Threads launched two days ago and had over one million users
Two days ago, the team from Instagram launched the new Threads social media app as a way of sharing texts updates and public discussions globally. Threads hit more than a million users in 30 minutes of launch, which is no surprise since it already had a built-in audience from its Instagram users. It did not have to prove its existence like Netflix or Facebook when they launched, since there was already a social media platform competitor in the market to prove the user model, such as Twitter. Threads is an obvious alternative social media marketing platform to Twitter for its Instagram users to share information and is finally a viable option to Twitter as a public discussion app, but will it be a a good marketing channel for businesses to derive leads and will users outside of Instagram be persuaded to join?
Meta is smartly taking advantage of Twitter's recent business mistakes, since Elon Musk took ownership, which has caused a hemorrhaging of users and advertisers that supported the platform. Only time will tell if Meta can make Threads a profitable business model for the company and as a viable marketing channel for advertisers. Meta will have to be more innovative than Twitter in keeping "hate dialogue and misinformation" out of the public threads, which caused a multitude of brands to disengage with Twitter. Brands will be more cautious where they spend their advertising dollars with a new social media platform, after the backlash of Twitter. Lastly, Twitter never proved to be a great platform for businesses in lead generation or branding. LinkedIn has been the consistent leader for B2B marketers to spend their digital marketing budgets over Twitter.
Twitter Never Proved to be Good for Digital Marketing
From launch, Twitter had a tough time proving its advertising business model and has never had the leads conversions or branding opportunities for businesses that advertised on its platform. I can attest to this as a digital marketer, after running digital marketing campaigns for companies on Twitter and comparing them to other social media platforms for highly qualified leads.
According to HubSpot's updated 2020 research, prior to Elon Musk's 2022 takeover of Twitter, "...study of over 5,000 businesses, HubSpot found that traffic from LinkedIn generated the highest visitor-to-lead conversion rate at 2.74%, almost 3 times higher (277%) than both Twitter (.69%) and Facebook (.77%)"
As a marketer, I am always glad to see a new marketing channel launch for finding alternative ways to reach my target audiences more effectively. I think it's too early to say whether Threads will be a viable leads generator and/or brand advertising channel for marketing, but I am always willing to test. Happy Friday!