Meta's Threads (Barcelona) Launches on Thursday July 6th
Social Media's Great Bifurcation of 2023
Hey Everyone,
The future of social media doesn’t seem very bright. After “restricted tweets” coming to Twitter, there’s been another mini-exodus moment. That’s great timing for Instagram’s “Threads”.
The new app will be like the Instagram for Text and writers on Substack and Newsletter Creators in general could do very well from it.
With TikTok making a audio editing app, and Snap having an A.I. chatbot, the future of social for Creators is really looking different. So if you are a writer there’s a lot of potential places you might want to highlight your personal brand and be a niche creator.
LinkedIn Posts
Twitter
Threads
Reddit
Bluesky Social
Post News
Mastodon
Substack Notes
The variety of LinkedIn posts and its new credibility changes, means it’s going all-in on experts who educate.
But will Instagram Threads be a good place for a Substack or Newsletter niche Creator? Bluesky, Post News and Mastodon haven’t really been thus far. Substack Notes is a hang-out for writers, as far as I can tell, readers aren’t THAT into Substack’s bare-bones app.
Threads, is expected to launch on July 6th, according to the App Store listing for the app showing a version ready for Apple’s iPhone
Here is the official — and brief — description of the app, from the App Store:
Say more with Threads — Instagram’s text-based conversation app
Threads is where communities come together to discuss everything from the topics you care about today to what’ll be trending tomorrow. Whatever it is you’re interested in, you can follow and connect directly with your favorite creators and others who love the same things — or build a loyal following of your own to share your ideas, opinions and creativity with the world.
Threads Tethered to Instagram
Threads has features of being tethered to IG and has a decentralized aspect, pretty smart from Meta who are usually pretty terrible at launching apps, will this time be different?
With weakness from Twitter, Notes not really stacking up, and the others like Mastodon just being a fad, what’s next? What’s next is TikTok opening up a store later this summer.
WHAT TO UNDERSTAND LINKEDIN BETTER?
Listen to the podcast here “Why LinkedIn Doesn't Want You Going "Viral"“
Going viral does not seem to be the future of social niche.
Big Winner of Twitter Exodus is Actually LinkedIn
LinkedIn posts saw 42% year-over-year increase in content shared from 2021 to 2023, a 27% increase in content viewed, and now has three professionals joining every second.
Knowledge as a Service
I’m bullish on niches that are educational rather than just entertaining.
The Two Big Changes on LinkedIn's Feed
In short, here's what has changed:
1. If you post on LinkedIn, it is more likely that your followers will see your post.
2. Posts that share "knowledge and advice" are now prioritized throughout the platform.
LinkedIn Post Types That are Doing well Now
Carousal posts
PDF uploads
Polls (still do well)
Which post formats are doing well is a ferris wheel of what’s trending on LinkedIn and what their product team boosts given on granular feedback from the community.
LinkedIn’s feed thinks readers want content that’s grounded in education & advice (which sounds a lot like Newsletter audiences).
Meta’s Threads
It’s looking like Project Barcelona is really going to be called Threads.
“Threads is where communities come together to discuss everything from the topics you care about today to what’ll be trending tomorrow,” the App Store description reads.
That’s basically just what a Newsletter does right? In addition I’m bullish on how WhatsApp Channels could work with Threads. It’s still too soon to say right, but it’s worth considering for Creators.
By the way on Substack if you are interested in this stuff, my new favorite newsletter is ICYMI (in case you missed it).
So what about Threads? We know a lot actually. The new standalone app will be based on Instagram and integrate with ActivityPub, the decentralized social media protocol.
If LinkedIn is saying that content that’s “grounded in knowledge”, it really says a lot about how niche high-quality private communities are winning vs. mindless social media feeds. Now I wonder if Threads will have valuable communities for poets, short story writers and all the various niches that have hung-out on Instagram in their little corners.
According to Money Control, an Instagram spokesperson described Threads as “decentralized.” Meta itself has a pretty “leaky” history with trying to build decentralized apps or platforms (think Libra).
LinkedIn has its own courses, as LinkedIn acquired Lynda.com for $1.5 Billion in 2015. Now I can’t say LinkedIn Learning is great. But Microsoft does have an educational slant here.
It’s the end of a social era on the web. That’s probably a good thing. But I already miss the places that felt like everyone was there. - The Verge
Now with Twitter’s changes it does seem like it’s not just Advertisers who have left the platform. Virality and feeds is out, so what’s in? It’s not as if the Newsletter economy is thriving, but it is growing. beehiiv getting more serious funding is a testament to that. But Substack has struggled with funding, and it’s not clear where all the readers and consumers are.
There’s a bit of burnout here for social media apps, that are no longer or haven’t been really social for the better part of a decade.
Twitter is irrevocably changed, and social media just isn’t very attractive any longer. All the platforms feel bland and the same. So where does a niche creator go to promote their work? They need to go where their topic enthusiasts are - but even that can now be tricky.
LinkedIn’s educational targeting is at least good, to getting better with A.I. But what are the chances I can reach my audience on places like Instagram or Threads with the right hashtags? I might actually have better luck on TikTok, at this point.
In 2023, recommendations are passive readers in a way that’s not very well targeted to our niche. They are not qualified leads, so many aquired leads by big Newsletters are just the same. A qualified lead is actually an enthusiast in your topic.
What we need as Creators is to create evergreen content that’s scalable in our niche, so something like a YouTube Channel vs. a TikTok, where the entire app could get banned. What if TikTok got banned, maybe Instagram Threads would become a bit bigger.
While recommendations are a nice bonus for building an Email list, like you can do on Substack, beehiiv or ConvertKit, traffic from social are more “warm leads” since they presumably click on content that’s directly related to your niche. While most of us can agree that Twitter is worse than it used to be for Newsletter Creators, since they are building Subscriptions now in-house, Threads might be worth checking out on Thursday, July 6th, 2023.
Project 92, Barcelona, Threads - whatever you are called.
If you are a Newsletter creator who migrated from Instagram, than Threads will be important to you, and there are a lot more of these than you think active on Substack now.
Thanks for reading!
Mastodon seems to have very high quality content, so don't count it out. I'm looking forward to trying Threads, and especially What's App Channels (for the international audience you've mentioned in the past).