The Ultimate Guide to Threads Marketing
Instagram’s Threads is the latest text-based social media taking the online world by storm. During the first 10 days of its release alone, it hit 100 million users and it trended even on different platforms including Twitter/𝕏 itself, its competitor.
The initial buzz may have faded but Threads is not going anywhere soon. Currently, Threads has 130 million monthly active users. This means that it is also the perfect place to find your next customers and users.
In this post, we will be taking a look at how you can market yourself and your brand on Threads.
Table of Contents
What is Instagram’s Threads App?
Threads, an Instagram app, released in early July 2023 is text-based social media that allows its users to share text-based posts and start conversations with other users. It allows brands to connect, curate and quickly share content. Threads is an Instagram app and as such it requires users to have an Instagram account in order to create an account on Threads. This is probably the reason for its fast and exponential growth because it is easy to set up as you can import everything (Profile picture, name, bio, etc) from your Instagram account. What’s more, is that Threads works seamlessly with Instagram. It’s easy to cross-post between the two platforms and when you share a thread on Instagram, your followers can just click it and be taken to the post on Threads. One other feature about Threads is that every Instagram user who created an account on Threads has a unique badge on their profile that is their Threads handle. When clicked, it goes directly to your Threads profile.
As you can see Threads is where people are right now and it has never been easier for your audience to find your brand on Threads. How to Create an Account on Threads
First of all, its important to know that you can’t have a Threads account unless you connect it with your Instagram account. For European Union users, Meta announced that they have the option to create a Threads account without linking Instagram but some features will not be available. Here is how you can create an account on Threads: 1. Download the Threads app on your device or head to Threads.net. 2. On the login page, you will find an option to either login or create an account by linking your Instagram account. Choose ‘Continue with Instagram’
3. You will be taken to a page where you can choose which Instagram account you want to continue with (if you have multiple). Choose the Instagram account that you want.
4. The next page will give you the option to customize your profile. There is also an option to import from your Instagram account. If you choose this option, your details from Instagram will be imported and used on Threads. 
5. After this you will be taken to a privacy page where you can choose to either have a public account where anyone can see your content or a private account where only people you approve to be your followers can see your content just like on Instagram. Choose the one that you want and continue.
And voila! You have successfully created an account on Threads.
Now on your homepage you will start to see some recommendations based on what the Threads algorithm thinks you’re interested in. Your activity on Instagram also plays a role in recommendation.
5 Key Features on Threads
Since Threads is a new social media and it is also based on another social media, Instagram. There are few unique features that will be handy to know about.1. Cross-post from Threads to Instagram
Since Threads is an Instagram app, you can share your Threads post on Instagram in an instant. To share you Threads post on Instagram, click the paper plane icon and add choose ‘Add to story’. Instagram will automatically open and allow you to share your Threads post on your Instagram story.2. If you’re verified on Instagram you will also be verified on Threads
If you’re already verified on Instagram, you don’t need to go through the process of obtaining the blue check mark again. You will automatically be verified on Threads as well. What a relief 🙂3. Your audience can find you easily
All Instagram users who are on Threads have a special Threads badge on their Instagram profile that not only allows their audience to find them on Threads, but also reduce copycats and impersonations.4. Threads posts are long
Threads posts can be up to 500 characters long which allows people to share their hearts out and start and engage in meaningful conversations.5. Instagram promotes your Threads posts on Instagram
Instagram is doing free marketing for you by showing your Threads posts to your Instagram followers. Instagram show users the Threads posts of account they are following on Instagram and when clicked they go directly to Threads.How to use Threads (and what to post)
Threads is a straight forward and user friendly app that any new user can quickly adopt to. Since almost all Threads users are also Instagram users, Threads already has the feel of Instagram and right away you know what to do.Creating your first Threads post
Right at the middle of the tool bar, you will find an icon that’s similar to a pen writing on a book. Once you click that, a composer will appear that allows you to create posts.
You can add multiple threads on a single post, you can photos, video, and GIFs as well as run polls.
Finding your favorite accounts
The search page is your friend when you are looking for new people to follow. You will find the Threads search page empty in the beginning until it learns more about what you like. So follow a few people and engage with some posts.
Notifications and editing your profile
Just like on Instagram, you will find all your notifications (likes, follows and mentions) on the notifications page.
You can edit your profile and see your posts, replies and reposts from the profile page.
What to Post on Threads
Think of Threads as Twitter/𝕏 and Instagram had a child. On one hand you have powerful text-based features just like on Twitter/𝕏 and on the other hand you have powerful photos and video features just like Instagram. So you can post anything that you would post on Twitter/𝕏 and Instagram. Threads is better than Twitter/𝕏 in a sense that you can include media and it looks good as well (it’s not cut as on Instagram) And Threads is better than Instagram in a sense that you can engage in meaningful conversations with people without it all being about looks. And commenting on Threads is way more fun and effective than on Instagram.5 Threads Marketing Tips
1. Optimize your profile
First thing’s first, optimize your profile for the right audience. The audience that you’re targeting.
Your profile is the starting point of your funnel. It all starts when someone clicks through your profile and you have a few seconds at most to grab attention.
On threads, you only have to worry about two things. Your profile picture and bio.
Profile
Make sure you’re including a a high quality and professional headshot picture for personal accounts. For brands then the brand logo is okay.
Bio
Your bio tells people what to expect from following you. Great bios are about how you help your audience. So stop focusing on yourself and start focusing on you help people and include that in your bio.
It also help to include social proof in there. Example if you say you help people grow their newsletters, then show proof that you really know something about growing newsletters. This can be something like “I help creators grow their newsletter. My newsletter is read by 17k+ people”
2. Post threads
Single posts are fun and easy to write but the value is in the threads. Threads allow you to distill much more information that just a single post (a single thread)
Leverage threads to share more about your learning and make people spend more time on your content and share it with others. People online are looking to be educated or entertained. So make sure you are doing one of the two or both.
While creating threads, be sure to also mix it up with visuals as people are more likely to understand photos and videos and resulting to more shares.
There are X types of threads that you can experiment with:
1. Advice threads
These are threads where you can share your advice about different topics. Example you will threads like ’10 pieces of advice I would give to my 18 year old self’
2. Expert topics threads
These are threads on your expertise. You can share about stuff that you are an expert in and your audience will find insights. Example if you are a movie lover, you can share things such as how the production of a movie came to be or about the cinematography.
The good things is that you get to talk about things that you expert on.
3. Story threads
These are threads that talk about stories of different things or people. Example if you are a marketer, you can share the story about how company X acquired it’s first Y users.
4. ‘How I did it’ threads
These are threads on your personal story on how you did something. Example if you were overweight and obese but you managed to turn it around and be fit while being over 30, you can talk about that.
5. Visual threads
Visual threads are threads that contain more media and less text. Example you can share videos or images of nature, cars and much more.
3. Post consistently
Threads is still a new platform and the algorithm is still new. The criteria of getting featured in the feed is not high. You don’t need a thousand likes.
Post consistently and you will make your own luck by going viral.
Apart from that posting consistently will make you attract more followers because your current followers will like your new content and share it.
4. Engage with your followers
Engaging with your followers is a sure way to make friends, build connections and most importantly build long-term followers.
When you make your followers feel noticed, you make them notice you even more. And they will be looking forward to your new posts every time so they can comment and interact with you because you interact with them.
5. Engage with other similar accounts
Everyone on Threads is trying to build their audience now. This is the time to make friends with similar accounts in growth size and niche.
Being friends with similar accounts allows you to share growth tips as well as support each other in the content that you post.
Threads vs Twitter/𝕏
On the surface Threads and Twitter/𝕏 looks a lot similar but there are some features that differentiate between the two. The most notable difference is that Twitter/𝕏 is mature and there are a lot of tools that increase the functionality and more features such as Hypefury, BlackMagic and others.Despite Threads being a new platform, it has a lot of monthly active users. This means there’s a huge chance that your audience is already on Threads.
Starting marketing yourself now means that you reach the untapped market that is already on Threads.
