Marketers have been struggling with the constant changes to Twitter since Elon Musk’s takeover. With monetisation, reading limits and staffing cuts, the social media platform has been in crisis. Then along comes Threads, a new text-based branch of Instagram from Meta, to try and save the day.
The platform, which launched on the 5th of July, racked up 10 million users within the first few hours of its launch and already poses a serious threat to Twitter.
What is Threads?
“The vision for Threads is to create an open and friendly public space for conversation,” says Mark Zuckerberg in his first post. “We hope to take what Instagram does best and create a new experience around text, ideas, and discussion of what’s on your mind.”
The new platform is standalone but connects to an existing Instagram account. Its current features include a 500-character limit and videos up to 5 minutes.
Threads builds on Instagram’s existing aesthetic and navigation system and allows users to private their accounts or post from Threads directly to their Instagram stories.
How does Threads differ from Twitter?
The ability to transfer Instagram followers and accounts to Threads is the first significant difference between the two.
Another difference between the two platforms is the order in which posts are listed in users’ feeds. Like Instagram and Facebook, Threads timelines are algorithmic compared to Twitter that shows you the most recent post at that time.
While Musk has limited Twitter users to just 600 posts a day, Threads has no restrictions on the number of posts you can consume.
At this point in time, Threads does not have ads, while Twitter does. However, Zuckerberg has mentioned in a post that it’s undecided whether monetisation is implemented.
Are there any security concerns with Threads?
Of course, as with any new social media platform it brings with it new security and privacy concerns. For example, around excessive data collection. Just like Instagram and Facebook, Threads collects a lot of data linked to its user’s identity. If compromised, this could have a serious impact.
While Threads is easy to set up, linked to a user’s Instagram account, it can not be deleted without removing the Instagram account. This could lead to people keeping it and leaving it inactive, which can be a security concern if it is for a longer period of time.
And quite simply, it is another attack surface, providing another route to users for scams, phishing, malicious software and other illegal activity.
Only time will tell whether Twitter is able to repair the damage done and keep Threads from taking its crown. But with a growing user base of 107 million, businesses may have found new ground to increase their marketing efforts.
