Threads, the gram-driven app, has over 100 million sign-ups in nearly five days. The advertising industry and the brands have another toddler to deal with — feed it at regular intervals with posts, dress it up with relevant content, tell good stories, and keep it entertaining all the while. And it doesn’t let the parent sleep! Sleep deprivation all over again. Yeah, nothing much has changed.

The marketing fraternity, along with the brands, is still wondering how to leverage this app and utilise its speculated popularity as one explores its features that give the best of both worlds — the textuality of Twitter and the pictoriality of ‘Gram.

While Threads integrates with Instagram (that tracks up to 1.35 billion worldwide as of 2023), as the former is built on the latter’s user base, allowing one to retain the followers and the following, it also tolerates the users as they type away their opinions (that matter) like Twitter, so one wonders, what of the target audience? Because the target audience for both are on entirely different planets.

Are people tired of creating new content for yet another digital platform?

It is a known fact that a lot of brands have reduced their stakes and advertising budgets on Twitter. Perhaps, they may want to switch to Threads for the same? Yes, it has opened new avenues for advertising to create a wider audience and more engagement, but it goes without saying that it will have an enormous impact on the advertisement industry and influencer marketing and subsequent monetisation opportunities for brands in the social media space.

Disentangling the threads

Regardless of the numbers, clients have been keen, even eager, to create their presence because they do not want to ‘miss out on the opportunity.’ So, while brands contemplate if and how much to spend on Threads, most have requested that agencies jump on the bandwagon to begin exploring the waters.

The clients have begun conversations and started building momentum. However, because users are inadvertently using their Instagram accounts and credentials to log in to Threads, it will be essential to keep advertising Instagram-friendly and build a narrative which essentially inflates the messaging on the parent platform.

A quick scroll on some of the major Threads pages reveals that a lot of content being shared on the platform is mostly cross-sharing from already existing platforms (Facebook, Instagram, etc.). Are people essentially tired of coming up with new content for yet another digital platform? Do the readers feel overwhelmed to stay relevant on yet another platform? Are e-magazines, web portals and influencers going to have to curate entirely different content to remain unique?

Because users clearly do not want to see repetition. There must be a reason for people to shift from an existing app to another. It must differentiate to compete with a social giant such as Twitter. An extension of Instagram just won’t last, which brings one to the same point mentioned earlier: target audience.

Many brands have shared behind-the-scenes posts, product launches and several other updates, while users are directly conversing with the brands to provide critical/constructive feedback. For the agencies, though, it will have to be a combination of robust textual content with audio/visual relevance.

It’s a content wilderness out there, and the target audience won’t hesitate to ignore less-than-stellar content. Because if one platform cannot provide it, another will.

Will the competition last?

Coke and Pepsi have been rivals since time immemorial. A lot of beverages come and go or are acquired by either of them, but this brand war has lasted years. Microsoft vs Apple. BMW vs Audi. While the competition brings out the creative best, the fierce rivalry of these is here to stay for good.

This brings one to question the sustainability of the digital war between Twitter and Threads. Will this become another example for marketing and advertising professionals to study in the coming years? Or will Threads fade away like ‘just another social media platform’? Can it carve a path for itself that will remain here for good?

It is in its nascent stages as of now to make a call on whether it will be a threat to Twitter, but if Meta’s success is any indication of its efficacy, the users, brands, and agencies are in for another social trial, should the app burst into full throttle.

The writer is a content lead at an agency. Email: sara.amj@hotmail.co.uk

Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, July 17th, 2023