Will Threads pull together or unravel your social media strategy?
You had to try hard to miss news about Threads when it launched last Thursday. Either you’ll have seen something about it on your own social media feed, read about it in your paper (be that digital or in print), or heard your social media manager weeping in a corner. You might even have joined it yourself, to see what the fuss was about.
Threads is the name of the new text-based chat app that has been launched by Meta – owner of Facebook and Instagram – as an alternative to Twitter. Ever since its acquisition by Elon Musk last year (for a paltry $44 billion), the latter has committed the cardinal sin of media and become the story itself, rather than how that story is shared. Strategically, Twitter has lost its way and tales of boardroom clashes and fall outs with Big Tech partners, of on-a-whim decisions being made by its billionaire overlord, and of mass lay-offs, have kept Silicon Valley abuzz.
Meanwhile, the deterioration of Twitter itself into a polarised bin fire of abuse and recrimination has accelerated. Content moderation safeguards, designed to protect and preserve sane discourse, have been removed, and it’s become a space where brands now fear to tread. Advertisers have left in droves, in lockstep with plummeting user numbers.
It’s hardly surprising that Meta has chosen now as the time to launch an alternative, despite the recent proliferation of platforms trying - and largely failing - to fill Twitter’s space. Hands up who has a Mastodon, Bluesky or Tribal profile quietly gathering digital dust somewhere?
However, with the technical heft of Meta and Mark Zuckerberg’s own star power driving it, Threads is ready to exploit what those apps have lacked in functionality, scale and zeitgeist. Within hours of launching, it had registered tens of millions of users.
On the face of it, the two platforms are hard to separate. The User Experience – the way you interface with the technology on whatever device you’re using – is very similar. You can follow, like and comment on posts in the same way, and although there’s no direct messaging or hashtagging, you can assume both features are coming.
So if its ‘a new Twitter’ does that mean then that as a travel agent, tour op or travel brand that you should join British Airways, Virgin Atlantic, Emirates, Heathrow Airport, TUI, Hayes and Celebrity Cruises– which all had profiles set up and had begun to ‘thread’ on the day of launch – and jump in?
Threads has taken off like one of Elon’s rockets and is here to stay, but it’s still early days and you should first determine whether your customers are even there. The requirement for Threads users to have an Instagram account could be a barrier for some. Ask whether your social media resource has the capacity to manage a presence on Zuck’s new plaything. The more widely a brand spreads itself because it thinks it should, the thinner it becomes. A neglected channel could mean neglected customers, so if you join, will you post or will you ghost?
Finally, what do you want to achieve? If it’s brand visibility and awareness, what’s your content plan for activation? If it’s customer service, how will you resource that? And if it’s simply because your competitors are there and you think you should be as well, then it’s time to put down your needle before things start to unravel.
This post originally appeared as the first of a regular column that Llama will be publishing in TTG to help travel brands to sharpen their marketing