Some major brands are giving up on Threads as engagement craters
Hello. Is there anybody in there?
While Pink Floyd could not have envisioned the internet, let alone social media, when they released Comfortably Numb in 1979, the lyrics might as well apply to Meta’s wannabe “Twitter Killer,” Threads.
After quickly amassing over 100 million users during its initial launch in early July, engagement has bottomed out.
Very little has been reported on this topic lately, but the most recent data from Sensor Tower showed an 82% drop in Threads’ active daily users with only eight million accessing the app at the end of July.
This is not to say many major brands and celebrities aren’t still sharing content on Threads. You don’t want to fall behind if or when Meta finally gets it right.
Today, however, is painfully clear that posting to Threads is more of an exercise in hope than a realistic expectation of engagement.
For example, the Los Angeles Dodgers have 2.5 million followers on X, formerly Twitter, and 269K on Threads. This amusing tweet showing the team in costumes reached 553,000 users with 6,000 likes and 183 comments.
The same post on Threads only received a few dozen likes and seven “replies.”
The playoff-bound Dodgers are fairly active on Threads. The same cannot be said for all major sports teams or even entire leagues, some of which have given up.
As of Monday, the Los Angeles Rams hadn’t posted to Threads in three weeks.
The National Football League hasn’t posted anything in six weeks, before the start of the regular season. This is the nation’s most popular sports league, and it has completely abandoned Meta’s new platform. Even with its 1.9 million followers.
Among news publishers, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) stopped posting to Threads 11 weeks ago, not long after the launch. CBS News hasn’t posted in five weeks.
L.A.’s Very Own KTLA is still sharing news and other content on our Threads channel (53,000 users) but the engagement rarely amounts to more than crickets chirping – one or two replies at best. With nine comments and 100 likes, this post with a video from U2’s concert at Sphere Las Vegas is a viral hit, relatively speaking.
In late August, Meta rolled out a desktop publishing feature – an essential tool that was missing from the initial launch. Other updates are certain to follow, so the platform will continue to evolve to court users who may be inclined to support it but have found its limited features frustrating.
Meta’s ability to recruit from its billions, yes billions, of active daily users on Facebook and Instagram means it has the potential to move the needle.
In a recent analysis, Insider Intelligence expects Threads to grow its active U.S. user base to 23.7 million by the end of 2024, still less than half of X, but not too shabby for a platform that will have existed for only six months. Perhaps engagement will follow.
Right now, however, Threads needs a lot more than “just a little pinprick” to revive its momentum.
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