Should you jump on Instagram’s Twitter competitor???

Plus a Free Gift as a Thank You for Subscribing

JUL 10, 2023

What a hell of a week. 

First, this newsletter doubled it's subscribers in the past 10 days. I can't thank you all enough for joining me in helping to kill off shitty $500 courses for 101 level marketing and business advice. 

Second, you should have my subscriber-only version of 

- Twitter Video: 0-100 in 15 Minutes

In Your Inbox. As a thank you for subscribing to Signal or Noise, I've included two bonus sections: 

1. How To Get Started with Video WITHOUT your face front and center.
2. 5 Engaging Video Templates to kickstart video development. 

If you missed getting your copy, respond back to this email and I'll shoot it over. 

This Week's Newsletter

Since I put a ton of effort into the Video guide, this newsletter's a bit shorter. We're going to dive into the new kid on the block: Instagram's Twitter Competitor Threads. 

We'll answer the following questions: 

1. What is Threads? 
2. Why Did Threads Launch Now? (business analysis nerdery)
3. Should you get on Threads?

What Is Threads?

Threads is Instagram’s new Twitter competitor, and it’s aiming to demolish Twitter (more on that in a bit).

Only time will tell if they’ll succeed.

The interface is simple, smooth, and clean. It looks like this:

Basically, it’s Twitter but without:

A Desktop version
Trends
Lists
DMs
- *although people can follow your instagram account and DM there
A Following Page
Communities
A good built in GIF finder (it hurts my soul)

In other words – it’s a super lightweight, mobile-only version of Twitter.

It’s also a ridiculous dopamine rush.

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Since you’re not able to search well, have accounts suggested to you, or see trends – you spend most of your time:

Scrolling your main feed.
Engaging with threads that you can contribute to.
Following some new people.
Getting to content that you don’t care about
Scrolling back up.
Refreshing.

In a constant loop.

It’s almost like TikTok was combined with Twitter. If you’re not careful, you’ll lose a few hours there without noticing.

If you do download the app to work as a creator – you’ll want to make sure you’re going in with a creation mindset, not a consumption one.

Why Did Threads Launch Now (and with a super small feature set)?

I won’t bury the lede.

Twitter the App is doing as fine as it ever has (minus some bugs here and there). But from the outside looking in – Twitter the Business is jacked.

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Let’s take a look at the (very) public info we have about Twitter since Elon Musk took over:

Cut a ton of employees almost immediately.
Re-established controversial accounts (and lost a ton of advertisers, it’s main revenue source).
Started heavily pushing Twitter Blue (to the point that you effectively can’t be a successful creator without it).
Started charging (omg 40k/mo) for access to their API.
Started rate limiting their app where views on ads is where they make most of their revenue.

Let’s do some pattern matching. What do all of these things tell us?

Well – this is what it’s telling Meta:

Cut Employees (control costs, b/c not enough $$$)
Lost Advertisers (lost money, not enough $$$ even worse)
Twitter Blue (we can’t let creators use the platform without paying, because not enough $$$)
API Access (seriously – we can’t afford to run this, give us $$$ plz)
Rate Limiting (ffs – we don’t have enough $$$ to even let people use the app full time)

And so – they started developing a clone for Twitter and waited for an opportunity to strike. And strike they did.

And Elon knows that this is trouble.

He never sued Truth Social (a literal clone of Twitter for all the folks who were getting banned from Twitter before he took over).

But he immediately sued Meta when their app emerged.

I’m not sure how this plays out in the long run. I’m not a Twitter doomsday believer, I think each platform grabs an audience segment and keeps moving on.

But this is definitely an interesting case in business to keep an eye on.

Should Creators Flock to Threads Right Now?

As always, the answer depends. Here’s my advice based on where you’re at today.

If You Have an audience (at all) on Instagram:

Simply yes.

Instagram will pull your followers with you (so long as they create a Threads accounts).

If You Have a Large Following on Other Platforms (like Twitter) (10k+):

Try to duplicate your audience over to Threads. It will give you a large head start as other creators try to grow from scratch.

If You Are Brand New To Twitter:

You can think about it.

But I will say – it’s likely that Twitter will still be faster to grow on for you right now, considering that it has scheduling tools, a desktop app, and analytics.

Everyone Else, answer these questions:

Have I just established momentum on Twitter/YT/TikTok?
1. Then no. Messing around with threads will reduce your bandwidth to continue that momentum.
Am I struggling with keeping up with content creation on my current platform?
1. Then no. Threads doesn’t have a defined pattern or culture for winning content. You won’t be able to 1 for 1 copy and paste content and expect to blow up. It will be doubling your effort.
Have I just established momentum in my actual business?
1. Then no. You should keep investing more here and grow the business. Wait til you stabilize.
Do I have 2x the time it takes to grow on Twitter/YT/TikTok
1. If no, then don’t. It takes much longer to grow with Threads because you are mobile only and are at the whims of whatever the algorithm shows you.
2. There aren’t lists, there aren’t schedulers, there aren’t engagement builders. You’re doing things all by hand – it’s a big time investment.

In short:

Maybe mess around with it.

Don’t let it take up too much of your time.

Continue to double down on your current approach, unless you’re completely stable and ready to take another audience growth path (with 2-5x the effort).

That’s a Wrap.

Next week, we’ll be breaking down the three business models of Social Media. So many Creators focus solely on their content as their business, and it’s why so many of them don’t ever make a dime online.

But that’s not you.

Because you’re going to understand the different business models of Social Media and how to align your content strategy to those models.

Until next week!