Unless you were living under a rock mid-to-late summer of this year, you probably know that Meta unveiled Threads to facilitate more seamless communication and text sharing.
It's essentially like Twitter, sans the Elon Musk circus going on in the background.
In fact, on the surface, it certainly has a Twitter-like feel, but it gets some brownie points for a better user experience featuring ease of use and privacy for your more private conversations.
Threads reportedly witnessed a staggering 30 million downloads within only 16 hours of its launch on July 5. The number of Threads users as of now is well past the 120 million mark.
According to Neil Patel, "People thought it was impressive how ChatGPT crossed 1 million users in five days. but Threads by Instagram blew everyone out of the water, and even Facebook didn't expect it to do this well early on."
After its initial meteoric rise, however, Threads witnessed a massive drop of 70% in July and 79% in August 2023. Average time spent on the app has also plummeted to 2.9 minutes a day (as of August 2023).
Many hail it as a fantastic alternative to Twitter, which has recently been in the news for all the wrong reasons, including multiple technical outages, revenue losses, and mass layoffs.
As someone who uses social media regularly, you might be wondering why you need to download another communication app, when you're already using WhatsApp, Telegram, Instagram, and perhaps even Twitter.
And that's truly a valid point since everyone has limited time and bandwidth to navigate multiple platforms on the regular.. Not to mention, even the most avid social media users need to have some boundaries in place.
So, before hitting the download button, it just might be worth taking a few minutes to learn more about the in's and out's of the platform, to make sure it's truly worthy of your time.
Meta Threats: Instagram's Best Friend
Since Instagram users must use their Instagram credentials to create a Threads account, both of these apps co-exist in the same complex social media ecosystem.
A verified Instagram user is automatically verified on Threads during account creation. Threads users can then seamlessly import their Instagram followers. The catch here is that users cannot delete their Threads account without deleting their Instagram account.
It's either both. or nothing!
While Threads and Instagram are heavily tied together, Threads is more like Twitter. It facilitates real-time conversations with users sharing their thoughts, photos, and videos. Users can keep them private within a select group of users from Instagram's close friends list.
Privacy is the main selling point of Threads, which was designed to serve as a dedicated space for trusted conversations.
Threads Features: What to Expect
While Threads is still a new kid on the block, it offers some impressive features that set it apart as a communication app:
Quick follow to follow accounts in your feed by tapping the plus icon in the corner without navigating to their profiles
Mute specific profiles by tapping the three-dot menu on posts for such Threads accounts
Hide words and phrases from appearing in your feed by tapping Hidden words in the Privacy menu
Use Reply controls to control who can engage with your posts
Tap the Share button to share Threads to your Instagram Story or grid
Send text messages privately to close friends directly within the app
Generate automatic context-based status updates to share your current status without manually inputting it
Customize your notification preferences to avoid unnecessary distractions
Use easy shortcuts for a quick photo and video sharing
These features make Meta Threads a great choice for privacy-conscious users. For businesses, it offers the benefits of real-time updates, community-building, and public conversations.
Threads also emphasizes simplicity and ease of use for a high-value user experience and meaningful connections within a trusted group.
The First Step: Getting Started...