What Threads means for businesses and marketing teams

Threads vs Twitter – FIGHT! Well, not quite… 

The jury’s still out as to whether Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg will go through with their billionaire-style fisticuffs or not, but one thing’s for sure, they’ve drawn the battle lines for the Microblogging Wars, Threads vs Twitter. 

There are many questions this raises apart from which one will emerge triumphant, and a major one is what this means for business marketing. Fortunately, it’s not an “either/or” choice for marketing teams, but nevertheless it’s something that brands and businesses will have to put some thought into. Why? Because early adopters of any new platform launch enjoy some rather juicy benefits.  

With this in mind, mustard MD has taken a close look at Threads and what it can do for audience growth right now.  

The brilliant thing for brands when you’re straight off the starting blocks of a new platform, is that you’re almost guaranteed a username to be proud of. Disney hasn’t even posted yet (as of writing), but has the username ‘Disney’ and has notched up 1.2 million followers already. Not bad going for a blank homepage, which incidentally draws attention to benefit number two – getting in some content… fast. 

Why? Because when any social media platform launches, the parent company’s laser focus is on flooding it with users. This means it’ll prioritise your content over ads (which Meta isn’t using yet, anyway) and shower your brand with engagement and impressions to secure your loyalty. 

The Threads team are also very keen to tell us about their vision – that Threads takes what Instagram does best and expands that to text “creating a positive and creative space” to express ideas. Sharing those ideas is easy because one of the huge advantages that Threads has is that it’s linked to your Instagram account… and that means that you don’t have to start from scratch. You just log in with your Instagram credentials and import all your followers at the same time. You’re then engaging with your known network, but in a new context that will snatch their attention. 

You’re also likely to gain many more new followers who are eager to connect to platform users with similar interests, or are in the mood for engaging with something a little outside their comfort zone. 

The other big news for businesses is that they can create unique content by experimenting within a new channel. Threads allows users a generous 500 characters per post, which is more than enough for a witty and informative message. Your posts can also include web links, photos, and videos up to five minutes long. This takes it way past the Instagram goal posts and into a whole different ballpark.  

Add to this, Threads intended future compatibility with ActivityPub, and businesses will really be on a roll. In case you don’t already know, ActivityPub is a decentralised social networking protocol that allows social networking apps to interconnect with other apps that use the same protocol. Eh? Precisely our reaction. To those of us who hang with the In Crowd, this translates as – your posts on all your compatible social media platforms will be shared on all the feeds, as long as you give it the go ahead.  

This is a future feature that will undoubtedly prove to be another game changer in terms of keeping a brand constantly on message, but also freeing up the valuable time of the marketing department to spend on dreaming up ever more ingenious ideas. 

Of course, Threads may end up as yet another skeleton on the side of the microblogging highway, but nobody can doubt its potential right now. Okay, it hasn’t got hashtags and other features beloved by the Twitterati, but it would be real dumb to doubt that these are heading towards its users at breakneck speed.  

And our verdict? Well, for any business with current and future marketing ambitions, the potential long-term gain from forging Threads credentials early on in the game is phenomenally exciting.  

But this isn’t by any means a slam-dunk for Threads, because Twitter has a new CEO. A genuine superhero in the marketing universe, Linda Yaccarino is the former head of advertising at NBCUniversal. And if anything in life is certain, it’s this – Linda will already have a few head-turning ideas up her designer sleeve.  

So, as far as marketing departments are concerned, watch this space! 

Do you have the kind of ideas that will give a brand social media impact?

Or do you have the creativity that will light fireworks under a marketing campaign?  

Then all of us at mustard MD are very keen indeed to speak to you. We have some amazing job opportunities for people who’ve got the talent to go far, so give us a call. The number you need is 0117 929 6060.