Photo credit: Bolivia Intelligente
Is it worth investing in threads for advertising? Maybe not — engagement rates have dropped by 70% since launch.
Meta introduced Threads as a burgeoning Twitter alternative tethered to its Instagram platform, but the lack of features left users dissatisfied. For one, the service doesn’t support hashtags, which are an important way for event organizers or others to build a following online or talk about a local event and keep track of the conversation overall. Sensor Tower data shows that daily active users have dropped to just 13 million, down from a peak of 70% at launch.
Sensor Tower’s data also shows that those users who still engage in threads do so for a much shorter period of time. During the launch week, iOS users spent an average of 19 minutes on the app — that drop dropped to just four minutes. Android users dropped by about five minutes from one Peak of 21 minutes on the day of the market launch.
Threads’ main competitor is Twitter, which has around 200 million daily active users since it was acquired by Elon Musk. Users on Twitter spend an average of about 30 minutes a day on the app, making it a useful place to promote local events and reach an online demographic interested in a specific topic.
Part of the drop off threads is experience is due to new users abandoning the app as it is not a true Twitter replacement. With no way to use hashtags or DM friends, the app feels like a glorified place to spit in the ether, which is just one dimension of Twitter. Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri has acknowledged that Threads lacks functionality and that the company is working to do something about it.
“We’re working to bring you these new features,” Mosseri wrote in threads to people complaining about the ease of implementation of the current app. These features include multiple account support, the ability to edit posts, and a chronological feed option.