067 – Introduction to Instagram Threads [Spark Infinity]

With massively exaggerated rumors of Elon Musk running Twitter (X) into the ground, Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg couldn’t resist the allure of launching a new platform to rival and quickly eclipse the “waning” X. So far, things haven’t exactly gone that way, but because Threads was integrated with Instagram, it initially got more traction than even ChatGPT. A little over a year has passed, and the dust has settled. Threads is alive and well (and so is X, which still boasts more features than Threads). So, should you consider adding Threads to your marketing mix if you haven't already? Join David and Karlo as they explore Meta’s daring venture into microblogging. Download the PDF Transcript Sponsors: Productivity, Performance & Profits Blackbook: Get a free copy of the “Definitive Guide to Productivity for Artists and Entrepreneurs.” Highlights: 00:17 – Introduction 01:58 – What is Threads? 02:51 – Why was Threads created? 05:53 – Should you be excited about Threads? 06:47 – Key stats and fun facts 07:57 – Is it worth adding Threads to your marketing mix? 09:08 – Group discussion Transcript: David: Welcome to Spark Infinity Office Hours. Today's date is September 19th, 2024. I'm David Andrew Wiebe, and I am joined today by one of our members, Karlo. How are you doing, Karlo? Karlo: I'm doing well, thank you. How are you doing? David: I'm always good, man. Karlo: Great. David: What have you been up to lately? Anything cool with social media? Karlo: Promoting my Tarot Power Reading Bundle on my Reiki and Tarot page on Facebook and also on my website and Instagram afterward. David: Oh, awesome. Why don't you do a quick briefing for us so our audience can learn more about what it is that you're offering in that bundle? Karlo: Well, let's see. It is an hour-and-a-half session consisting of a Tarot session at the beginning, and then the other half of the session is a Reiki session to clear any blockages and rebalance the aura. And right now it's at a 30% discount from $170 to $119. Book before the end of September 22nd and get a free half-hour meditation/relaxation music track. David: That sounds incredible. Wow. Karlo: Yeah. David: Okay. If you've got a custom link or anything you want to share, maybe bring that next time and we can plug that too. Karlo: They can go to KarloKeet.com and there's a really big green button that says book now. David: KarloKeet.com. Awesome. Karlo: Yep. David: Okay. Everyone go and check that out for sure. I'm working on the Digital NO-Mad plus six bonuses bundle. That's almost ready to go, but I can't announce that just yet. I can talk about it, but that'll be available real soon. And just to give a sneak preview, you're getting seven resources for 10 bucks, which could potentially save you thousands of dollars in all kinds of travel catastrophes. So, grab it if you're creating your freedom lifestyle, that would be my advice. What is Threads? Today's topic is an introduction to Threads. And the first thing we need to look at is “What is this thing?” I always find it valuable to understand a social network before diving in and trying to do something with it, knowing where it's been, but perhaps most importantly, knowing where it's now going can help you align with that stream and get better results with that social network. Threads is an Instagram social media app where you can participate in public conversations. You can post threads, reply to others, repost threads, and follow other personalities. This is how Instagram or Wikipedia likes to term it, but as far as I'm concerned, it's a Twitter copy or it's a direct competitor to X, but we'll get to that. Threads was launched on July 5th, 2023, so it's been out a little over a year. Why was Threads Created? Why was Threads created? Instagram created Threads to bring the same social media experience – in other words, their visual social media experience or the community experience – over to a text-based ecosystem like Twitter or X. Based on the reading that I did last night, it seems like Mark Zuckerberg saw an opportunity when Elon Musk bought Twitter/and seemed to be running the platform into the ground. In reality, Elon seems to be doing a pretty good job with it, but at the time everyone thought “This is going to be a disaster, so let's capitalize on this opportunity.” That was my impression of what Mark Zuckerberg had planned with Threads. Let's face it though, like the very idea of “Threads” comes directly from Twitter or X, where users would plan long-form messages to be distributed using multiple tweets or replies because of the character limit. In other words, people can almost post full blog posts on Twitter if they use enough tweets and they keep replying to the last tweet. And that's what a thread is. That's where it comes from. So, Threads is a direct competitor to Twitter/X. This might be a little hard to see, but this is an example of a thread on Twitter. You can see kind of at the top, here's the first post, and then this is a reply to the post and it's like part one or number one. And then another reply to the same post. Number two, do this. I think this Twitter thread was specifically about some aspect of launching a business. There are more than three tweets. I think it's something like 12 or possibly even 20 tweets. But this kind of thing I saw as I was beginning to explore Twitter and X more probably throughout the pandemic, I saw it was becoming more common for people to do this kind of thing. And when you boil down a blog post to just its key elements, it ends up being high-value content when it's presented in a short form like this. Of course, you can do this on threads, but you don't have to. You can just use it like X and post one single short-form piece of content too. Karlo: Is there a character limit on threads? David: Yes. And that's something I should have looked up. I don't know what the character limit is, but there is. What I do know is it does allow the posting of text-based content, graphical content, and videos. Karlo: 500 characters. David: 500. So, I think that's maybe another thing that Mark Zuckerberg was hoping to compete on. Twitter or X I think is limited to 280 characters. Karlo: Yeah, it is. David: Unless you have the pro (Premium) plan, in which case I think you can write articles on X now. The subscription plan is still… I still don't know why I would want it just for the blue checkmark. It doesn't make much sense to me. Or bolded text or revised tweets. Those functionalities are not enough for me to buy an X subscription, but maybe as the value goes up or more features are added. Threads does not have all those features yet. It's a very minimalistic platform, but of course, X has had years to kind of perfect and try different things. Should You be Excited About Threads? Should we be excited about Threads at all? Here's a quote from Mark Zuckerberg that was from around the same time the platform launched. He says: “I've thought for a long time there should be a billion-person public conversations app that is a bit more positive. I think that if we keep at this for a few more years, then I think we have a good chance of achieving our vision there.” His idea is to turn Threads into a billion-user platform. Last I checked, Twitter had about 200, 300 million active users. The other claim here about being more positive, I don't know. X is sort of becoming more of a place for free speech, but just because that's the case doesn't mean I find it more negative. But maybe I'm reading between the lines. But as far as should we be excited about Threads? You can bet that Zuck is excited about it. Key Statistics and Fun Facts Some key stats and fun facts. Threads serves over 100 countries and is available in 31 languages. It was initially available on Android and iOS, and now there is a web browser version at threads.net. It was the fastest-growing consumer software app in history, with over 100 million users in its first five days, which surpassed ChatGPT, believe it or not. Of course, the platform hasn't sustained this level of activity, but Meta kind of anticipated that it would drop a little after its initial launch. Ads are planned. Advertising opportunities are coming to Threads, which probably should surprise no one. But it might be cool to test that out once it's available. Here are the growth metrics. Threads has over 200 million monthly active users now. It has roughly 30 million daily active users. In the US alone, Threads has 30 million monthly active users. Actually, I think that the second stat was 33 million daily active users. And out of those 33 million, there's 30 million in the US. Meta is therefore about a quarter of the way to their goal of a billion users. Should You be on Threads? Should you add Threads to your marketing mix? And I feel this depends a lot on your marketing focus. If you already have momentum on other social media platforms, then it might not make a lot of sense to scatter your focus among more networks. But the thing that I noticed was you can schedule your threads using, conventional tools like Hootsuite. I found a tool and might talk about it in the future, not in this particular Spark Infinity Office Hours, but I found a tool that lets me schedule to Threads, X, Bluesky, and Mastodon (among others) all at once. That's how I distribute my text-based content now. And for me, that makes the most sense rather than having a single platform occupying my mind space. More like grouping the text-based microblogging platforms and using them simultaneously to drive traffic. And that's the direction that I'm headed in. Follow David on Instagram As always, don't forget to follow me on Instagram. And in the description of this video, you'll find a link to Karlo and Jody's Instagram as well....