Amid ongoing chaos at Twitter, the Meta Threads app has been penned in for launch on 6 July, as the Facebook and Instagram parent company looks to take advantage of what it perceives to be an emerging gap in the market.
The new Meta Threads app has already appeared in app stores ahead of its official release date, with more details about what the app is and how it works now available.
Threads will be connected to Instagram, allowing users to keep the same handle and maintain the same follower lists. However, while Instagram is a visual platform, Threads will be a text-focused micro-blogging app, a clear indication that Meta is looking to compete directly with Twitter.
Twitter owner Elon Musk made headline news over the weekend as he introduced a reading limit for users on the platform. Subscribers to the Twitter Blue premium service were initially limited to reading 6,000 posts per day, while non-subscribers were limited to just 600.
The move was widely panned, despite Musk’s protests that it was necessary to address “data-scraping” issues.
This was just the latest in a long line of questionable decisions made by Musk, who continues to attempt to bring advertisers back to the platform after his controversial takeover in 2022.
Recently, Twitter confirmed plans to introduce a revenue share feature for brands and creators on the platform, but this news has since been eclipsed by the reading limit scandal. The reading limit has since been lifted, but has left users concerned about the direction of the platform.
This could, therefore, be the perfect time for Meta to launch Threads. By providing a viable Twitter alternative that instantly links with existing user Instagram accounts, Meta could attract much of Twitter’s user base.
Whether Threads will or not remains to be seen, but both Twitter and Meta will undoubtedly be watching the situation closely.
For affiliate marketers, the emergence of any new social platform is important. By all accounts, Threads will be an off-shoot, text-based version of Instagram, and will likely launch with access to Instagram’s large data pools.
What this means is that Threads could get off to a flying start. It may benefit from the current popularity of Instagram and could be able to leverage existing communities on the platform to rapidly establish itself as a top social channel.
Affiliate marketers and program managers must be prepared for this. Your marketing strategies need to be dynamic and ready to change to fit a rapidly shifting digital landscape. Instagram is an incredibly important channel for affiliates and influencers, so Threads could prove to be similarly successful, and could become an additional promotion and partner traffic source as we move forward.
