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Marketers are always on the hunt for the next big social media app. Cue the arrival of Meta-backed Threads and Lemon8, created by TikTok’s parent company Bytedance, seeing creators and brands scramble to create new strategies. But, the road to social success is paved with platforms that fail to take off, and companies face increasing competition for limited consumer attention bandwidth.
“In the last 10 years, there’s only been one breakout new app: TikTok,” says Conor Begley, chief strategy officer at social listening company Creator IQ. But, no one wants to miss out on new channels for connecting with audiences. Walking the tightrope between maintaining an agile, opportunistic attitude that could see enormous benefits, yet not overstretching resources and marketing spend, is becoming increasingly challenging.
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Part of the appeal of Threads, other than offering an alternative to the now-unstable Twitter, is its integration with Instagram. Essentially transfering many users from Instagram, it gained 100 million users within five days of launch, though engagement has reportedly already dropped dramatically — estimates suggest around a 60 per cent decline in active users, who now spend an average of five minutes on the app per day, down from an initial 21, according to web analytics firm Similarweb. In a Thread, Meta’s CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg said he’s “very optimistic” about Threads, and that the focus is “improving the basics and retention”, which he conceded would take time to stabilise.
Should beauty brands take the plunge? “If your target audience is on the app, absolutely you should be on that app,” says Claudia Ratterman, a director analyst at marketing consultancy Gartner. “But you need to take a step back and look at the big picture.”
Tracking progress and benchmarking success — already a challenge with existing apps — is an issue. According to research by consultancy Gartner, 51 per cent of marketers say one of their most pressing problems is their inability to measure marketing impact on business outcomes.
Finding a community
The appeal of Threads is obvious: it’s a ready-made platform, created by a company with a proven global track record and with a built-in user base. However, the dominant platforms — Instagram, Reddit, Twitter and TikTok — had years to be purely social apps first. They functioned without any visible corporate presence, allowing users to establish a shared language, customs, trends and micro communities. It’s these rich ties and nuances that make the apps valuable to brands. It also makes them harder to permeate. Even if Threads drop-off stabilises, it can take years for platforms to prove themselves and become part of users’ daily routines.
However, posting on Threads is a low barrier to entry, marketers say. Tierney Wilson, senior vice president of strategy and consulting at media agency January Digital, notes that Threads is already displaying signs of developing its own ecosystem, with lots of playful, off-the-cuff posting. “It has a good kind of ‘mindless scroll’ quality with lots of more casual posting that doesn’t feel too perfect or curated like Instagram can do,” she notes.
Posting being impromptu and quick seems popular, Wilson says, and experimentation is to be encouraged. “When a new platform emerges, moving quickly to test can offer a competitive advantage — as long as you’ve weighed the resources needed to execute it effectively.”
Some brands already experimenting on Threads including sunscreen brand Supergoop and clean cosmetics label RMS Beauty. “Frankly, we never made our mark on Twitter and were thinking about pulling back,” says Elaine Sack, chief strategic officer at RMS Beauty. “Threads came at the right time. We saw conversation, so we joined in.”
Britany LeBlanc, chief marketing officer at Supergoop, says the brand opened an account the morning Threads launched. “It’s creative and fun, and truly social in nature, versus acting as a more formalised communication channel,” she explains. Also early onboard was Urban Skin Rx, which quickly gained 15,500 followers on Threads. “We try our best to be early adopters where resources allow, and this seemed like a smart strategic decision to secure a brand presence early,” says Keran Look Loy, director of marketing.
Experimentation is worthwhile, say many brand executives. “It’s fun when we get a chance to be a little unhinged. There’s not a lot of purpose to some of the content we create, other than it’s kind of funny,” says Fiona Co Chan, founder of indie makeup line Youthforia. “Not everything is about sales — it’s about our personality or brand discovery. But, I am mindful of the resources it takes to make content.”
Meghan Maupin, chief executive officer of custom haircare brand OurX, says Threads allows for quicker reach. “Threads has the potential to be a great community building-tool by fostering conversation and removing barriers. People are able to share their thoughts without having to plan and create curated content,” she says, adding that she hopes it will skew towards new brands who want to build authentic relationships.
Youthforia and RMS Beauty are also experimenting on Lemon8. With similarities to Pinterest, Lemon8 encourages video and image sharing across a board-style layout, rather than a scroll. “TikTok has been such a success for us, I wanted to have a hand in anything [Bytedance] had created,” explains Sack of RMS Beauty. “It’s also a good way for us to do social listening, and see what influencers are talking about on there.” But the jury is still out. “As a platform, its success is to be determined,” she adds.
Right app, right time
Should beauty brands be more cautious about jumping onboard? Hamza Khan, a partner at consultancy McKinsey and co-lead of its UK marketing and sales practice, says it’s about identifying the right moment. “You want to avoid an artificial sense of urgency. As a marketer, you may see what feels like countless other industry peers moving forward and you’ll feel that you need to decide right now what your plan is,” he notes. “In reality, the urgency may not be so real. Evaluate the situation — do you perhaps have the liberty of taking a week, rather than 48 hours, to see how something fits into your broader plan?” He draws comparisons with the metaverse, saying that many companies felt under pressure to participate in the NFT space — or the broader gaming space.
Gartner’s Ratterman advises small exploratory use of marketing budgets. “There’s definitely a benefit to getting in early, especially if your company can make a splash before things become too saturated,” she says. But resourcing is key. “If you can repurpose content created for other channels perhaps, or you don’t need to assign members of staff entirely to the new platform, it’s a lesser lift.”
Even a small investment can pay dividends. “We generally advise our brands that they invest 20 per cent of their budget and their resources into testing new platforms. If you aren’t investing at least one-fifth of your energies, you’ll never outpace the competition,” says Wilson of January Digital.
For RMS Beauty, Sack says a good barometer is her staff’s personal interest. “When Clubhouse was [said to be] very popular, very few people on my team had downloaded it. Whereas with Lemon8, people were already talking about it in the office,” she recalls. “If your team isn’t engaged by the app and opening it up every morning, do you think your customers really are?”
The decision-making process requires an understanding of how new platforms are carving out new space, says Creator IQ’s Begley. “The next big platform might be a new innovation in terms of format, such as an app designed to work with AR for example. Or, it might cater to a new, more specific kind of community,” he says. The sensitivity, accuracy and responsiveness of the algorithm that powers it will be key to its success, he adds.
Tracking progress
That still leaves the challenge of working out how to benchmark marketing efforts across multiple platforms. “If all you do is track from a sales perspective, you’ll underestimate the impact that’s happening,” says Begley. He lists engagement, impressions and earned media value as good metrics for tracking awareness. “How much are people seeing your brand, and how much time do they spend interacting with it?”
RMS Beauty’s Sack highlights the importance of engagement. “I can reach as many people as I have budget to, but that doesn’t tell me if the content is actually resonating. A great indicator for me is the type of conversations we’re creating,” she says. Supergoop’s Le Blanc says great metrics for Threads are still to be confirmed. “So, we’re using general sentiment and engagement as a benchmark. As we continue to test, our presence is meant to be playful and gently remind people to wear sunscreen,” she says.
For Urban Skin Rx’s Look Loy, it’s a waiting game. “With any new platform it’s really about learning, testing and then testing again. Today’s social users are saturated with so many channels and commercial content that when something new comes out they want to have fun and shape a new social experience… Our goal is to fit into those conversations in an authentic way,” he says.
Gartner’s Ratterman cites the saving or sharing of a piece of content as a good metric to track. “Sharing means that someone actually cares about the content, and they’re taking extra action to keep it or spread it with their network,” she says.
Internal alignment is also key, says January Digital’s Wilson. “Make sure your internal stakeholders are educated so they understand what the purpose of each platform is. Reach is less important than engagement, but people can get hung up on reach,” she explains. “When your team is aligned, you can measure more accurately and see where there’s room for improvement.”
Ultimately, brands shouldn’t feel pressure to jump onto every platform. Begley gives the example of Twitch. “If you want to attract more gamers to your brand, you might look to Twitch, for example. But that’s not where people are going to get beauty information.”
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