Tread carefully with Meta’s Threads

There’s been a lot of hype and excitement about Meta’s Threads, especially from those disillusioned with Twitter, but I wouldn’t be rushing to ditch the tweets.

Despite a record number of sign-ups in a short period of time, and popular brands and Insta celebrities piling on with ‘banter’, pseudo-philosophical statements and inane questions, there still hasn’t been one big ‘moment’ on there that has been shared with the mainstream on Twitter, TV or other traditional media. Where’s the new Binley Mega Chippy? The Ed Balls moment? The major breaking news announced by a public figure or celebrity?

Or as Ryan Broderick shoutily, but accurately, described it:

I DO THINK IT’S PRETTY INTERESTING HOW THERE ARE 100 MILLION SUPPOSED USERS ON THE APP AND IT HAS YET TO GENERATE EVEN ONE INTERESTING STORY OR MEME!!!

Whether it was wise to rush a basic minimal viable product to market in the wake of the latest backlash against Elon Musk, with no playbook or training for key influencers, will soon be seen.

I wouldn’t be advising clients to rush into Threads – sure, set up an account, but spend time observing. Testing and learning is the key theme. Posting links to news stories and sharing the same memes as Twitter and Instagram are unlikely to work.

It’ll need to find its own grammar, ways of working and seeing success – but it needs to happen soon or users will get bored (which reminds me – I need to switch off the BeReal notification sound.) Even MrBeast hasn’t posted in 4 days.

I’ve been testing the platform out on different accounts: my personal one but with no Insta friends migrated over; a nostalgic wrestling-themed channel; and one that reviews alcohol-free beers. As the days progress, the home feed has got a lot better and intuitive, but I still get a thread from US viral publisher Pubity every three posts – on all accounts. Followers have built as Instagram connections find my accounts, but engagement remains low. It’s hard to find your friends and followers.

I’ve noticed after switching accounts that the home feed is a mess, with accounts linked to other profiles appearing in the feed (as well as Pubity repeatedly, of course) and recommendations as random as on Facebook (no, I’m not interested in Westlife fan pages). It’s not an enjoyable experience still.

Some people hark back to the glory days of London 2012 – Threads is a bit like going back to Twitter in 2012, but less user-friendly and reliable.

So what could work? With no native analytics tool, it’s trial and error based on likes and reposts. Focusing on common and relatable themes and interests could work, and it is what I’ll be testing for the foreseeable future.

But news and politics have a steep hill to climb, especially with seemingly little support from Meta. I checked on the Huw Edwards breaking story tonight, and it was very hard to see anything in my home feed about it.

I also feel turned off by link posts that just look the same as on Twitter. Native posting could work, but how does giving your content away for free generate revenue?

So I’m sticking to Twitter for now. I like my followers and occasionally dipping into the bizarro-world of the For You page. Until there is a greater shift of public figures, influencers and organisations off there, it will still be important and agenda-setting.

You may be interested in: Here’s what young people think of as ‘news’ on Instagram.