Will Threads pull everything together – or unravel your social media strategy?
Phil BloomfieldTravel communications specialist Phil Bloomfield runs the rule over Facebook owner Meta’s Twitter clone in the first of a new series of columns from the Llama collective – and explores the opportunities and pitfalls for agents wondering about whether to adopt another social media platform.
You would have had to try hard to miss the news about Facebook owner Meta’s Twitter clone Threads when it launched last Thursday (6 July).
Either you’ll have seen something about it on your own social media feed, read about it in your paper (be that digital or in print) – or heard your social media manager weeping in a corner. You might even have already signed up to it for yourself to see what the fuss is about.
Threads is the name of the new text-based chat app that has been launched by Meta – owner of Facebook and Instagram – as an alternative to Twitter.
Since its acquisition by Tesla mogul Elon Musk last year (for a paltry $44 billion), the latter has committed the cardinal media sin of becoming the story itself, rather than being part of how that story is shared.
Strategically, Twitter has lost its way, and tales of boardroom clashes and fall outs with big tech partners, of off-the-cuff decisions being made by its billionaire overlord, and of mass lay-offs, have kept Silicon Valley abuzz.
Meanwhile, the deterioration of Twitter itself into a polarised bin fire of abuse and recrimination has accelerated. Content moderation safeguards, designed to protect and preserve sane discourse, have been removed, and it’s become a space where brands now fear to tread. Advertisers have left in droves, in lockstep with plummeting user numbers.
It’s hardly surprising then that Meta has chosen now as the time to launch an alternative, despite a handful of platforms trying – and largely failing – to fill Twitter’s space. Hands up who has a Mastodon, Bluesky or Tribal profile quietly gathering digital dust somewhere?
However, with the technical heft of Meta and Mark Zuckerberg’s own star power driving it, Threads is ready to exploit what those apps have lacked in functionality, scale and zeitgeist. Within hours of launching, it had registered tens of millions of users. It’s surpassed 100 million over the weekend.
On the face of it, the two platforms are hard to separate. The user experience – the way you interact with the technology on whatever device you’re using – is very similar. You can follow, like and comment on posts in the same way, and although there’s no direct messaging or hashtagging, you can assume both features are coming.
So if it is "a new Twitter", does that mean then that as a travel agent, tour operator or travel brand that you should join British Airways, Virgin Atlantic, Emirates, Heathrow Airport, Tui, Hays Travel and Celebrity Cruises – which all had profiles set up and had begun to "thread" on the day of launch – and jump right in?
Threads has taken off like one of Musk’s SpaceX rockets and is here to stay, but it’s still early days, and you should first determine whether your customers are even there. The requirement for Threads users to have an Instagram account could be a barrier for some.
Ask whether your social media resource has the capacity to manage a presence on Zuckerberg’s new plaything. The more widely a brand spreads itself because it thinks it should, the thinner it becomes. A neglected channel could mean neglected customers so if you join, will you post or will you ghost?
Finally, what do you want to achieve? If it’s brand visibility and awareness, what’s your content plan for activation? If it’s customer service, how will you resource that? And if it’s simply because your competitors are there and you think you should be as well, then it’s time to put down your needle before things start to unravel.
Phil Bloomfield has more than 25 years’ experience as a travel communications specialist, and has worked in-house or in agency roles for brands including Virgin Holidays, Cheapflights, dnata Travel Group, Celebrity Cruises and Travelzoo. He now runs Bloom Communications and is a founding member of the Llama collective of travel marketing specialists, helping brands all over the world to sharpen their marketing.
Learn from the llamas
TTG has teamed up with travel's new marketing collective, We Are Llama, to tap into the team's industry knowledge and experience, and offer agents insights, tips and guidance on how they can make the most of the marketing resources at their disposal.
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