Are You THREADY?!
“Brands are going more niche with their selection of content creators and micro-influencers. Eight out of ten social media marketers believe most companies will have a creator influencer as the face of their brand in 2023, which is unheard of years ago.”
Navigating the digital world can be tricky. It can appear fun and lucrative, but if you don’t necessarily know what you’re doing or don’t have the right kind of people supporting you, it can be a messy situation. Not just for influencers or creators, but even for solopreneurs and small business owners. Throw in Threads and other new and emerging social media apps into the mix, and you've got yourself a recipe for overwhelm!
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TDE Episode 5: Are You THREADY?!
Threads: Unraveling the Social Media Storm!
Carl: So in just 24 hours, the Threads app was downloaded 13 million times after meta launch in the US and selected regions and countries as a direct rival of Social Media Network. Twitter, it's been the talk of the town for the past couple of weeks.
Looking at the online landscape now and seeing the app actively come to play and be part of the social media menu of most people. We can now deduce why it's enjoying the success it's holding now.
The most obvious reason is just the massive user base with Instagram having more than 1.5 billion active users. I think the math for that is that around a quarter of the world's population is 13 and up, and has an Instagram account.
Anne: Yeah. And another feature that most users enjoy the most is being able to seamlessly post your thread, It's like the tweet, thread to Instagram, which we're not able to do with Twitter so much so that you have to either screenshot your tweet and repost it or use a template like a Canva template or any designing app to recreate your tweet.
Carl: And the fact that threads allow you to follow and connect with friends and creators who share your interests, including the people you already follow on Instagram, is a huge plus.
Anne: It's an innovative and convenient way to connect because you already have that ready user base the people that you follow on Instagram would automatically see you and can follow you easily, on threads as well, but, of course, it's still not without its own mishaps that people find somewhat annoying.
There are people who don't necessarily like the interface or that it's still buggy and crashes from time to time, especially at the beginning.
But I think they are able to fix that already.
I wonder if we can have access to the user's minds, which is more should I say, what are the things that they appreciate the most?
Carl: This massive platform won't be able to escape brutal criticism while it was dubbed as the Twitter killer early on, a lot of people are saying that it also can't be denied that it's almost completely a copycat of Twitter.
Anne: In fact, people there were memes that came out that they were saying that Mark just pressed ctrl c and then ctrl v for Twitter and then slapped, threads as a title, but it's more or less the same thing, which is also what Zuckerberg did with Snapchat when he introduced Instagram stories or even TikTok when it just came out. It's the exact same format or feature.
You cannot delete your Threads…
Carl: Innovation is not entirely copying, but having a better version of what was done.
And another major issue most people have was the growing privacy concerns that you're not able to delete your threads account without also deleting your IG account.
You can only deactivate, not really delete it. Yeah. So what can you say about that?
Anne: Yeah, I think, the memes there are thousands of memes about not being able to delete. It's a privacy issue. There are people that are concerned, with a lot of things.
Carl: So can you consider that as cheating when it comes to capturing a specific audience?
Anne: I would say that it’s ingenious in a way that, do you ever really delete your account? I know some people who just deactivate their account, but they don't necessarily altogether delete it. Not unless you're going to do a whole digital cleanse, or If you're just taking a hiatus from social media, you don't really need to delete your account, you just deactivate it.
So Zuckerberg is just basically mirroring the behavior of most people, which is why are you going to delete your threads anyway? You have no plans of deleting it, so why make that feature available to begin with?
Carl: Isn't it kind of self-serving for him, rather than being a consumer-centric platform that caters to their needs? Because it seems like you don't have a choice. What if you just want to be active on one specific platform?
Anne: Well, for me, the concerns are valid, but again, I think as with anything in life, only time will tell history will judge Zuckerberg if what he did with threads is incompetent and unfair or if it's actually ingenious, only time will tell.
Game Changer: Micro-influencers and content creators for marketing
Carl: So switching gears a bit, another trend that continues to emerge is influencer marketers ditching celebrities for micro-influencers and content creators.
Anne: This might be the most controversial one so far, though. It's also the most undeniable one too since we've already seen this happen years back, but it's a trend that's gaining more traction in 2023.
Carl: And it seems like brands are going more niche with their selection of content creators and micro-influencers. And 8 out of 10 social media marketers believe most companies will have a creator influencer as the face of their brand in 2023, which is super unheard of years ago. Back then, you had to have a huge portfolio.
To represent a brand, even as an athlete, you have to be the biggest star playing in a championship team to be a brand ambassador.
But as marketers, they're seeing more value in niche micro-influencers and creators for targeted campaigns. I still see this going both ways, and it has pros and cons still because let's look at it from the influencer side.
Anne: Being a public figure of some sort has its own array of challenges and issues that if you are not mature or prepared enough to handle it can eat you up, and it can cause a lot of mental anguish.
I see a lot of content creators online who after experiencing that, like being viral, going viral, and then, receiving, brand offers.
And then when that popularity fizzles, It's a difficult experience for them. it really takes away a lot of your confidence. It's painful.
And after that deal or after that experience, if you don't have a plan intact, you don't know what the next step is.
Especially if you started at a young age and you don't have a parent or a guardian, to guide you, to give you direction.
Nobody's handling your business for you. It's difficult.
You're putting yourself out there and not everyone might be cut out for it. And while today's society and the younger generation are much more accustomed to being more public with their personal lives, I know that it can still be too much to handle.
Carl: I've seen here locally, we've heard about micro-influencers complaining about not getting their end of the bargain, either they're not getting paid on time. Yeah. Or they don't get paid at all. And since there are always two sides to the story, most of the time it's unclear if it was the brand or the influencer who reached the contract.
It's a messy situation and don't want to get in the messy situation. You don't want to be in the middle of it.
So if you're looking to walk that path of being a digital creator or influencer, or just a public persona, you have to know that there's a business side to it and you have to be well informed.
Anne: So you know what you're getting yourself into creating content and growing your following is fun and all, but it can go haywire easily like it can go ugly fast.
Carl: Navigating the digital world can be so tricky.
It can appear fun and lucrative, but if you don't necessarily know what you're doing or don't have the right kind of people supporting you.
As we said, it can be a messy situation, not just for influencers or creators, but even solopreneurs or even small business owners.
