform will want to know when the ad format will be implemented as soon as possible. Meta, however, has been tight-lipped about the timing of ad implementation. According to an Axios article, “Threads will probably introduce ads only after its user base reaches a certain required volume. DIGIDAY asked Meta for comment on exactly how many people a certain required amount refers to, but did not receive a response.
The timing of the launch of the advertising service may be a strategic decision by Meta. In the past, the company has taken the step of displaying ads in the home screen feed of each app it introduces only after it has fully established a user base that has become a fan of the app.
Ads only make sense if they get people’s attention,” Sherman said. Meta wants to wait until users are familiar with the app and have spent a certain amount of time viewing its content before introducing ads.
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