The explosive arrival of Threads has many marcomms pros wondering if the platform is worth the resources or perhaps just a passing trend (remember the Clubhouse craze?). Regardless of the fact that Threads currently lacks the ability to track some KPIs or run ads, industry leaders are still giving it the green light for now. We spoke with a few to learn what they recommend brands, creators and marcomms pros do on the platform right now, and why.
Converse with your community
Vanessa Schneider, Director of Social Media at OLAPLEX, sees Threads as an opportunity to get closer to your community. “OLAPLEX is a trailblazer in community engagement, and everything we do is not only to generate buzz but also to represent, engage and expand our community,” she says.” We stay close to our values, sharing product information and spreading brand awareness but with a slight wink to reflect playfulness and a relatable tone that is embraced on the platform. Along with our other platforms, we have a team dedicated to monitoring conversations, answering questions, and looking for up-and-coming stars and brand partners. We plan to continue to stay close to our followers and fans to deliver our best-in-class products and customer service.”
She continues, “Threads is a more relaxed environment where we rethread humorous posts and testimonials, letting our audience speak to the results while instilling trust in the brand by showcasing peer reviews rather than heavy over-produced marketing. Engagement is the name of the game here, so we will consistently curate fun questions our community can easily interact with. For example, “What's in your ‘everything shower’ routine?” Overall, we will use Threads as an opportunity to have a conversation with our audience, learn more about our audience, entertain and educate, foster the community we’re known for, and identify potential influencers and brand partners.”
The lighthearted nature of the platform has already created a more welcoming environment than Twitter’s. As Rebecca Goldberg Brodsky, co-founder of DADA Goldberg, told AD PRO, “Our early take is that this platform should be rooted in humor, observation and insight. Rather than the image-led material, [Threads] will be a place to talk about changing trends. I see it as serving a hole in the market.”
The BerlinRosen team encourages brands and creators to take this time to engage with people, too. “Like with any social media platform, prioritize engaging with your community. Proactively leave replies within people and brand Threads that are relevant to your business or organization. By creating conversation on Threads, your organization can build a parasocial relationship with followers and expand your reach by getting in front of new users.”
Test and learn
“We're so excited about Threads, and we see a lot of potential for creators here,” says Ana Elliott, Marketing Communications Manager at Shine Talent Group. “One of the best features Meta included when building this app was the option to bring your Instagram followers over to Threads. For Instagram creators in particular, this brings a huge advantage as they'll be starting off with a sizable audience on the new platform. While Threads is still missing some key features like the ability to see metrics (or run paid ads), we're already seeing brands doing giveaways on Threads, which is typically an early indicator that they are considering it as a worthwhile marketing channel. Our best advice for creators in these early days of Threads is to experiment with your posting style, showcase your personality, and have fun with it! It's not every day we get a new platform to play with.”
Haley Henning , Senior Director of Talent, Social at YMU, elaborates on the opportunity to experiment – and encourages it. “It's important as a creator to test out and engage with new platforms, even if it doesn't become their main outlet of content creation. With Threads, creators seem to be enjoying the candidness and users feel safe sharing whatever they are feeling. In short, it's fun! The energy across the board from meme accounts, brands and talent, seems to be extremely positive! Additionally - with every new platform, the early adaptors are seeing better results in virality and reaching new audiences at a quicker pace – so jump in.”
Create authentic connection
Jenny Le, Vice President, Influencer Relations at OGAKI, sees Threads as a place where brands and creators can create and foster authentic connections. “Threads provides an opportunity for brands and creators to connect 1:1 with their community in a more relaxed format, keeping things lighthearted and almost positioned like a conversation with friends. While other social platforms require a lot of curation and content edits, and strategizing about the number of posts that can be shared within a day or week, Threads eliminates that and brings the “fun” and personality back to brands. While KPIs are always important to consider, it’d be interesting to see what brands and creators take advantage of this opportunity to simply reconnect with their audience & have fun with them and as a result, allow their community grow even larger simply by others now feeling like they’re genuinely involved in the conversations and shared their thoughts.”
Inkhouse’s Senior Vice President of Digital Content Strategy, Christine Montes, advises taking advantage of this time by keeping things casual and conversational with followers. “Experiment with light-hearted but authentic content. Until the audience is more defined, it’s difficult to put forward an immediate, clear content strategy,” she says. “Right now, we’re seeing conversational posts–not promotional ones–from businesses. Here are a few examples: Databricks (#client), Adobe, Google and Salesforce. Spend time each day monitoring for relevant trends to jump on and finding ways to start a conversation with your audience.”
