Mark Zuckerberg's new app, Threads, has surpassed 100 million registered users within a week of its release.
Threads has become the fastest-growing application in history, surpassing the time it took TikTok (9 months) and the thriving ChatGPT (2 months).
However, today I am not here to analyze the phenomenon of Threads. Instead, from the perspective of an advertiser, I will discuss why Twitter is destined to fade away.
Advertising is everything.
Let's face it, the lifeline of all social media and streaming platforms is advertising revenue, and Twitter is no exception.
Unfortunately, Twitter's advertising platform has performed poorly. Over the past seven years, Twitter's share of my marketing budget has not exceeded 2%, totaling less than $300,000.
As a marketer specializing in overseas user growth for Chinese apps, I rarely engage in brand advertising. It's unnecessary for apps with a user lifecycle of only 1-3 years. However, almost everyone in our industry is an expert in performance marketing. It's quite embarrassing that Twitter provides very poor support for performance advertising.
Let me explain what performance advertising is. You can think of it simply as when you see an ad on platforms like Facebook or YouTube, click on it, and immediately get redirected to the app store to download the app. That's performance advertising.
On Facebook and Google, on average, for every $1 spent, I can expect a return of around $6-7. But on Twitter? Only $1.5...
Considering that not everyone may be marketing professionals, let me briefly explain why the difference in performance is so significant. First, Twitter's native information feed is not very conducive to accepting ads. Additionally, Twitter has a limited number of ad placements. Furthermore, due to the internal and external challenges Twitter has faced over the years, their ability to develop user tagging and ad distribution algorithms has been almost nonexistent, making it impossible for advertisers to reach their target audience.
For brand advertisers like Disney, Coca-Cola, Procter & Gamble, BMW, and others, Twitter's content moderation mechanism is truly abysmal. With the proliferation of racism and gender issues in recent years, almost every brand has been affected. If I were the marketing director, would I want my boss to see our ads on Twitter with a comment section full of insults? It's unreasonable.
Another crucial point is that even though apps like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram are international, I can confidently tell you that over 60% of advertisers on these platforms are Chinese businesses. It's important to note that Chinese advertisers value return on investment (ROI) greatly. As the economic downturn becomes more evident, they will not hesitate to abandon advertising platforms like Twitter that are deemed unnecessary.
Will Threads replace Twitter?
I can't say for sure.
Even highly popular new-era killer applications like ChatGPT have experienced a continuous decline in user engagement. Just a while ago, Clubhouse, which was trending across the internet, became completely quiet after a few months of activity.
Does Threads have any fundamental differences compared to Twitter? Does it offer more interesting features than other social networking apps? Does it provide better productivity tools or media platforms? The answer to these questions is currently "no."
Furthermore, the Meta group is currently facing antitrust and information security issues. For instance, Threads couldn't be launched in Europe due to a lack of progress in privacy negotiations with the European Union.
Moreover, in the year 2023, where the concept of the metaverse has fallen from its pedestal, how much enthusiasm does Mark Zuckerberg still have to invest in Threads? Under the same product category, Twitter has already proven to have a dim commercial outlook.
The above reflects my pessimistic viewpoint. On the positive side, Facebook is perhaps the company that excels the most in advertising algorithms today, second only to TikTok.
Back in 2015, when I first started advertising, Google had limited advertising options, primarily limited to SEM. Meanwhile, Facebook next door managed to consume nearly $3 billion of advertising budgets from Chinese advertisers within a year, illustrating the strength of Facebook's ad recommendations.
Additionally, I am fairly confident that Mark will replicate Facebook's content moderation mechanism onto Threads in the near future. As a user, you can still freely express yourself as you did on Twitter, but the consequence may be account suspension.
Speaking of which, I have to criticize Zuckerberg a bit. In the name of moderation and safety, they have banned millions of normal accounts in the past year and a half. I dislike him for that.