Hurray a new social channel for everyone to get their heads around! Last week Meta launched their new platform, Threads… perhaps you’re wondering if you need to be on it and what happens if you do (or don’t!) join it!
What is Threads?
Threads is a standalone app that’s connected to your Instagram account. It’s designed for sharing text-based posts, photos and videos with a close group of friends and followers, and is aiming to be a bit more intimate than Twitter.
Meta says, is designed to be a space “where communities come together to discuss everything from the topics you care about today to what’ll be trending tomorrow. Whatever it is you’re interested in, you can follow and connect directly with your favourite creators and others who love the same things — or build a loyal following of your own to share your ideas, opinions and creativity with the world.”
Is it the same as Twitter?
Threads will have a 500-character limit. Similar to Twitter, users can reply to, repost and quote others’ Threads posts
You can only share posts with a close group of friends and followers on Threads. On Twitter, you can share posts with anyone who follows you so Twitter is better for sharing with a wider audience, but yes it’s similar in other ways like being a more text-based platform.
Threads does not currently support direct messages, while Twitter does. Threads also does not currently support business profiles, while Twitter does.
A lot of brands and celebrities are already on there and finding their way with it.
What type of content would we be able to post on there?
It’s more text based but you can still share photos, videos and GIFs.
Is there a cost implication to joining it so we can claim our user name?
The account is directly linked to your existing Instagram account so you can join very easily for free. It will also import all of your current information from Instagram and you have the option to also follow all of the current accounts that are being followed.
Will we have the same amount of followers if we sign up?
No, it doesn’t bring across your followers, only the people you are following (unless they choose to follow everyone they are already following and your brand is one of those accounts).
Can someone take our username if we’re not on the platform
No as you have an Instagram account no one can take your username on Threads, but this also means you cannot choose a different username to the one you have on Instagram already (this might change in the future.) It’s also case sensitive so there can be accounts with the same name using different capitalisations.
If we sign up can we leave it?
But it’s not quite so easy to leave Threads. While users can temporarily deactivate their profiles via the settings section on the app, Threads says in its privacy policy that “your Threads profile can only be deleted by deleting your Instagram account.”
Can we advertise on there?
Not at the moment as it’s so new and Meta hasn’t announced any plans to introduce advertising…. but Zuckerberg won’t miss the chance to make money for sure!