Our First Impressions of Meta's New Threads Platform
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Meta’s new Threads app is here, generating buzz among users and advertisers alike! Here are our early thoughts, which we’ll update as we learn more.
What is Threads?
Threads is the latest Twitter rival, this time from Meta. Anyone with an Instagram account can sign up, and over 30 million people did just that in the first 24 hours of the app going live on July 5th.
It works similarly to Twitter, with the main functionality being that of public conversations, complete with liking and reposting.
With the recent controversy surrounding Twitter and the changes made to the platform, many users may be looking for an alternative. Meta isn’t the first company to create a Twitter competitor, but they’re certainly the largest, with the most existing users on their other platforms. This is why advertisers are extra interested in this one.
What should advertisers expect from Meta's new Threads platform?
It should be noted that as of now, there is no way to advertise on Threads. Mark Zuckerberg himself said that the priority is to work out the kinks and grow the user base before introducing monetization.
Advertising will certainly be coming to the platform in the future though, so what is our plan for when it does? Until we have more details, much of our planning at this stage involves speculation, but we can use what we know of existing Instagram and Twitter advertising to inform our early thoughts here.
While not confirmed, we assume the ability to advertise on Threads may be made available through the Meta Ads Manager, rather than a new, separate ads platform. This platform already covers both Facebook and Instagram, so it makes sense for Meta to continue keeping it under one roof.
This is exciting, because the implication is that advertisers would be able to continue using their already defined and tested audiences for targeting. And if the Meta Pixel is already set up on your site, apples-to-apples conversion metric comparisons could be made immediately between your Facebook/Instagram campaigns and your new Threads campaigns.
It is also possible that Threads may not require a separate campaign, and that it could simply be added as a placement option for your existing campaigns. Although, given the unique conversational nature of Threads, you will likely want to set up separate campaigns anyway, as the objectives and certainly the ad content and design should be made specifically with this new platform in mind. If you already have Twitter ads built and tested, that would be a good place to start.
Since these initial thoughts are subject to change as we learn more, we will keep this post updated as Meta shares more information.
