Meta’s Threads Has Over 100 Million Users But Will Anyone Actually Continue to Use It?

It seems as if the “battle” between Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg will not be ending any time soon as Meta, Facebook and Instagram’s parent company launched the what many would call ‘ultimate’ Twitter-killer app known as Threads.

Within the first week since the platform’s launch, the application has seen over 100 million sign-ups, surpassing the record achieved by ChatGPT.

Following this mass popularity, sources online have started to allege that Twitter had started to block links shared on the platform to its rival app.

At the moment, Threads is busking in positive light, but will the hype continue?

Instagram Launches Threads But Why Should We Care?

Musk’s acquisition of Twitter was a controversial move, with a number of long-term users pledging that they would be leaving the application once the billionaire took over, Joe Karasin, the chief marketing officer and founder of Karasin PPC told Business2Community.

Indeed, a survey conducted by the Covid States Project in January 2023 found that the number of Americans who reported to have been using Twitter since Musk’s acquisition fell from 32.4% in December 2022 to 29.5% at the time the survey was conducted.

Karasin added that when Musk took over Twitter, many users had migrated to Mastodon, a Twitter-like platform. However, since Mastodon was not “very user-friendly … that fizzled out quickly”.

This brings up an interesting point.

Why is Instagram launching Threads so important?

Firstly, Threads is built directly into the Instagram platform, both Karasin and Teajai Kimsey, the director of marketing and communication at Crystal Structures Glazing noted.

Vitally, Threads lets you easily follow all of your Instagram friends, giving users an instant group of users to follow.

“The ability to easily go from Instagram to Threads makes sign-up a breeze so user acquisition has been super easy. And because of that, the user base is already in share mode which makes the platform fun and entertaining,” Kimsey said, who was also excited to mention she was #1,390,260 to join Threads.

Secondly, Threads, unlike Twitter, does not limit the views for unpaid users and does not lack content moderation.

Threads Could Become the New Twitter

Karasin and Kimsey are staying positive that Threats has the full potential to overthrow Instagram in the near future.

“I believe Threads will continue to be used post-hype, as they roll out new features to the platform. There are many tools Meta has at their disposal and to be able to integrate Threads with IG and Facebook might be a way for Meta to create a super app,” Karasin told Business2Community.

In addition, Kimsey added that the “live updates” feature that Threads rolled out has the potential to attract an array of users as it offers breaking news updates to subscribers, something both Instagram and Twitter are yet to introduce.

While Threads does have a number of features which may be lacking (like character limitations per post) it is without a doubt the platform has the potential to “deliver more users”, Kimsey noted.

“Threads will appeal to many, mainly due to its relationship to Instagram and Mark Zuckerberg’s edict that Threads be a friendly place. Twitter has already alienated many users, and Twitter has never been a mass-use tool. Journalists and celebrities are the main power users, and Threads is more inclusive in the sense that the common social media consumer feels comfortable using it. It was a genius move to link Instagram with it, so it had the ability to easily acquire new users,” Karasin stressed.

Threads Is Not Available to Everyone

Meanwhile, experts are staying positive that Threads does have the full potential to possibly become something Twitter could never be, the new application is not available to everyone.

Users in the European Union, for example, are unable to download the application due to its launch in the region being held up amid “upcoming regulatory uncertainty”, Meta’s spokesperson Christine Pai told The Verge.

While the exact regulatory uncertainties were not mentioned, The Verge has assumed Pai was talking about the European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), which requires tech companies to evaluate how their product protects users and their privacy before it is released to the public.

Meta has been formally accused of breaching user privacy rights, so a delay like this was perhaps inevitable, as targeted advertising and thus monetising user data has been Facebook’s number one means of income.

At the moment, time will only tell in which direction will the popularity of Threads head into, however, positive sentiment seems to outline the app.

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