At first glance, Threads is an exciting new addition to the ever-growing social media landscape. Dubbed the Twitter Killer, the app may prove to be a serious competitor to what used to be Twitter and is now re-branded X, with sign-ups totalling over 100 million within the first five days of launch.
But can it learn from Twitter’s mistakes and provide a user experience that avoids the pitfalls that have left people fed up with Twitter while still capitalising on the features that make text-based apps a quick and easy way to connect, share news, and have a laugh? Dan Hughes, Principal Product & Strategy Lead at Beyond, shares his thoughts with us below.
Building on Twitter's Success
There’s no secret about it, Threads is largely based on the functionalities that made Twitter a massive success. Twitter's organic growth, where users curate their own feeds based on personal preferences, has been instrumental to its popularity.
My Twitter feed, for example, is filled with brands, organisations and people that align with my interests beyond our outside of my real world social networks. This provides me with a stream of people whose opinions or news I want to read and interact with.
Instagram, on the other hand, thrives as a visual medium where users engage with photos and videos. While many influencers have found success on Instagram through visual content, the challenge lies in transitioning their brand to the text-based format on Threads. While it allows for video and images, the focus remains on text-based interactions, opinions, and thoughts.
Threads must establish its identity and purpose to enforce its relevance to users. Does it aspire to be a better, cleaner version of Twitter or a more serious, insights-led version of Instagram? Users will play a crucial role in shaping its identity over the next months, and helping it claim its place on the social media landscape.
Meanwhile, users – especially brands looking to benefit from the platform – will have to learn how to bridge the gap between the visual focus of Instagram and the storytelling objective of Threads if they want to continue to engage with their audience on both platforms.
Optimising the User Experience
Perhaps the most notable feature of Meta’s latest app is its ease of sign-up, allowing users to leverage the community they’ve built on their existing Instagram profiles. The connection makes it easy for brands to scale up quickly and start getting value from the platform. This can prove to be a key advantage, giving brands and individuals a kickstart in building their networks on this new platform.
From the moment you set your profile up, it’s clear that Threads has put considerable effort into refining its user experience (UX) and features. In some aspects, Threads can be considered a step up from the user interface (UI) and functionality offered by Twitter.
The UX and UI elements are well-crafted, with a synergy that aligns with the successful Instagram model. In a recent update, Threads allowed users to share posts directly to Instagram DM’s which can help gently push Instagram users over to the Threads platform.
While the app is still in its early days and lacks some functionality, it has recently added new features, including search and the ability to use it on a web browser. Searching through posts for topics or around news events is something users have come to associate with Twitter and might consider key in text-based apps.
Additionally, hashtags are considered another essential feature for content discovery and exploring areas of interest. Search and hashtags allow users to immerse into topics and profiles outside their immediate network.
Connecting (and Disconnecting)
Another feature currently absent is direct messaging, which allows for private communication with other users. For the time being, Threads' alignment with Instagram provides users with another means of communication, but it's likely that direct messaging will be integrated quickly to meet user expectations as the feature is available in some capacity on most social media platforms.
Despite the lack of this feature, the interconnection with existing Meta offerings like Instagram and possibly Messenger adds another layer of convenience for users looking to connect.
Uninstalling the app may also prove a challenge. As it’s tied to the user’s Instagram profile, deleting a Threads account will currently deactivate the Instagram account associated with it.
This is likely to lead to a large number of inactive users who are not engaging with Threads but don’t want to unsubscribe and risk losing their Instagram accounts. These ghost accounts will boost profile numbers but not contribute to the conversation on the platform and drive engagement.
Moderating in Moderation
Threads’ approach to content moderation is another differentiator, which may set it ahead of the game compared to Twitter. Originally, Twitter used to rely on large internal teams to moderate and curate content and ensure its validity and relevance, but that approach has been modified under Elon Musk’s leadership, with an increased reliance on automation and an emphasis on free speech.
Meta, on the other hand, has stringent moderation policies on its existing platforms. The challenge for Threads lies in striking a balance between maintaining freedom of expression that drives debate and conversation, while curbing oppression of individuals and groups, or hate speech.
Over time, Twitter has been forced to invest considerable effort in understanding and moderating the grey areas of content, and Threads will likely face similar hurdles, although as the owners of Facebook, Meta have considerable experience in this area.
Finding Its Purpose
Threads is still finding its personality as a platform, and its success as a channel for advertisers is very much dependent on its ability in establishing itself as a place for conversation. By leveraging the vast user base of Instagram, Threads aims to create a new town square for the sharing of ideas and opinions for its existing social graph.
While it faces challenges in content moderation and feature deployment, the app's frictionless sign-up process and ability to leverage the corporation’s significant experience in this field could set it on a path to becoming a formidable competitor in the world of social media.
As Threads continues to evolve and address its early limitations, it will be fascinating to see how it manages to drive community engagement and establishes its place in the social media landscape.
