Marketers Weigh In on Why Threads Isn’t a Brand Magnet

Meta launched its copycat platform Threads one year ago, and since then, user engagement has grown significantly. Many users are flocking to the platform to explore its features and offerings. 

While users are interested and exploring Threads, many companies remain cautious and hesitant to use Threads as a primary channel for their marketing strategies despite this growing interest and substantial user base.

The number of Threads monthly active users grew to 175 million in July 2024, an increase of 25 million since April 2024. According to eMarketer, 30 million Threads monthly active users were in the US alone in 2024, up from 23.7 million.

Despite the fact that that number is impressive, there is still a lingering question as to why brands are not showing up as much in Threads as they are in X.

According to Rasa Urbonaite, Chief Marketing Officer of Breezit, a California wedding and event organization, many companies are reluctant to use Threads. The perceived lack of customization on the platform is largely responsible for this reluctance. According to Urbonaite, weddings are deeply personal occasions for which individuals seek services that reflect their love stories. Urbonaite added It can be challenging for brands to achieve this level of personalization on Threads because the platform is often perceived as impersonal.

“Creating content that caters to the diverse preferences of couples demands considerable effort and creativity,” said Urbonaite. “Brands fear that overlooking these nuances may lead to disengagement. Additionally, visual storytelling through images and videos is prevalent in the wedding industry, which is difficult to replicate on text-based platforms like Threads.”

Brands and content creators left X after Elon Musk took over the company, moving to other platforms like Threads. Several of those returned to X as of this year and also advertised there, and also found ways to generate income. X will also be the home to upcoming Verzuz battles in the future, yet marketers are questioning this groundbreaking move. Threads, however, has not yet launched an ad unit.

A media buyer from FreeWheel and SNS Nails’ Brand Manager, Anna Parvatova, believe that Meta may have missed the mark with Threads. Parvatova observes that Threads appears to be attempting to emulate TikTok, aiming to capture the same success that TikTok has enjoyed over the past few years. However, she notes that Threads seems to offer little beyond this imitation, essentially functioning as TikTok on a different platform. According to a media buyer at FreeWheel as well as Parvatova, Threads does not offer users or brands anything unique or new.

“There is very little incentive for users to leave TikTok and try out something that’s also TikTok, only newer and, I argue, less exciting,” said Parvatova. “Brands are less likely to engage with users on Threads simply because not enough of them are there, and many simply don’t think it’s worth the bother.”

LevLane Advertising’s Chief Marketing Officer Liz Weir, commented that Threads was a solution looking for a problem, a type of product or service that rarely succeeds. The platform struggled with its algorithm, resulting in users not receiving content they found engaging or relevant in their feeds. Additionally, extensive censorship on the site restricted users’ ability to post freely, even on benign topics, which quickly alienated users who had grown weary of such a heavy-handed approach.

“It was meant to be a Twitter competitor, but Twitter (now X) is stand alone and Threads required users to also have an Instagram account and the Twitter/X audience they were trying to capture doesn’t fully align with the type of people looking for that news aggregation-style approach that twitter gives them so it’s hard to entice the right people,” said Weir.

Since Threads’ inception, Sherean Malekzadeh, President of New Thought Marketing and one of the first million users (@sherean33), has been actively engaged. In addition, Malekzadeh said third-party apps were not able to integrate the platform into their current digital strategies until mid-June, which limited brands’ ability to use the platform. As a result of this delay in API access, brands are reluctant to fully engage with Threads as part of their marketing efforts.

“I suspect we will see more brands coming online and there are a few brands that post and engage regularly,” said Malekzadeh. “In general, engagement is better on Threads than on Twitter for most users.”

This perspective is echoed by Kit McGuffie, a senior social media strategist at Planit, who noted that unless there is a significant shift in how people use and engage with more established “priority” social platforms, brands are likely to continue viewing Threads as a secondary or tertiary channel.

McGuffie emphasized that Threads is still considered new and uncharted territory, especially when compared to the more established platforms that have large, loyal user bases. As a result, brands may hesitate to prioritize Threads in their marketing strategies.

“Additionally, as marketing budgets decrease or remain stagnant, social managers are likely to recommend focusing efforts and resources on the priority/mainstream social channels that elevates highly-consumed short form video content (think TikTok, YouTube Shorts, Instagram Reels) rather than spreading their social efforts too thin,” said McGuffie.