Can Threads Be The 'Twitter Killer'?

'If Threads doesn't become a distinct identity, and just a text version in the shadows of Instagram, then it may fizzle out.'

While Threads raced to 100 million users globally within five days of its launch, Indian companies have not gone all guns blazing to capture audience attention on the new app.

Some, though, are slowly beginning to weave it into their marketing strategies.

Most firms, however, are in a wait-and-watch mode to see what Mark Zuckerberg's new app, dubbed as the 'Twitter killer', offers for connecting with users and how it fits into their larger social media strategy.

Firms such as Zomato, Swiggy and Tinder, known for their strong presence online, have debuted on the text-based conversation app, but their posts, or threads, so far remain limited and infrequent.

Swiggy has posted three times on the Threads apps since July 6 compared to putting out over 12 tweets in the same period.

Its first thread read, 'Adding nimbu, mirch, dahi, shakkar and coconut to the cart to get started on Threads today'.

Accompanying this was a picture of its app that showed all these items added to the cart and the discounts on offer.

On Twitter, meanwhile, it had put out posts about the Chandrayaan-3 take-off and wished former cricketer M S Dhoni on his birthday, among others.

The food delivery app has over 44,000 followers on Threads and close to 200,000 on Twitter, as on July 14.

Similarly, Lenskart has about 20 posts on Instagram, compared to two threads (saying 'Keep an eye on this thread' and '[Th] ready for a matte revolution?').

The eyewear retail chain counts over 37,000 followers on the Threads app since July 6, compared to 720,000 on Instagram.

Or take Netflix India's Threads account. It saw over 23 threads in seven days, but the streaming giant's Instagram account had almost half that number of posts in just the last 24 hours.

Netflix India boasts 8.2 million followers on Instagram versus 821,000 on Threads.

User interactions are also at a stage of infancy for Indian companies.

The reason is the overall lower number of users compared to established social media platforms, and how users are also figuring out what sticks on Threads.

A report by digital market research firm Sensor Tower finds that globally, active users and time spent on Threads is down from its initial peak. This is despite the app clocking its highest number of downloads in India on Day 1.

"There seems to be a good potential for winning on this platform with short-form conversations and content," says Anant Rastogi, associate director-marketing at quick commerce app Zepto.

"At the moment, we are exploring the platform like everyone else and experimenting with content that is share-worthy. It'll be interesting to see the shape it takes," he adds.

Unny Radhakrishnan, CEO of Digitas India, which manages Oreo, boAt, and Duolingo, among others, says that as brands flock to where consumers are, marketers cannot dismiss the latest offering from Instagram given the record user sign-ups.

But he has a word of caution: "If Threads doesn't become a distinct identity, and just a text version in the shadows of Instagram, then it may fizzle out."

There's also the worry about consumers getting overwhelmed by the number of apps.

"Remember the 'Clubhouse Strategy' presentations many marketers would have discussed at its peak?" he says.

An audio-only app, Clubhouse was like an online conference, which gained immense popularity during the peak of the pandemic before plateauing.

But many are excited with what they have seen so far on Threads.

Somil Agrawal, senior vice president and head of marketing at e-commerce logistics firm Shiprocket, expects the app to provide an expanded reach to their target audience, including D2C sellers and Indian MSME merchants.

Agrawal says the app has a number of advantages over Twitter, like its more visual, personal and interactive format, and believes it can leverage Meta's strength in augmented reality to "allow businesses to create interactive experiences for their target audiences".

Meta, meanwhile, says it encourages 'businesses to experiment with Threads as part of their organic social strategy where it makes sense'.

"It is an early experience and is not essential to their core presence on Meta platforms," a company spokesperson adds.

Experts say that if Threads can distinguish itself from the rest, it can even become a vital place for information sharing like Twitter was in a pre-Elon Musk era.

"But for Threads to be used as a customer service platform (by brands and governments as a government-to-citizen communication channel), Meta needs to make the API available to third-party software makers so that customer service teams can plug into it and use it on scale, unlike the mobile-only interface right now," says communications professional Karthik Srinivasan.

Attracting the right kind of brands will hold the key for the app. It has none of the restrictions of the two apps it's most compared to -- Instagram and Twitter.

Unlike Instagram's visual first approach, Threads is free-flowing and allows more characters and longer videos to be published than Musk's bird app.

Thus, brands, marketers and users alike will keenly watch the short- to medium-term evolution of Threads.

Feature Presentation: Ashish Narsale/Rediff.com