As the digital landscape constantly morphs, it takes a truly disruptive innovation to make a seasoned investor like “Shark Tank” star Kevin O’Leary sit up and take notice. And that’s exactly what’s happened with Meta’s newly launched app, Threads.
This fresh digital juggernaut, an offspring of Meta’s Instagram platform, launched on July 5th, and its growth since then can only be described as meteoric. Threads raced to a whopping 100 million sign-ups over its launch weekend, an announcement made by none other than Meta’s founder, Mark Zuckerberg, on his own Threads feed.
O’Leary’s reaction to Threads’ early success? “I have never, ever seen anything like this.” Not only did he marvel at the app’s explosive growth but also noted its potential, saying, “This thing — and I’ll say it again — is on fire.”
The Threads app offers a refreshing change to users, allowing them to write and share text posts of up to 500 characters. It’s being hailed as a serious competitor to Elon Musk’s Twitter and has sparked quite a buzz in the tech and business world.
One of the key reasons O’Leary is excited about Threads is its potential implications for small businesses and their advertising returns. He believes that the app’s growing audience will eventually result in higher returns on ad expenditures. He asserts, “If it can help us drive down CAC (customer acquisition cost) and increase our return on advertising spend past two times, we’re all over it. We go where the eyeballs go.”
Zuckerberg’s unwavering focus on storytelling across his social media platforms was another point O’Leary applauded. He noted, “These platforms are remarkably good at allowing small businesses to tell the story of their product or service.”
Meanwhile, Twitter appears to be on the other end of the spectrum. The platform has experienced a rocky relationship with advertisers since Elon Musk took over in October 2022, and recent reports indicate a startling 59% loss in ad sales over the past year.
All these factors come together to create a compelling narrative for Threads. If the early buzz and investor interest are any indications, Threads may very well be the next big thing in social media. For savvy entrepreneurs and investors, it’s a trend worth watching. After all, in the words of O’Leary himself, we should go where the eyeballs go. So, keep an eye on Threads!