230: What is Threads? New Social Media App Could Be a Game Changer!

Hey think fam we're about to get into the podcast but if you haven't heard yet we are doing a free three day youtube challenge there's been a lot of changes on youtube lately and there's a lot of new things we've been testing at think media so if you want to start or grow a youtube channel this year then you're going to want to register for this free three day challenge at tube 1k challenge.com or you can also go to the show notes to see all of the details there is two sessions a day it's three days long it's entirely free and we have a lot of cool stuff planned including camera giveaways gear giveaways and the information is hot off the presses so hit the link in the show notes to get registered and now let's get into the show is the brand new social media app threads going to kill twitter as a youtube creator it's threads a waste of your time or an opportunity for you to grow your brand you know threads reached 30 million users within one day and eventually reached past 100 million users so it would be unwise to ignore this historic growth and although my focus is on youtube i already have over 19,000 followers on threads and i've learned a few things so in this video i'm going to share 12 facts tips and strategies that you need to know as it pertains to threads of how to be smart how to not miss an opportunity but also how to stay focused and ultimately approach this platform right today's episodes brought to you by tube 1k challenge dot com but more on that later let's get into number one which is sign up for threads and secure your handle so threads is a brand new platform launched by meta who now owns facebook and instagram and threads it's clearly a copy or a direct competitor to twitter it's causing all kinds of drama whereas twitter's already launched a lawsuit against meta in regards to this but nevertheless the growth is incredibly fast and minimum i would suggest that she sign up for threads and secure your handle now the interesting thing about this new social media platform is that it's connected to your instagram so if you already have an instagram you just go into your app store for android or iphone download the threads app and then they pretty much link up it's pretty chill and if anything you could just come back to this later you have to go you could post like one thread you could just get it set up i'm not sure if someone would be allowed to steal your handle because if they didn't steal your handle on instagram this is assuming you have an instagram then i don't think there's a way to change your name on threads i'm not sure but tip for any social media platform secure the bag secure your handle on the platforms you're not even active on because who knows someday you may want to be active there and fortune favors the fast number two leverage the threads instagram integration because threads integrates with instagram not only can you link your accounts but you also can sync your bio and your profile picture so it all happens pretty much instantly you also can transfer your verification so if you are verified on instagram or paying for the advanced features to get that blue check and some of the other things that transfers over which is kind of a cool feature the streamlineness of it all is what i think has made it attractive to so many people that are active on instagram threads also provides an instant built-in community for users giving you the option to follow everyone that you already follow on instagram so it makes it easier to grow your following quickly a big key if you are active on instagram and if you have any following whatsoever on instagram i think it makes sense to be a part of threads if you have never started an instagram then this whole thing might you know be a waste of your time for the season you're in at this moment you already haven't secured your handle on ig you already haven't you know gone down that path but i know a lot of people in the think media podcast community are already active on instagram it may be one of your main platforms to socialize and share and jump in the DMs and do all kinds of stuff so the fact they're integrated that is a big advantage so growing on threads is easier if you have an existing following on instagram as followers on instagram automatically join threads and notifications are sent to followers when someone they follow joins threads now hit this later but also the fact that these are connected makes it easy to for example post a thread which is text-based or photo-based or image-based and then share that as an instagram profile post or story so threads is not like starting from scratch nowhere near close to that they're starting with the full force of meta facebook behind them all of those developers all of that infrastructure and all of that integration number three take some time after you've signed up to explore the app and understand the culture so different platforms have different cultures they have a different vibe they have a different dress code you address one way if you go to in and out burger on the west you dress another way if you went to a five star restaurant at the four seasons you're going to be in you know suit jacket you're going to be in a ball gown whereas in and out you might be in flip flops and tank tops so different different apps have different cultures one of the things at least initially and at the time of recording this podcast threads is like a week old it's pretty young so so it'll change but threads definitely has a different culture compared to twitter it's focusing more on raw organic positive at this point because there's not any bots there there's not a lot of trolls or spam or anything like that there and they are discouraging politics and hard news whereas twitter is kind of like a news first platform trending hashtags trending headlines twitter i like twitter for news whereas threads is more like let's go hang with the homies and right now it's kind of like this pop-up party that has a lot of energy from being brand new the other thing is it's a really a non-marketing environment and meta has said that they are not going to even allow monetization people to pay for ads like you can pay for ads to advertise on instagram or facebook until a billion users on threads which would be like over double twitter's entire user base so the big question is will threads continue to rise will the buzz burn off or will it surpass twitter's growth because of the fact that facebook's got like three billion users instagram's got like two point five twitter's got like three hundred million so we'll see where it all goes but nevertheless number three is take some time to explore the app and understand the culture number four out of twelve tips facts and strategies regarding jumping on threads should you is it worth it number four post-engaging content that is share worthy so that's kind of a universal tip but that what do i share on threads well number five stick to a niche stick to a niche so you should already if you're listening to the think media podcast you should already be clear about who it is you serve what problem do you solve if you aren't you got to go to find your topic dot com and watch that class because like knowing who what you're even doing online what problem you solve what is your money plan what's the bigger vision what's what are you actually building what value do you provide to people is it education or entertainment all of that kind of stuff so if number five you stick to a niche to grow on threads it's recommended to have a niche a reason to people follow you a specific area of expertise might say Sean that's easy for you to say because you're the youtube guy you're the author of youtube secrets well yeah it is easy for me to say because i jump on threads and it's like well how do you know what to post what i always post tips on youtube tips on online video tips for branding tips for personal branding related to online video tech maybe prime day just happened all that kind of stuff and then a little bit of lifestyle because there's relational a little bit of i share my faith a few things about just leadership stuff i'm passionate about i ask questions i'm engaging but but i know my niche what's yours so number five stick to your niche i know i'm jumping backwards number four post engaging content that shareworthy but ideally you want to post engaging content that shareworthy related to your area of expertise topics and text content around your niche and the cool thing is engagement is up if only for the start and we'll see how this plays out and i'll get to some points later to well what if it ends up failing in the end well who knows but what are you going to do to sit there on the sidelines and watch here's the fact of the moment engagement is up it's been wild to test the difference between twitter where some people are disillusioned with twitter engagement's going down on twitter there's a lot of noise on twitter some people love twitter a lot of people hate twitter here's the fact threads engagement is pretty wild because people are are over their partying they're there they're um and it's brand new there's less people there than anywhere the algorithm is trying to provide a great experience for you and others using it so there's a lot of reasons engagement is up so fortune favors the fast if you move fast there's some opportunities there so number four post-engaging content that shareworthy number five stick to a niche number six wisely repurpose content on threads keyword wisely so i think one of the biggest mistakes you can make is just indiscriminately repurposing content across social media like you're just a robot like there's no heart to it there's no soul to it however there's i went to like my twitter and i go to my analytics and i look at some of the best posts text-based and i'm like cool there's some content and i'll drop that on threads now i'm not just doing it in a row i'm humanly going to look at things that i've taken put my hard energy into writing lessons i've learned and i've tested that it's it's worked elsewhere it's worked on twitter text posts have worked on facebook text posts have worked on the youtube community tab so always trying to come up with an original idea man i'm under slept i'm trying to take care of these two and a half year old and this nine year old trying to sip enough coffee it's kind of hard to get something great out of my brain i want to leverage something that maybe i've already written it's it's something i've written something that is somewhere else why not share that on threads so wisely just means you're doing it intentionally you're being thoughtful so you could repurpose your best content from tweet twitter or facebook instagram captions on to threads and that could be an effective strategy to creating some engaging content a little bit easier and what i'm doing is and by the way if you want to kind of look at my threads history at shon kennel is the same as um instagram at shon kennel rhymes with youtube channel on the video version of this podcast you can see it in the lower right hand corner um i'm over there on threads and i'm asking questions in between and um engage with other people and then going deep and so wisely number six repurpose content on threads number seven start conversations and answer questions so an opportunity here is to ask genuine questions have genuine conversations and engage with other users these are key strategies to creating dialogue that builds connections on threads and what i've learned is that um at this moment especially it's it's pretty cool it's because it's like this is what you know for sure this is um what's exciting about a new platform is if there's no bots there yet and there's no like people have followed you over the last seven years but they they stopped engaging they followed you but then they deleted their account they followed you and you know something's happened where they're known longer there so you're like okay i have a mast a certain number of followers or subscribers but it doesn't mean like the engagements really there and like they're actually you know engaged active whereas when a platform is brand new there's a whole nother level of energy and real humans on the other side of like every interaction even when i started a new youtube channel the think media podcast channel it's very blessed or blessed to have over a hundred thousand subscribers but it's wild that the engagement in a lot of ways is better than my two million subscriber channel because that one's 10 years old and it has a lot of different topics we've talked about and lessons we've learned and people that have you know as crazy as the sounds there's probably subscribers that are subscribed to think media that are actually dead you didn't expect me to go there but you know I mean like it's kind of weird you're like over they unfortunately they subscribed and they've passed away they've you know and it's going to be hard for a dead person to you know comment back and engage with you and so ultimately when you have a brand new platform there's like a freshness whereas basically every follower and i know it's integrated with instagram but basically every follower basically every new subscriber on a new youtube channel is choosing to do so in a shorter window of time all that to say is that the conversations are legit it's a really great place to have some really engaging dialogue and this is a big opportunity so for the youtube creator why would i use this well is it going to help you grow your youtube channel not necessarily but it is going to help you go deeper with people who already care about what it is you're doing if people have chosen to follow you on instagram and then they connect over with you on threads that just very may will be the place where they ultimately start something where you were kind of a surface relationship to them or they sort of forgot about you and here's what i've been seeing which is really cool threads is it's a revival of people i haven't connected with in years it is a lot of people that are being kind of surfaced to the top that the instagram algorithm which is now full of not the people you really follow but mainly vertical videos of like whatever you like kittens snowboarding you know it's like all reels of stuff that's just like fashion weird cap cut edits and like a bunch of stuff it's not in the people you follow and facebook is all this sponsored posts and all this stuff you barely see your family members post you know all these algorithms twitter's got all kinds of whatever going why am i being shown what i'm being shown what's happening on threads right now is like a big party it's like a big family reunion potentially and like like hey bro i haven't seen you a long time like yeah we're connected on instagram but like i haven't actually seen you like the the school got too big like the you know the business got too big we don't run into each other at the water cooler anymore like what what's happening right now in threads is like people running to each other at the water water cooler new connections but also maybe old people from years depending on how long you've been on social media that you can start conversations answer questions and have authentic dialogue number eight it is a text-based platform like twitter it's primarily focused on text-based content but number eight you also can post images videos and links and so a couple things i've noticed one images pretty cool similar to anywhere just drop an image i've done stuff with a little bit of family stuff i have posted to a youtube video i uploaded the thumbnail and i posted the link to the youtube video and what i love about this is that workflow like clicking a link to a youtube video so clean it did not really it just took you straight to the youtube app it didn't like give you four different blocks like are you sure you want to leave the platform you like yes then it opens it up inside of threads and you're not even logged in and you're super frustrated and like links perform incredibly well it's a clean very simple very basic place right now it's one of the downsides some people are saying is it lacks 99% of the features that twitter has what makes sense because when developing software it takes time to build out features build out different dynamics key is you can share images you could share links i don't recommend just linking to stuff but if you're engaging and dialoguing and conversing why not also add more value and well here's what i've also seen is if you've got good valuable videos in your library already related to your experts expertise your profession if you start conversations one of my favorite things to do is like you know how do you need help on youtube or what are you struggling with someone might say i'm struggling with this then i think i've got a video on that so i go hey i think this will help and i link one person to one video i don't think enough people think about social media that way your posted videos on youtube hoping you go viral when what you should be doing is not just that but like making one-on-one connections on social media with people and then personally sharing with them a video that answers their specific question helps them with their specific pain point not in a spammy way in a personal way like very much you know they go i'm not sure like one of the videos we did was uh that i did was you know when to quit and when to pivot and it was based on the dip it's all we'll link it up in the show notes of this podcast it's a very powerful episode because sometimes people are frustrated you've been doing youtube for one two three years it hasn't broken through should you quit should you pivot when's the right time what are the questions to assess that so that came up on threads so i linked to that video especially because i couldn't really respond uh with all the nuances in text but i've got a video for that and hopefully the user on the other side personally was handed a video by me that in a relational context never underestimate the power of what you could do for one person rather than focusing on trying to get a million views think about making one meaningful connection at a time i think threads is an opportunity to do that right now and if you've got a video in your library rather than just blanketly being like go watch my video i'm talking about start conversations as you discern people's pain points then personally share a video with them what's one view worth not much in youtube ad revenue but everything as it pertains to serving someone connecting with the human really adding value and having things be personalized and then when it comes to i think it's like a 500 character limit on text you know you could post a photo videos i think it could be five minutes and this was one of my favorite things i used to do all the time on twitter is also if you're doing q and a we're asking how you can serve people or you want to respond to somebody you can respond with video the way that i do it was i just recorded a one to two minute answer right on my phone it's then saved in my iphone library and then i clicked reply and i clicked the little paper clip and i say ad video and then my response if i couldn't think of a concise way to say it in text i then shared a link to that video or just uploads right to threads and talk about again personalized connection so if you're in real estate you can say hey what what questions you have about buying a house right now answer one person with one question share video you know share some text share a video from your library and the fact that you can again upload videos is another option so number eight is leverage images leverage videos leverage links leverage text number nine connect reconnect and build community so i kind of already touched this one connect with people reconnect you'll be surprised depending on how active you are on social you'll be shocked how many people kind of resurface and again it's going to be a smaller number than your instagram followers because not everyone it will move to threads or has moved to threads but those who have made the intentional decision to do that to do so so that's why it's a legit party because like everybody who's walked into the threads mansion is actually there like ready to talk and connect and you know intentional about it so there's a chance to connect with people new people reconnect with old people refresh the relationship and build community number 10 use this moment to reach out to hard to reach people so first movers advantage one of the things that mistakes people make is they wait on the sidelines for too long there is something about not getting crazy distracted and like ignoring your priorities but using a little bit of your rnd time your research and development time your extra time to uh you know get out there and network a little bit and maybe you wanted to have somebody on your show reach out to them on threads maybe it's too noisy on twitter they're not over there their dm's are two full on instagram general or primary their dm's on facebook they have been there in a while their email inbox is inundated so let's say you wanted to collab with somebody interview somebody reach out to somebody connect with somebody this is definitely the moment to do that if that person's on threads and again you're not just going some hard spam hard sell you're you're creating genuine connections Gary Vaynerchuk talks about like his dollar 80 rule which is leave your two cents so I don't know why it's a dollar 80 but go do that to a hundred people's accounts if you want to really connect and build even a following on a new platform well you might say well Sean I'm at I'm at zero how can I grow from zero well in your niche all the way back to number five stick to a niche know know your zone know your know your lane like me doing video um I could debate I could jump into conversations about the new Sony a6700 versus the fx series and and share my take I can jump into conversations about social media I could jump into some conversations about running a small business and not just like dropping a fire emoji or something but actually share your two cents your meaningful two cents and when somebody sees your thought leadership your point of view your take or they see your thoughtful kindness and response and appreciation that can lead to serious connections so use this moment number 10 to reach out to hard to reach people and also use this moment to again not just post but converse go throughout threads maybe there's people you want to build a relationship deeper with um my favorite form of networking is not some weird transaction based thing it's just like the constant farming of investing in relationships with no expectations but knowing that good things happen when you cultivate and you build relationships not because you want something because you just like man this person's cool like maybe someday like I got an event grow a video live by the way get on the wait list grow with video live.com it's coming back 2024 and last year we had Gary Vee and Alex hermozy and Patrick bad David speak there and maybe you think about characters like that you'd be like man I can't even imagine ever ever doing something with them well the the idea would be to cultivate relationships with those individuals even over years if possible and how do you do that one of the ways would be to be just showing up in a meaningful and way and at different touch points not to have like some weird pushy transactional mindset but just to have an investment mindset and again when threat when something new like threads is not noisy at all it's it's hot there's a lot of engagement happening but it's not noisy in terms of ads nothing happened on the side it's a stripped down version 1.0 type of an app this could be the time that you could reach out to hard to reach people maybe it's a biz partner a collab somebody voice I was just on someone show they literally told me too they said we have tried to reach you we've probably sent you 55 messages on LinkedIn DMs which is a good point because I'm like guess what I saw zero of those I'm sorry a busy no excuse I just I'm not really in my LinkedIn DMs get it so your point could be maybe there's somebody you've always wanted to connect with this could be your moment number 11 out of 12 avoid cynicism negativity and headline reading so if you're already made it this far you're clearly curious and and considering that it could be worth your time to test out threads but what's unfortunate with a lot of people is they just go oh this is so dumb we don't need another social media platform all this is just a copy of Twitter all this is just going to fail marks dumb Elon's dumb just some billionaires that are going to fight in the UFC this is dumb okay until it isn't like you could be right but also you might be wrong and you also probably haven't really done research you may have just read headlines and I think that honestly cynicism and negativity and headline reading is ultimately not helpful now you got to do you so if you're like listen my business good my YouTube channel's good my income's good I'm content I'm happy there's no one I want to reach out to and I don't really want to go deeper with my community and you know I'm busy enough for right now we'll find if you really are self-aware and calmly thoughtfully making smart strategic decisions for yourself in your business I wouldn't that's the only thing I would ever encourage but but a lot of people they just get really cynical and and just jump to quick conclusions when jumping to any concrete conclusions it's way too early in the game to do that so like the future is ultimately uncertain is Twitter gonna die I don't think so but maybe it goes down by a death of a million cuts if it keeps upfending people or keeps having like the they're doing stuff like the um there's issues with ads there's bought accounts they're limiting viewing limits like how many tweets you could view in a day paid verification a lot of people have negative sentiment towards Twitter but that could turn around Twitter could go down and then you'll be really grateful that you didn't just like sync with the Titanic but you diversified a little bit and got into the threads there's a lot of different futures so I think it's smart to just be thoughtful about okay what move could I make here and so this is your choice you could risk nothing and gain nothing or you could jump in and create a first movers advantage so you know Twitter has been experiencing a decline in engagement and user satisfaction over the past few years there is some negative perception there and the the limited daily tweet views and the prevalence of bots and sometimes maybe how even talks that can feel some people are like I love the good vibes of threads and it also feels more human and but who knows so risk nothing again nothing or jump in and create a first mover's advantage for this sophisticated content creator business owner it's a little bit further along there's no reason you can't be in both places how can I be there well I've got a team supporting meaning I've got editing outsourced you know I've got thumbnails help and outsourced now I've got a lot of the description a lot of the operations of a customer service there's a lot of there's a whole team so I'm intentional as a leader to buy back my time so that I can test and experiment and invest in something like this I'm not going crazy but I've spent a significant amount of time over there so I could even make an episode like this I've tested it I've tried it you want to avoid reading headlines from people who haven't even jumped in and use the dang platform it's funny how how much like somebody doesn't have a threads account and they got an opinion on it they haven't even spent one two three four five ten hours you know it's only been a couple weeks so like maximum you I made a joke too I made a joke post where I said my new threads ebook was coming out it really confused about half the people they were like and I was like this has been the hardest three years this has taken me three years to go in this project 10,000 hours I'm so proud of the result how to be how to monetize like a boss on threads and people were like how could you have spent three years it's only been out for 24 hours I was like it's a joke bro it's a joke and then other people were like you're lying I'm like I will yeah I mean that's it's trying to try to try to be funny clearly I wasn't I'm I apologize I'm just you know dad jokes over here and so all that to say is people can have opinions and they haven't even really done their research they haven't checked things out you know one of the deeper things that is also could be very interesting here is this activity pub pub integration so activity pub without going into it this is kind of a whole like most people don't know about this activity pub integration and threads allows interaction between Instagram threads Instagram threads and other platforms like mastodon it's a whole another can of worms so it potentially is benefiting an open internet and experts are saying we're actually resetting the internet right now moving into a new era where essentially we might step into a social media world where your followers could pop up anywhere like the followers like maybe Mark will keep Mark Zuckerberg will keep opening new platforms that have different features but you can carry your Instagram following to threads to platform x to platform y and people that don't even have that platform can still interact with you this might be kind of mind numbing and you're saying Sean what are you even saying what I'm saying is there something deeper than the headlines what most people aren't seeing is they're like oh this is just a this is just a dumb copy this is just this this is just that everyone has like that really shallow view of things this activity pub integration could really be a game changer and it doesn't mean like threads is going to be the future but activity pub and this kind of like open internet I forget they call it like the thread averse or something like that and it's this idea that again you kind of can carry with you your followers your identity across platforms so you don't have to just build up another platform from scratch and that some people have criticized threads again although only reason it grew is because it's growing on the back of Instagram yeah I mean probably true but that does that mean it's bad and what are the implications of that you know what are the opportunities of that and so all that to say 11 avoid cynicism avoid negativity avoid headline reading do some research do some testing risk nothing gain nothing and potentially maybe create a place where again for the YouTube creator YouTube's got to be your focus I really believe that and you got to focus on your IPAs your income producing activities but people do business with people they know like and trust and the people the the creators who win the future are going to be creators who build community and so when it's a one way conversation of someone just watching a video ensure they can leave a comment that doesn't even come close to a two way conversation that could go down in a place like threads and remember if you've been listening to think media podcasts for any length of time then you know that all you need is a thousand true fans and so what would happen if one person at a time one relationship at a time one conversation at a time you built your way up to a thousand true fans it could change everything it could help you go full time I'm not I'm not trying to oversell or get you distracted by threads but I am trying to attack in my opinion some of the shallow negativity and cynicism the headline reading that hasn't looked underneath the surface of how big this could be or maybe it won't but no risk no reward we'll get to number 12 in just a second but I do want to invite you if you have a registered to register at tube 1k challenge.com for our next five day YouTube challenge here's the fact you already know that it was Sean is it tweds that is it threads or is it Twitter it's YouTube you know is it Facebook or as an Instagram it's YouTube so YouTube is far and away the leader and the place that you should establish your content your intellectual property your show your video podcast YouTube is the place these other platforms are cool but like they orbit around the center of the universe YouTube and then you've got Pluto sad it's not even a planet anymore you've got you know these other platforms that are orbiting the sun but really I really believe it YouTube is is the hub it's the home base it is the number one place to be building your brand and saying that if you want to start or grow or trigger growth then definitely register for our free five day challenge tube 1k challenge.com it's five days long five sessions totally free you're going to be learning from myself we have some special special guests and it's all about how to get your first or next a thousand subscribers in multiple different ways to set up passive income streams from YouTube and some of the latest stuff that's working right now so check that out and that is starting soon and then brings us to number 12 which is focus and keep your priorities straight so I really believe in like the 80-20 principle and in this context I mean it like this I would focus 80% of your time on your income producing activities and on your highest impact priorities so YouTube would be that it'd be like okay am I getting my video podcast out am I getting my videos am I ranking my videos am I connecting my creating search based videos connected to passive income streams is my money right my business right my brand right am I investing in long term things am I investing in the fact that I can make a video today on YouTube and it'll pay me tomorrow and a year from now and five years from now if I've done that am I 80% of my time 20% of your time could be research and development so focus and keep your priorities straight Sean are you seeing threads should be your number one priority far from it like I'm not I mean close in the conversation I just think it is and I wanted to do this episode I think it's relevant to talk about I don't think it should just be thrown out and I don't think it's dumb I think it's legit and it could be interesting time will tell but you got to be willing you know the R&D department of a business is willing to have experiments fail the research and the development department is willing to invest time money and energy even if it doesn't succeed because what they realize is like Thomas Edison I tried 10,000 ways that didn't work to find the one that did so will threads fail maybe but what if it becomes the new king and you get in early that's just your R&D time you don't just drop everything when you're experimenting it would be too early to do that wisely because we're unsure people made that mistake with clubhouse I don't regret all the time I spent on clubhouse right you might not even remember clubhouse but I met people I've met people in person since then since the club house days many in fact I've talked to people that are like oh you know we had a conversation on clubhouse so even though that platform is gone we it was still about forward progress but I'm okay if some of my experiments fail that's my 20% of my research and development time but focus and keep your priorities straight and so know that the same summation of this episode is I do think you should dip your toes in the threads ocean claim your profile you know they they were rewarding people that got in it under a million now under 10 million and the number with which you join becomes a link underneath your Instagram profile creates a little bit of foam oh there's some smart things are doing with the launch but keep your priorities straight I think you dip your toes in there but you know subscribe if you're not subscribed like this episode or rate and review depending on where you're listening to the think media podcast and the future is forward and the future is YouTube but these other platforms they are some support platforms that I think can do some interesting things and that's my take on threads what's your take if you're on the YouTube video I'm curious let me know in the comments do you like it do you hate it have you started it if you want to connect with me on threads at Sean Cannell but the one thing to do is make sure to join us for the tube 1k challenge dot com I'll see you in the next thing media podcast