Meta’s Threads platform faces challenges to become a global social media force, experts say

Mark Zuckerberg’s newest social media platform is off to a shaky start three months after it was launched with plenty of fanfare.

Meta founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg. Picture: AFP

One of the world’s newest social media platforms, Threads, was met with global hype when it launched this year, but three months on it is a long way from achieving success, experts say.

The co-founder and CEO of Meta Platforms, Mark Zuckerberg (Meta is the parent company of Facebook and Instagram), launched Threads in July. With more than 70 million sign-ups in only two days, all eyes were on the newest entry to an already crowded space.

Former Facebook Australia and New Zealand chief executive Stephen Scheeler has been among those closely watching, but says it could take years to determine whether Threads is a hit.

“It takes time for any social network to get its mojo and I don’t think you can expect a new social platform to erupt and take over the world in three months, it’s completely unrealistic,” Mr Scheeler told The Australian.

“We still have to wait and see, but I’m not surprised the sign-up rate was so high in its early days, that’s so easy for Meta to make happen. The hard part is getting people to hang around.

“It takes time to build the content, the community and the users posting and being active on the platform.

“We should give it another one or two years before we know.”

Mr Zuckerberg, whose Threads account has 3.4 million followers, has posted a handful of times in the past month but he has been much more active in replying to posts.

The platform allows those who already have an Instagram account to set up a Threads account with a few clicks and post comments of up to 500 characters and include links, photos and videos.

One month after the Threads’ launch, Mr Zuckerberg said he was hopeful it would become a widely used platform, even in a world dominated already by Facebook, Instagram, X (formerly Twitter) and TikTok.

“On Threads, I’m quite optimistic about our trajectory,” he said. “We saw unprecedented growth out of the gate and more importantly we’re seeing more people coming back daily than I’d expected.

“And now, we’re focused on retention and improving the basics. And then after that, we’ll focus on growing the community to the scale we think is possible.”

Mr Scheeler, who led Facebook’s ANZ operations for four years until 2017 and now runs artificial intelligence company Omniscient, said other platforms including the Elon Musk-owned X had their own problems.

“User numbers have dropped, advertiser numbers have gone away substantially, it’s not growing and is relatively flat,” Mr Scheeler said.

“X always had breaking news and was for journalists, celebrities and sports people – it felt like the place where everything was happening – but I think this has changed since Musk took over.”

Queensland University of Technology professor Axel Bruns, from the digital media research centre, said despite the high level of interest in Threads since its inception, interest had waned.

To put it bluntly, he said: “I don’t think it’s worked.”

“Usage of Threads’ accounts has trended downwards sharply over the last month or two, so there might be all these accounts, but the daily or weekly engagement with the platform is declining quite sharply,” Professor Bruns said.

“From what I know, those left on the platform are a whole lot of influencers and would-be influencers talking at each other and having banter between companies, but there’s not really much participation from ordinary users.”

Professor Bruns said Threads needed “regular, hardcore users” to ensure that the platform was ­viable.

“I don’t see that there is a great deal of enthusiasm for Threads or real genuine use of it,” he said.