What You Need to Know About Threads
(for now)
If you’re on social media often, or if you’re a social media manager like myself (lucky you!), you’ve probably been aware of Threads for a few days now. It’s a SEPARATE APP from Instagram that you have to download, and it is “a place to share text updates and join public conversations.” In real life terms you will understand: it’s essentially like the good ol’ days of Twitter (before it became flooded with insane toxicity).
Personally, I give it only so much time before Threads becomes the same thing, but, for now…
Here’s the official announcement from IG with some more info, but to break it down simply:
Each post can be up to 500 characters long
You can include photos, even photo carousels
You can post links
You can post videos up to 5 MINS in length
No DM’s
No Ads!! (for now, but I’m sure that will come)
Here’s the not-so-great stuff:
You can’t edit a Thread
No search function (except for accounts - like you can’t search a topic or a keyword yet)
You can’t delete your Threads account, but you can deactivate it. There are rumblings about “if you delete Threads your IG will be deleted too” LOL but I’ve been looking into this and it sounds like deleting IG will delete Threads, not the other way around, so don’t panic yet.
Not available in the EU yet due to privacy concerns
No hashtags (I assume that’s tied into the lack of a search function, so that prob will change)
Additional thoughts/things I’ve heard:
Some people say they have seen “crazy engagement” on there, but I haven’t noticed a huge jump on that front. To that end, IG might have been using some shady followers tactics the first couple days after it launched to get people hooked, because when I joined Threads, I got a SLEW of new followers on IG (actual number - 83 or so), yet my overall follower number DID NOT MOVE AT ALL. My Follows/Unfollows stayed exactly the same, and believe me, I was monitoring that shit. So…I felt that was worth mentioning. It would make sense because they want you to get addicted to the new features, and so far, it’s working:
Over 100 Million people signed up for/downloaded Threads. It’s been live for less than a week.
That’s kinda all I got for now. I don’t feel addicted to it at all like some people claim, but that’s probably because social media is my job LOL. So if you feel like joining in on these types of fun and irreverent convos, find me on there!
And if you’re a SMM (Social Media Manager), don’t offer this service to your clients for free! It’s a whole new app and a separate service - if anything, offer it as an add-on for an additional cost. Don’t do more work for free (unless you want to resent your job and your clients). Trust me.
