When prebiotic soda brand Olipop joined Threads, it didn’t post about the flavors it comes in or the claimed nutritional benefits. “Can you please join this thread so my boss tells me he’s proud of me,” Olipop wrote in an early post. “I’m proud of you Oli,” TGI Fridays wrote back. “Thanks daddy <3,” said Olipop.
This is the “informal, conversational and unfiltered” approach the Olipop social media team uses on Threads, says Sara Crane, content strategist at Olipop. The soda company is testing Meta’s new platform by posting about “relevant cultural moments” rather than advertising directly. In doing so, it tries to strike a chord with the millions of people who have joined Threads since its July 5 launch. And Crane believes it’s working: Olipop now has 20,000 followers on Threads. As with other social networking debuts, “every social media executive is scrambling,” says Crane. “As time goes by, brands that will see long-term success will read the room and speak the Threads language.”
And on Threads, the language is friendly, trendy Internet language, with an edge of self-promotion and brand-on-brand chatter. It’s a tone that clashes with the snark and cynicism that made Twitter fun, but it’s also a breath of fresh air from some of the toxicity and hate speech in the bird app that left people and advertisers numb.
One of the weirdest things about Threads is that it’s built backwards. Most social networks grow organically; people find them and build communities, and then come the brands. But Threads launched with many brands and influencers at the ready. That gives Threads a strange vibe. When people signed up, they were greeted by a feed filled with Netflix, Spotify, and other big names. The brands are off to a good start: Website Planet, a web development company, looked at 30 brand accounts on Threads and Twitter and found that most were getting more engagement on Threads, even though they had fewer followers there.
The procession of brands on Threads isn’t driven by an eagerness to find a solid Twitter alternative, but rather a rush to follow consumer eyes. “I don’t see it as much as brands looking for a microblogging platform, but if their audience is, they want to be there too,” said Jen Jones, chief marketing officer for Commercetools, a digital commerce platform.
In the early days of Threads, many brands, celebrities, and influencers did microphone checks. And as brands experiment, there have been some strange interactions. Pizza Hut posted and deleted a thread with a confusing and sexual meme about pizza crust. Pizza Hut did not respond to a request for comment.
Brands have been testing the service with quippy jokes and memes. But there are tired messages, like “I’m a cinnamon bun,” from Cinnabon. Crumbl Cookies, which has 263,000 followers, simply posted “hey” followed by hundreds of cookie emojis. Wendy’s tried out memes and poked fun at Twitter, with 265,000 followers. All of this may be well and good for brands (pizza hut faux pas aside), but it’s not the kind of content that will keep people coming back to the app.
