Instagram launched a new app called Threads today. To be brutally honest, as of now - it's simply an underdeveloped copy of Twitter.
Instagram is one of the most popular social media platforms in the world today, with over 2 billion users and a thriving community of creators, businesses, and brands. What started as a simple photo-sharing app, has evolved into a vibrant platform for visual expression and storytelling.
However, Instagram still faces some limitations and challenges in today’s dynamic market. One of these limitations is the lack of a dedicated space for sharing text-based content and engaging in public conversations. Although Instagram Stories and Direct allow users to share visual content and communicate privately, they are not designed for longer-form discussions that can spark interest, debate, and learning.
What is the problem that Threads is trying to solve?
Instagram users want a dedicated space for sharing text updates and joining public conversations on topics of interest. They also want more flexibility and diversity in terms of content creation and consumption. Although many of these users are already using other platforms such as Twitter, Reddit, etc. for text-based content and public conversations, they report challenges and frustrations with these platforms - such as noise, toxicity, etc.
Threads fills this gap.
It allows users to share text updates and join public conversations. The onboarding experience of Threads makes it abundantly clear that it’s not meant to replace Instagram or be better than it, but rather to complement it and offer a new way for users to express themselves and interact with others.
The product vision of Threads seems to revolve around three major pillars - Simple, Conversational, and Integrated. It is designed to be fast, easy, and intuitive to use. Anyone can join Threads with their Instagram account and follow anyone else on the platform. Users can also share links, photos, and videos up to 5 minutes in length (both better than Twitter), as well as repost and comment on other threads. Threads is designed to foster meaningful and engaging conversations among users, not just passive consumption or broadcasting. Being closely tied to Instagram allows its users to easily transfer their follower lists and account names from one platform to the other.
Twitter, on the other hand, is undoubtedly one of the most popular platforms for sharing text-based content and engaging in public conversations. It has over 300 million active users and a loyal fan base of celebrities, journalists, politicians, activists, and influencers. It also has a strong brand identity and a distinctive culture of brevity, humor, and hashtags. However, Threads can capitalize on some of the weaknesses and vulnerabilities of Twitter to win this battle.
Five strategies that can help Threads gain an advantage against Twitter:
Leveraging the Instagram user base: Threads has a huge advantage over Twitter in terms of user acquisition and retention by leveraging the network effect. It can tap into the existing 2 billion Instagram users who already have an account, a profile, and a network of followers and friends on the platform. This allows for better user segmentation and targeting, as Instagram already has a wealth of data on its users and their interests.
Threads can also leverage the Instagram brand equity and trust
Better Content Discovery: Threads could focus on improving content discovery for its users by leveraging Instagram’s algorithms and data on user interests. This could make it easier for users to find and engage with content that is relevant to them, increasing user engagement and retention.
Offering more flexibility and diversity: Threads can offer more flexibility and diversity to users than Twitter in terms of content creation and consumption. Users can share text updates up to 500 characters, as well as photos and videos up to 5 minutes long
Fostering more meaningful and engaging conversations: Threads can foster more meaningful and engaging conversations among users than Twitter by focusing on quality over quantity, relevance over popularity, and context over noise.
To win this war, Twitter shall start with the basics:
1. Understand The Strengths And Weaknesses of Threads:
Strengths: Backing of Meta, Large user base, Social media expertise, ad revenue
Weaknesses: New with limited features, Challenges in terms of moderation, safety, and privacy as it has to enforce Instagram’s community guidelines
Opportunities: Can attract new users who are looking for a more visual alternative to Twitter, Opportunity to create further synergies with other Meta products, Opportunity to innovate and add new features to differentiate itself from Twitter
Threats: From Twitter, bad user experience due to lack of functionalities, and backlash due to regulatory issues
2. What Value Proposition Does Threads Bring to the Table?
Threads is positioning itself as a more positive and creative space to express ideas or join public conversations. It also offers value by allowing the users to follow and connect with their friends and creators who share their interests, including the people they follow on Instagram and beyond. It might also offer value by giving them tools to enable positive, productive conversations and control who can mention them or reply to them
3. Define the Competitive Advantages and Differentiation of Twitter:
Twitter has a competitive advantage over Instagram Threads in terms of its larger user base, content diversity, influencer network, news relevance, live events coverage, trending topics discovery, etc. Twitter also has a competitive advantage in terms of its more mature features, functionality, quality, performance, user experience, brand recognition, loyalty, etc. Twitter differentiates itself from Instagram Threads by offering more than just text-based micro-blogging. It offers a variety of formats such as tweets, retweets, quote tweets, polls, fleets, spaces, newsletters, etc. It also offers more options for customization such as lists, bookmarks, topics, moments, etc. It also offers more tools for engagement such as likes, comments, direct messages, mentions, hashtags, emojis, gifs, stickers, etc.
4. Adjust the Product Strategy:
As Elon Musk has been pitching for many months, the product strategy for Twitter shall be to reinforce its position as the leading platform for real-time information and conversation. With that vision in mind:
Increase the content diversity and quality of Twitter by curating, verifying, moderating, ranking, and recommending the content on the platform
Focus on improving the core features and functionality of Twitter to delight its loyal user base that accepts Twitter as their primary source of information on matters of importance
Enhance the UX by improving usability, accessibility, personalization, and customization
Boost the user engagement and retention of Twitter by creating more opportunities for interaction, feedback, recognition, rewards, etc. for the users on the platform
It's too early to tell who will win this war of microblogging, and who will slide into a second spot, but it would be very interesting to watch what product offerings both these amazing products come up with to win and retain the users.
You can follow me both on Twitter and Threads @thakurshashank_
Comments