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Advertisers are watching how it works meta A new messaging app, Threads, will be developed over the next few months to explore new social channels to reach consumers as Twitter continues to struggle.
Instagram Threads debuted last week, garnering more than 100 million signups and attracting the attention of many businesses, multiple digital marketing agencies and industry experts told CNBC.
Natasha Blumenkron, vice president of paid social-for-marketing firm Tinuiti, said Threads could be an important part of the day-to-day life for her clients looking to see how messaging apps fit into their existing social media strategies. Said it was being talked about.
Tesla has stopped advertising on Twitter over brand safety concerns, including reports of an increase in racist and hate speech on the platform owned by Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Blumenkron said many businesses are excited about the possibility of running ads on Threads once the option is available. He said.
Instagram head Adam Mosseri said in various interviews and posts about Threads that Meta is currently focused on building the core Threads product rather than monetizing the app. Many popular features common to other social apps, such as the ability to use hashtags and read posts in chronological order, are currently unavailable, and Mosseri says his team is working on some of those tools. He said he was working on incorporating it.
Blumenkron explained that many brands are interested in potentially adding features like chronological feeds and hashtag search capabilities to Threads. These features help businesses ensure their posts are shown to the right audience, and help them understand which trending topics might influence their content. increase.
“When considering playing in paid spaces, brands really want to ensure that their content reaches relevant audiences,” Blumenkron said. “You’re paying to play at the end of the day, so you want to make sure you’re where it makes the most sense.”
Rachel Tipograph, CEO of marketing technology firm MikMak, said her clientele, consumer products companies and retailers, also consistently strives to “get new attention,” especially as Twitter’s brand safety issues continue. He said he was also interested in advertising opportunities on Threads because of its gain.
Based on the amount of traffic the company records from the paid ad campaigns it helps manage for its customers, MikMak said he was able to surmise that many of the company’s customers have significantly reduced their Twitter ad spend.
For example, MikMak recorded a 42% drop in Twitter traffic from April to May, indicating that the company has paused its paid advertising campaigns. When Linda Yaccarino, former head of global advertising at NBCUniversal, took over as Twitter CEO in June, Mi’kmak recorded a 21% increase in Twitter traffic. The appointment of longtime advertising chief Linda Yaccarino to Twitter suggests that spending has increased for some brands, Tipograph said.
It’s too early to tell whether Threads’ debut will impact Twitter’s ad sales at this point, Tipograph added.
In addition to Threads’ ever-expanding user base, Tipograph said companies are interested in Threads because it shares similar back-end management tools with Instagram. He said it could make the platform easier for social media admins to use. Additionally, businesses that already have Instagram accounts can essentially port their followers over to Threads rather than building an audience from scratch.
“This was the most impromptu onboarding experience in the history of my career, and my entire career has been in the social space,” Tipograph said.
Still, Tipograph believes that for Threads to have a significant impact on online advertising, it will need users who interact with each other on the site on a regular basis, which is a well-established marketing metric of daily active users. It might be quantifiable by the number of users.
For Tal Jacobson, incoming CEO of digital advertising firm Perion Network, “subscription numbers don’t mean much.” He said it was easy for current Instagram users to create a Threads account, but it was unclear how actively they would participate in the service.
“What you really need to look for is the number of conversations,” Jacobson said when asked about which stats would be most useful to advertisers.
Because Threads is so new, it’s unclear what kind of audience Threads is attracting, Tipograph said. Companies are looking to see if the messaging app attracts a different type of audience than just existing Instagram users, which will influence their marketing plans, he added.
Instagram’s Mosseri recently said Threads doesn’t intend to actively promote discussions about news or politics, saying the company believes it’s less conflicting by addressing topics like fashion and sports. rice field. For this reason, some of Twitter’s core audience, who use the service to keep up with the rapid-fire nature of news and politics, are less interested in using Threads if the platform is geared towards lifestyle or entertainment. may not show.
Media consultant and former technology analyst Brian Wieser said that even if Thread fails to attract news- and politically-minded viewers, it could be good business for Meta. The total target audience for entertainment and lifestyle content is likely to be much higher than the number of people interested in hard news, making it a ‘better business’ to focus on and a reputational risk. Weezer said the odds are slim.
Wieser said that if Threads can keep users glued to the service and doesn’t morph into a video app that’s indistinguishable from other apps, it could be a “great multi-billion dollar business” for Meta. I think.
Angelo Carusone, chairman and president of the nonprofit Media Matters for America, said that if Instagram chooses to focus on lifestyle content rather than hard news, it will be as responsive to domestic and global affairs as Twitter. He said he could not influence it.
“It may have commercial viability, but it probably won’t have real relevance,” Carusone said.
Groups like Media Matters, Free Press and Accountable Tech called on advertisers to stop spending on Twitter when Musk took office last fall, citing the rise in hate speech and other concerns. .
Threads’ service may not currently have offensive content enough to drive users and advertisers away, but the same bad guys and trolls that drive activity on Twitter are also on Threads. Carusone said it could do something similar.
Carusone said livestreamer and outspoken anti-Semitic Nick Fuentes, who was banned from Instagram in 2019, recently created fake Instagram and thread accounts, Prompted His viewers were like, “Blow up some people in there and turn them into red pills.”
If Meta isn’t prepared to deal with users trying to spread misinformation and divisive content on its threads, the messaging app risks alienating not only users but also advertisers, Carusone said. To the Trust and Safety team, who added that Meta has not been free from the problems plaguing Twitter, especially after Meta’s dismissal.
“What I’m trying to say is that threads basically magnify the problems Instagram has.” [that] Facebook never solved it,” Carusone said, adding, “And I think it’s real.”
clock: Threads Hits 100 Million Users, Fastest Growing App of All Time