The Fastest Growing App in History is 9 Days Old
Happy Friday, everyone! This week we’re going to explore Meta’s launch of Threads and how it got so big, so fast. We’ll also discuss a new way brands are able to engage with creators. Let’s get to it!
Threads Becomes Most Rapidly Downloaded App, Raising Twitter’s Ire (The New York Times - LINK)
TL;DR – Last Wednesday evening, Meta’s new app, Threads, went live and within hours, millions of users signed up. By Thursday, the app was downloaded over 30MM times and became the most rapidly downloaded app ever. In just 5 days, it got to 100MM users (TechCrunch – LINK.) Let’s take a step back and explore how we got here:
What is Threads? Threads, like Twitter, is a text-oriented app and posts (or “threads”) are capped at 500 characters. To sign up, users log in to the app with their Instagram account and then can choose to follow the same accounts that they follow on IG. There is no messaging feature yet and one of the biggest parts of Twitter, trending topics, has yet to make an appearance at the time of this writing. There are currently no ads and a user’s feed is delivered algorithmically with a mix of followed and popular accounts.
How did it grow so fast? Social media platforms are only as strong as the number of people who are on them and creating network effects (usually) takes time. By Meta connecting users’ Instagram accounts to Threads, they immediately addressed the barrier that every other Twitter challenger has faced. At the same time, Twitter has had a tumultuous last 8 or so months since Elon Musk purchased the platform and has left many users looking for an alternative. Just last week the app put a limit on how many tweets a user can view in a day (TechCrunch – LINK.) I’m fairly sure DJ Khaled’s assessment of Twitter’s post limiting would be, “congratulations, you played yourself.”
Where do we go from here? While I’m not sure we’ll see an actual cage match between Elon and Zuck (New York Times – LINK,) it’s certainly “game on.” Twitter has threatened a lawsuit claiming Meta stole trade secrets (Wall Street Journal – LINK) however Meta claims that no one on the engineering team is a former Twitter employee, so we’ll see on this one. Early reads indicate traffic slowing on Twitter in tandem with Threads’ rise, but it’s too early to make much of this data (Wall Street Journal – LINK.) I would expect to see expanded features on Threads over the coming weeks and months and inevitably (since Meta is a for-profit entity) ads. For Twitter, they certainly won’t sit around on the sidelines and I’m sure we’ll see a significant response from them as well.
Matt’s Hot Take™ - I think it’s safe to say that Meta has had a bigger glow up in the last week with Threads than mayonnaise becoming “aioli” on restaurant menus. Timing couldn’t be better given all of the churn with Twitter and seamless sign ups have made it easy for users to quickly find their communities. Longer term, Meta already knows exactly who you are from your IG profile which should inform future advertising integration. I would also expect broader advertising integration across the rest of their platform (feed, stories, reels, etc) to help brands manage reach which persists as one of the biggest challenges in digital media. However, while “ads” haven’t shown up yet, we’ve already seen the first sponsored post arrive from Hulu (AdAge – LINK.) Threads clearly has a lot to work out still but there hasn’t been a viable alternative to Twitter until about a week ago and this makes too much sense to ignore. The wildcard in all of this could be if Threads is the straw the breaks the FTC’s back and triggers further anti-trust debate for not just Meta, but the industry at-large.
TikTok’s New Feature Asks Creators to Make Branded Videos for a Chance at Ad Money (The Verge - LINK)
TL:DR – The social platform is setting up a new way for creators to cash in on brand dollars with their “Creative Challenge” program. This initiative allows brands to share a brief for a campaign that creators can submit original content against. Within 10 days, the brand would see up to 30 submissions to choose from. If a brand chooses a creator’s video, the ad will run on the brand’s handle (not the creator’s) as an in-feed ad and the creator will be compensated based on specific KPIs like views, clicks, or conversions.
Matt’s Hot Take™ - This is interesting for a couple of reasons. First, the ads run as in-feed ads, so it’s a way for creators to earn brand dollars without having to give up their own channel’s real estate and risk looking like “spon-con” sellouts. Given how short-form content starved most brands are today, this feels like a no-brainer for brands to at least test and at the same time lowers a barrier for creators who are mindful of not flooding their feeds with #ads. However, unlike many brand deals today that have an upfront fee, compensation is performance-based which introduces an element of risk for the creator and some will certainly choose to opt-out. However, for years, the biggest challenge in influencer marketing has been measurement. What is exciting about this is that it creates a mechanism to at least begin to normalize investment based upon outcomes. In the long run, it should help the most talented creators earn outsized rewards and penalize content that is clearly coming from a disingenuous place. It’s essentially a cousin of affiliate marketing and I’m here for it. If Tiktok can get the creator compensation right on this one, I could see this quickly becoming a valuable tool for brands to tap into.
Quick Hits
Amazon’s Prime Day 2023 Will Be All About Personalization (Fast Company – LINK) – Amazon’s summer shopping holiday, Prime Day, just took place this past Tuesday and Wednesday. As always, it was a bonanza of deals on all sorts of products as well as Amazon’s products and services. This year, one of the most interesting aspects was how the Seattle giant dialed up personalization to offer deals based upon past purchases, wish list items, and everyday essentials. New features being rolled out this week include invite-only deals, reimagined lists that better organize items, and buy-again 2.0 which will highlight past purchases that are on sale. Improving personalization will clearly carry on beyond Prime Day and could have a huge impact on the consumer journey allowing for more discovery vs what has historically been more of a “spear fishing” expedition on Amazon’s platform.
Video Ads Are Coming to All Your Uber Apps (Wall Street Journal - LINK) – Just like every retailer under the sun, Uber has declared ad sales as a key revenue driver for the firm with a goal of reaching $1B by 2024. In turn, they will begin running full-length video ads inside of the app while users wait for their drivers to arrive and during their trips. Videos will also play within the Uber Eats and Drizly environments. Just like retailers, Uber has a ton of unique data about its users for advertisers to leverage – location, where they’re going, what food they’ve ordered in the past, etc. and this will certainly be a big selling point. Also, while Uber doesn’t necessarily command the amount of daily attention we see on TikTok or Instagram, the average Uber ride lasts ~15 minutes, and riders spend about two of those minutes paying attention to the app.
Amazon is Testing AI-Generated Summaries of Product Reviews (Search Engine Land - LINK) – AI has been the buzziest trend of 2023 and a lot of the spotlight has been shining on its creative applications like image generation and copywriting. Amazon is now testing a far less sexy (but perhaps an incredibly impactful) application that would use AI to summarize product reviews. We know how influential reviews are along the consumer journey and this would potentially force a shift in how marketers communicate benefits. A prioritization of messaging would help to ensure common language is being used and specific benefits are noted to influence and strengthen aggregated reviews.
