Meta's Threads rollout proves Instagram is the company's future
Meta Platforms (META) CEO Mark Zuckerberg took the wraps off of his Twitter competitor Threads on Wednesday, officially kicking off a battle with Tesla CEO and Twitter owner Elon Musk.
And one of the most important aspects of the Threads launch is its connection to Instagram.
Meta is leaning heavily on Instagram as the gateway to its latest app, showing the company increasingly views the photo and video sharing platform as its future rather than its former namesake Facebook.
"What's been happening with Facebook is that Facebook is now going out of fashion," said Pinar Yildirim, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.
"It's not necessarily embraced by the younger populations. It's not as cool, as hip, to be on Facebook. And even though Facebook has billions of users, especially around the world, these users are not as active as they used to be 5, 10 years ago."
For an app like Threads, which relies on a constantly active user base, plugging into Instagram rather than Facebook simply makes sense.
"It's smart in that way because you can easily integrate that very engaged, active group of users who like the brand to channel them to another brand," Yildirim said. "At the same time, of course…taking advantage of the existing network, the topography, the information, the data that you have about individuals and what they like and what they consume."
Signing up for Threads is quick and painless if you've got an accompanying account on the photo and video sharing platform, allowing you to import all of the people you follow on Instagram to Threads.
Instagram also has the benefit of being a relatively straightforward app.
Over the years, Facebook has become a kind of one-stop shop for your social media needs, whether that’s sharing your thoughts, starting a community, connecting with family and friends, or selling goods.
Instagram over time has become three things — Reels, stories, and grid posts.
This isn't to say, however, that Facebook is going anywhere.
The platform currently has 2.9 billion monthly active users, or about two-thirds of all the users in the Meta Platforms family. The entire Facebook family of apps — which includes Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp — had 3.8 billion monthly active users at the end of the first quarter.
“There are many folks who post on Facebook multiple times a day who interact on Facebook many times, and also a lot of the functions on Facebook make it really valuable as well,” said Columbia Business School professor Dan Wang.
But teens have increasingly been moving away from Facebook as their go-to social media platform for years.
In a 2022 Pew Research Center survey of 1,316 U.S. teens between the ages of 13 and 17, just 32% of respondents said they used Facebook, down from 71% who said they used the app in a similar survey conducted between 2014 and 2015. On the flip side, 62% of teens said they used Instagram.
And capturing younger audiences is key to any social network, offering advertisers — the primary source of revenue for the likes of Twitter and Instagram — to reach the coveted demographic.
Instagram's more focused approach also makes it more appealing to users looking for a personalized, engaging platform. Which Threads appears focused on becoming.
"I would definitely say that the kind of folks who use Instagram lend themselves to be more familiar with the intent of Threads and Twitter," said Wange.
"It'll be more resonant with those users who prefer Instagram to Facebook."
Daniel Howley is the tech editor at Yahoo Finance. He's been covering the tech industry since 2011. You can follow him on Twitter @DanielHowley.
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