Is Threads Dead? Threads' First Year in Review

Organic Social Article

It’s been a year since Meta launched Threads. And let’s be honest, after the initial rush of sign-ups followed by the almost inevitable crash you’ve probably forgotten about it.

But should you have? Is Threads a barren wasteland that’s like X (I’m only going to say ‘formerly Twitter’ once) only without the meanness and people? Or is it an untapped goldmine for canny marketers willing to step away from the mainstream and try something different?

Grab a brew and we’ll see if we can figure it out.

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What is Threads?

Threads (or Threads by Instagram to use its full name, and we’ll get to why that’s important in a bit) is Meta’s answer to Twitter, only with less meanness and more characters per post than Twitter. Which arguably defeats the point a little bit.

The general consensus is that Meta rushed it out the door to capitalise on Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter and its subsequent descent into whatever madness X has now become. Which, in hindsight, might’ve been a bit of a mistake.

Okay. Tell me more about Threads.

Well, the biggest difference between Threads and X is that you have to be nice to people. The idea was it would be like a nice, friendly version of X. Turned out that people like being horrible to each other in 280 characters or fewer.

You can also use up to 500 characters in your posts. Which feels a bit like the tablet of the microblogging world. And when did you last use one of those?

It has tags instead of hashtags, and you can only use one per post.

And - here’s the big one - Threads is tied to your Instagram account. Which probably explains the massive rush, as lots of Instagrammers tapped on it to see what it was all about then never looked at it again.

It also didn’t have a web app for the first few months after launch, though there is one now. And you can browse posts without having to have an account, which you can’t currently do with X.

Threads is also very algorithm-heavy. Users report that they’re just seeing loads of threads from random accounts that Threads think they want to see rather than ones from people they’ve actually chosen to follow. Which is interesting because Mark Zuckerberg says it’s all about conversations, but it’s hard to have a conversation when you can’t hear what the other person is saying, only what a weird cereal brand wants you to know about their bran flakes.

Oh and it doesn’t have any ads. None. This kinda makes sense since Meta’s business model is to make something massive then monetise it. And Threads is definitely not massive yet.

A young woman using her smartphone, a blurry restaurant is in view in the background

It all started so well…

Threads had a spectacular launch. Record-breaking, in fact. It hit a ginormous 100 million users in just five days. To give you an idea of how massive that is, ChatGPT took 40 days to hit 100 million users back in 2022, and Instagram took almost a year in 2010.

But it didn’t last. After the initial flurry of signups, people seemed to lose interest in Threads. Funnily enough, Meta stopped releasing official figures shortly after launch, but Quiver Quantitative reckon that as of May 2024 Threads hadn’t even doubled that initial user count, with a mere 190 million users.

So what happened? Well, there was an initial buzz around Threads, and the whole Elon-ruining-Twitter thing. Plus it was super easy to sign up if you already had an Instagram account.

But then it slumped. There was a bit of a spike in December 2023 when Meta finally managed to make Threads’s privacy non-invasive enough to comply with EU GDPR and launched it there but otherwise it’s been… Well, steady is probably generous, to be honest.

It’s not just the overall user count that’s not looking too clever for Threads. Daily active users have dropped too, with the last numbers I could find suggesting 33 million in comparison to X’s 259 million.

And that’s not even the worst bit. Close to launch, people were spending around 21 minutes a day on Threads. That’s now down to 3 minutes a day. Which doesn’t compare too favourably with X’s 31 minutes a day.

Ouch. You’ll notice I’m comparing Threads to Twitter, and not to social media titans like Facebook or TikTok. Those comparisons are a bit embarrassing.

So is Threads really dead?

Well, that’s a tricky question. Looking purely at the numbers compared to rivals like X and TikTok things don’t look that great. But while Threads’ 190 million users looks a bit rubbish next to X’s 368 million, that in turn looks pretty shonky next to TikTok with a billion and Facebook’s 3 billion or so active users.

And 190 million people is actually quite a lot. It’s more people than live in Russia, for starters.

So, here are a few reasons why you might not want to write off Threads quite yet.

It’s quiet

Okay, so that doesn’t exactly sound like a big plus. But think about how saturated platforms like TikTok and Facebook are. Standing out is getting harder and harder. But if (and this is a big if, and you’ll need to go and do some research) your audience is on Threads, having a presence could really help you to get noticed.

It’s young

A third of Threads users are under 24. If that’s your audience, and you’re struggling to shift the needle on bigger platforms like Instagram or TikTok, maybe Threads is worth a look.

It’s nice

We’ve all seen X threads descent into what can only really be described as abject horribility. Threads - at the moment - doesn’t seem to like that. People are actually quite nice to each other, as it goes on the internet.

It’s text

You’ve got no chance of standing out on Facebook without rich content, and TikTok’s all about the videos. And making content that looks just the right level of user-generated without actually looking completely rubbish takes time and effort. Threads is resolutely text-based so if your brand has a great tone of voice you could stand out using just words. (Disclaimer: words aren’t easy. But if they’re what you’re good at, you might suit Threads).

It’s about conversations

The whole point of Threads - according to Zuck - is conversations. So if you want a platform to humanise your brand and build meaningful relationships… It might be worth a go.

A person scrolling through their phone whilst sat at a desk

So should I try Threads?

Well, that’s up to you. But if you’ve done your research, it looks like your audience is on Threads and you have the kind of brand that can build genuine, human connections you don’t really have much to lose apart from a little bit of time.

As with any organic social media, don’t expect to get stellar results as soon as you start posting. You’ll need to figure out what kind of content resonates with your audience and what on earth is going on with the algorithm so they can actually see what you’re posting. And even then it’s going to be a slow, steady burn.

So build a plan, share genuinely useful content and who knows? You could tap into an audience that you were missing before.