Threads – Should Your Company Join the Bandwagon?

To join Threads, or not to join Threads, that is the question. Okay, sorry for the cheesy intro, but in a way, it’s fitting for this article. I’ll explain later.

If you haven’t heard yet, the new Twitter alternative, Threads, has been out for a few weeks now. Not sure exactly what it is? Check out our YouTube video where we break it down and give our first impressions.

When we say Twitter “alternative,” we really mean it’s almost an identical platform to Twitter, just made by Meta. Aside from a few differences, they’re basically function the exact same. So if it’s almost identical to Twitter, should you/your company be utilizing Threads? What’re the advantages and disadvantages?

This is a tough one for us to answer. Yes and no.

Our gut instinct says that yes, you should jump on the bandwagon and sign up for Threads right now. After all, it is very easy to do if you have an Instagram account already. But while it’s easy to do, is it really worth it?

Let’s break it down…

Advantages to being an early adopter

We’ve always been an advocate for jumping on new social media trends, platforms, etc. as soon as you can. Why? When you’re an early adopter, you’re more likely to gain traction and get noticed. Early to arrive on a TikTok trend? You might make the video people see when searching for that trend down the road. One of the first to join a new platform? Your posts and profile will get recommended to more people as they sign up. The possibilities for discovery early on are far better than when the platform is over-saturated with users. Being early to the game is never a bad thing.

Showing up to a platform early also lets you get used to and learn all the best tips and tricks before everyone else does. So by the time others jump on board, you’re already a seasoned pro and have your strategy in place.

Joining a new platform can also give you a fresh start. Let’s face it, Twitter can be pretty toxic sometimes – no matter how positive you try to be. Threads on the other hand? We’ve seen zero negativity so far. You also get to start over with who you follow. It can be a pain to scroll back through the people on you follow on other platforms and remove them. So start fresh, be selective in who you follow and get rid of any negativity.

So while there’s advantages in general to joining a new platform/trend early on, when it comes to Threads, there are some specific disadvantages we want to cover.

Disadvantages to Threads

Before we continue, let’s emphasize that we’re talking in regards to business accounts. That’s important to keep in mind for these first few disadvantages.

Disadvantage #1

When looking at it from a business account standpoint, Threads does not provide any analytics yet. For social media managers and the companies they work for, this is important. Social media managers (and more so their bosses) depend on analytics to measure the performance on the various platforms. Right now, the only real analytics you can measure are number of followers. Technically you could go through and count all the likes and replies and add them up from each post, but no one is actually going to do that. So without any analytics, it’s hard to say how you’re doing.

Zero analytics on how many impressions your post got. No seeing the engagement rate over a month-long time frame. Demographics of your followers? Not a chance.

All of these things are important for measuring success, and they aren’t available on Threads… yet.

Disadvantage #2

Next disadvantage: there’s no API for third-party softwares. Why’s that important? Well for social media managers, it means you can’t schedule out posts or have Threads be in the same software as all your other accounts. Trust us, it’s a pain to try and manage different accounts when they aren’t all in one place. Can it be done? Yes, but your social media manager won’t be thrilled. This also relates back to the analytics because a lot of these softwares run analytics reports as well.

Disadvantage #3

Along the same lines: since you can only be on Threads on your phone, anyone who manages multiple accounts (whether personal or business/creator) has to manually switch back and forth between accounts. Talk about a pain..

At least you don’t have to re-login every time, but it’s still an annoying process for social media managers.

Disadvantage #4

The search functionality on Threads, as of this writing, is very limited. You know how we talked about being discovered earlier? Well with limited search capabilities right now, it’s impossible for users to search for topics of interest. Is there a search section? Yes. But it’s only for searching for users. Oh, and there’s no hashtags either.

Discoverability is pretty limited unless you’re very active and engage with larger/similar accounts frequently.

So yes or no?

Do you see why this is a hard one to answer? If we had to give you an answer, we’d probably say yes. BUT: make sure your expectations are reasonable. Don’t go into it expecting overnight success and instant growth.

Also, don’t take it too serious. You don’t have to have a well-thought out strategy yet. We’re still in the early discovery phases. Just have fun. Post some memes. Don’t be so polished everything you post is boring. That’s not what Threads is in its early state.

Enjoy your time exploring the features and what it can offer your company. If you’re not enjoying it after a few weeks? No harm, no foul!

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Want to discuss Threads further? Need help getting established? We’d be happy to chat over the phone or via Zoom about Threads or any other social media platforms! Contact us today and we’ll set up a time to talk!

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