Meta’s Threads Now Has to Keep Its Millions of Users Engaged

Threads, the new text-first social app from Meta Platforms, made a splash after its release last week. Now the Instagram-dependent platform has to prove it can carve out a unique identity and persuade users to stay.

Threads hit 100 million users within the first five days. Twitter has roughly 500 million, by one measure, and it has been around for more than a decade.

Threads’ early success was buoyed in part by turmoil at rival Twitter and some structural advantages: Threads requires users to have an Instagram account, which makes signing up somewhat seamless, and Instagram has more than two billion users to draw from.

Still, it’s early days for the new app, and Threads can expect to face some of the same challenges other platforms have, including Twitter.

“As more people get to the platform, as they have to enforce moderation policies, as they start to roll out branded content partnership features and ads, the platform gets more and more familiar to what we already know,” said Lia Haberman, who teaches social-media marketing at the University of California, Los Angeles.

The big social-media apps, including YouTube, Twitter and TikTok, all have faced scrutiny from Congress over how they handle user data, content moderation and more. Last month, senators asked Meta for information after The Wall Street Journal reported that Instagram helps connect a vast network of pedophiles.

Additionally, Twitter has struggled to turn a profit for most of its history.

Visually, Threads and Twitter look similar, and they function in similar ways. Both are text-focused, one-to-many platforms that allow users to post photos and videos, too.

A Twitter spokesman responded to a request for comment with four tweets from Twitter Chief Executive Linda Yaccarino.

Meta has made initial efforts to differentiate the app, positioning it as a platform with a different ethos from Twitter, which has seen significant changes since billionaire Elon Musk acquired it in October.

“The goal isn’t to replace Twitter,” Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, said in a post on Threads on Friday. “The goal is to create a public square for communities on Instagram that never really embraced Twitter and for communities on Twitter (and other platforms) that are interested in a less angry place for conversations.”

Mosseri also said Threads isn’t going to encourage politics or hard news, citing what he called scrutiny, negativity and integrity risks.

Some users have already noticed the different tone of Threads.

“It feels almost like a big group chat,” said Ellen V Lora, a fashion content creator with more than 460,000 followers on Instagram. She said the ability to quickly transfer followers over to Threads made it feel as if it was a “natural addition,” as opposed to Twitter, where she never gained traction.

The leaders of each company have publicly reinforced the contrast. Meta Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg,

Musk, 52, responded with a typical barb, tweeting: “It is infinitely preferable to be attacked by strangers on Twitter, than indulge in the false happiness of hide-the-pain Instagram.” Musk’s frequent tweets on politics have been known to arouse strong reactions from both fans and critics.

And there’s the rub: Twitter’s status as an influential platform has included engagement by public figures, celebrities and politicians. That setting conferred a sense that notable conversations were happening in real time that users didn’t want to miss—and sometimes the equivalent of a public meltdown they didn’t want to miss.

Meta thinks the audience for Threads could far exceed Twitter’s. Instagram has more than two billion users, Zuckerberg said on an earnings call in October—that is nearly four times as many monthly active users as Twitter, according to a presentation the company gave to advertisers in June.

Threads has passed the initial test: capturing the attention of social-media users. But the real test will be whether they stay on the app long-term, says Rich Greenfield, co-founder at Lightshed Partners, a tech and research firm.

“It is wholly irrelevant how many people sign up,” he said. “What matters is the level of engagement and interaction.”

Haberman, the UCLA lecturer, said: “It’s not actually a town square. It’s a for-profit business.”

Write to Meghan Bobrowsky at [email protected] and Lindsey Choo at [email protected]