Local brands taking a ‘wait-and-see’ approach to Threads — experts

By Patricia B. Mirasol, Reporter

SOME local brands are still observing and evaluating Threads, Instagram’s text-based conversation application, before incorporating it into their marketing strategies, according to digital marketing experts.

Note how brands, such as the country’s two top telcos, have Threads accounts but hardly any content in them, said Jayvee C. Fernandez, the digital marketing head of PhilStar Media Group.

“With new social networks, brands are usually the last to adapt because they need to see where the community takes a platform, which is why you will see brands with the verified blue check mark carry over from Instagram but have zero content,” he said in an e-mailed reply to questions on July 17.

“They’re waiting. All they wanted to do was claim their accounts.”

Threads, which was launched on July 7, bears a resemblance to Twitter, featuring a feed primarily composed of text-based posts that facilitate real-time conversations.

Users must have an Instagram account to join the platform, and within the first five days of its launch, at least 100 million users have already done so, according to a Threads post by Meta Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg.

“The vision for Threads is to create an option and friendly public space for conversation,” he said following the launch.

“We hope to take what Instagram does best and create a new experience around text, ideas, and discussing what’s on your mind,” he added.

According to Danilyn G. Ramos, her travel agency, Escape Travel and Tours, joined the new app due to “the importance of staying current and not being left behind in the ever-changing digital landscape.”

“Threads offers a powerful network where our big target audience actively engages, making it an ideal platform for us to connect with potential customers,” the founder said in a Facebook Messenger chat on July 18.

For Rojan P. Mercader, a social media marketing consultant from a business process outsourcing company based in the United States, there are two primary considerations when creating a profile on a platform.

“First, is our target market using the platform, and are there opportunities for us to connect with our audience there?” she asked.

She said that her team initially considered BeReal but could not identify opportunities in the French social media app for engaging with their audience.

The second consideration is bandwidth, she added in a July 17 message on Messenger.

“It’s tempting to create an account every time there’s a new platform. But when we create a new profile, we also have to consider that we’ll need to upload content there regularly,” she said.

 “If it’s something that can potentially impact our KPIs (key performance indicators), we’ll find time,” she told BusinessWorld. “Otherwise, if it’s just nice to have presence there, but the potential results are less than the effort we’ll have to put into it, then we don’t pursue it.”

For Mickele A. Macon, meanwhile, Threads offers a level playing field for all users.

Mr. Macon, who co-founded the cross-chain decentralized finance marketplace GRYPH, said that the company had previously promoted their non-fungible-token art project on Twitter.

“After investing two months in building a community of 1,000 people, unfortunate marketing mistakes (such as capping the number of tweets you can send or receive a day unless you subscribe to the service, as well as shadow banning accounts) by their chief executive officer resulted in a permanent suspension of our account,” he said in a July 17 e-mail. 

The setback caused the company to lose its community and put the project on hold.

Mr. Macon added that numerous Web 3.0 accounts have grown disillusioned with Twitter, as they encountered issues such as shadow bans, suspensions, or minimal engagement.

“This observation reinforced the importance of understanding your target audience and the community you aim to cultivate, which is a fundamental aspect of successful marketing,” he noted.

With Threads, he said, GRYPH was able to amass a following of about 3,000 individuals. The company achieved this by engaging with other Web 3.0 accounts and implementing “a thoughtful international marketing approach that encompasses both English and Japanese audiences.”

“Threads has something that other mainstream social networks do not,” Mr. Fernandez noted.

“Threads might just be the gateway for making the concept of the Fediverse mainstream.”

The Fediverse, which is a combination of the words “federation” and “universe,” represents the decentralized open web. It encompasses a system where the infrastructure, protocols, applications, and governance of the web are decentralized. In line with this, Facebook has announced its intention to integrate Threads into the Fediverse.

“In the future,” Mr. Fernandez said, “the Fediverse will allow many independent servers to start ‘talking’ to one another, taking away control from one service. It is like having many different social networks have to ability to communicate and share information without being gated by a login screen or a monopoly on data ownership.”