So here it is! The new toy has arrived.
After months of speculation, Zuckerberg's ongoing feud with Musk reaches new heights as Threads hits our phones, massively increasing our screen time and adding yet another platform to consider for those in marketing and small business owners. Within the first 12 hours of availability it had already hit over 22m users.
First impressions...well it's Twitter's more mature sister by the looks of things. Some differing functionality but hopefully a forum that shows no signs of all the sanctimonious, trolling and often downright disgusting content that littered Musk's platform. For now at least. At the time of writing, huge swathes of the Twitterati seemed to be jumping ship declaring that Threads is a new start.
As cynical and weary of social media as I often am, I have to admit that I felt a little flutter of excitement signing up, reminiscent of the good old days, following people, seeing your follower count steadily rise. Early exchanges reminded me of walking into a networking event for the first time, you know you should be there but you're not quite sure what to do, say or who to talk to.
So what now? Forgive my inability to remember where I first heard this but someone once said it isn't always about the changes, it's about the things that haven't changed. Or words to that effect. This is SO true in marketing. We get blindsided by the shiny new plaything that comes to market often neglecting the tools that have worked for us and others in the past. Once the furore has died down and people forget what all the fuss was about, we will go back to our businesses, post something on Facebook (maybe even Twitter), revisit our mailing lists and website content, do a little palm pressing and normality will be restored.
I have no doubt that Threads will be around for quite some time but in what format? It's evolution will be interesting. For now there are no advertising opportunities but it is undoubtedly imminent. When the posturing stops and Zuckerberg declares himself the winner of this round, he will of course, do what he does best. Make money. Also, his irritating need to constantly tinker will mean countless changes to what is, right now, a pretty simplistic platform. The familiar grievances will resurface, the same disgruntled users who have fallen out with Twitter and fallen foul of Meta's desperate attempts to play catch up with Tiktok will take to their timelines to express their dismay.
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