This morning, Meta launched Threads- ‘a new app built by the Instagram team for sharing text updates and joining public conversations.’ in essence, a direct rival to Twitter.
If you already have an instagram account, Threads takes mere seconds to set up and with over 7 million sign ups in the first few hours, it looks set to be a popular platform.
Practical things to know about Threads:
-Each post can be up to 500 characters
-Posts can include links, photos and videos up to 5 minutes long
-Users can engage with posts by liking, reposting and replying
-Feeds will display posts from users you follow alongside ‘recommended content’
Although not confirmed publicly, it’s fair to assume that the timing of the launch of Threads is a response to Twitter’s newest developments which have created controversy, including limits and restrictions on how many actions you can perform in the app on one day and huge price hikes on verification for large organisations to run advertising campaigns.
While Threads on the surface performs in much the same way as Twitter for users, there are some key things to note about how the app is expected to evolve over time. On the Instagram website, Meta say:
‘Soon, we are planning to make Threads compatible with ActivityPub, the open social networking protocol established by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the body responsible for the open standards that power the modern web. This would make Threads interoperable with other apps that also support the ActivityPub protocol, such as Mastodon and WordPress – allowing new types of connections that are simply not possible on most social apps today.’
The development of interoperability with other apps could be a game changer especially for agencies like Brightsparks with regards to how organisations build their campaign strategies and track user journeys. Opening up doors between platforms in new ways could allow for reach like we’ve never seen before and create opportunities for more niche organisations to find their most engaged audiences.
Of course, Threads has been live for less than a day- there are still things we do not know and questions many people have about how Threads will work for organisations and what best practise looks like but we’re excited to see how it develops and how we can best use Threads to make the change we want to see in the world through our work.