Threads lose users and celebrity engagement – 8/10/2023 – Tech

Not even the celebrities and influencers invited to participate in the launch of Threads maintained the engagement shown in the first week, when the social network became the platform to gather 100 million users in less time. The presenter Maisa Silva, for example, made eight posts in the first seven days of the app and never published it on the social network again.

Instagram anticipated Threads access to eight celebrities and six Brazilian influencers. They followed the trend of users around the world who lost interest in the copy of Twitter made by Meta —holding owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.

The numbers of daily active users, time spent and access to Threads fell by more than 75% at the end of July, compared to the 6th of the same month, when the social network reached peak audience, according to the monitoring app Sensor Tower. The level of interest remained stable in the platform’s fourth and fifth week on the air.

The main competitor of Threads, the former Twitter, now called X, passed the analysis period without suffering relevant impacts. The same goes for Instagram.

Meta decided to launch Threads in the week that Twitter came under fire for limiting the number of posts that free users could view per day. The social network, formerly known as the blue bird, has been undergoing overhaul since Elon Musk bought it in October 2022 and changed even the logo.

The big tech used Instagram’s user base to boost Threads: subscribers to the new social network could maintain, if they chose, existing connections on the photo platform.

That ease and dismay with Twitter led 100 million people to download Threads in just five days. ChatGPT took three months to mobilize this number of users and, until then, held the record.

Zuckerberg, however, decided to bring Threads to the public as a raw product. The announcement of the social network came full of promises of what the platform would become — integration with other social networks, improvements in the search system, among others.

Since then, Meta has released updates to the platform. This Wednesday (9), it increased the possibility of mentioning people in posts and a button to send publications from Threads via message on Instagram. It also added the chronological feed option, as Twitter has.

The social network, however, still does not have its own language. Twitter is known for the hottest news and heated debate. The Instagram director behind Threads, Adam Mosseri, has said since launch that Meta’s copy shouldn’t go down that path.

“The engagement and revenue that comes with politics and hot news is not worth the scrutiny, negativity and integrity risks,” Mosseri said in a conversation with Verge technology portal editor Alex Heath.

Without a clear purpose, the network slips. Even influencers are largely limited to playing Instagram photos on Threads.

“The only chance for a social network to have continuity is to deliver a differential. The user no longer wants a social network like Twitter or Instagram”, says marketing, media and innovation professor at ESPM, Diego Oliveira.

For Oliveira, the consumer can try the product due to the ease provided by the integration with Instagram, but he only stays if he finds news. “Threads didn’t innovate at all.”

Even so, the approximately 25 million active people maintained by the new social network represent a relevant base. Threads ranks second only to Twitter in number of users and ahead of competitors Mastodon and Bluesky.

Threads is the most downloaded free app by Brazilians between last Sunday (6) and Wednesday (9), according to Sensor Tower monitoring. By the end of July, the app had dropped to seventh position on the list, before recovering.

Mark Zuckerberg said, also in July, that he has not yet started to boost Threads on Meta’s other social networks. Facebook’s ad library does not display advertisements involving access to the app.

Sought, Meta sent Zuckerberg’s pronouncement on Threads in the balance sheet for the second quarter of 2023. The executive said he was optimistic about the unprecedented growth of the application and that the rate of return from users is above expectations.

Zuckerberg said he will monetize Threads only when the social network reaches its potential in community size – he has already cited the level of 1 billion users as a reference.

On the other hand, the recent history of the internet is full of examples of social networks that had a great start but failed to consolidate, such as Vine and Snapchat.

For Oliveira, Threads’ failure to consolidate its product should leave stains on the brand, even if Meta improves the product. “I only see chances of success if they later relaunch the platform under another name.”