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Meta launched its Threads app late Wednesday evening in July, a day earlier than expected. On Thursday at 8 a.m., Converse claimed its handle, marking its entry on the Twitter-clone app.
The brief for appearing on Threads was a quick text exchange between the company’s CMO Sejal Shah Miller and her social media team: Keep it organic and playful, and maintain the Converse-vibe.
“The appeal of threads is you’re able to have a conversation,” Miller told Adweek. “There’s a lot of creative license and space to experiment and tinker—and that was invigorating for our social team.”
Despite its 1 million Twitter followers, the brand stopped posting on the platform in October last year. On Threads, the American footwear brand saw a massive follower spike in the first 24 hours. At the time of writing, it has 473,000 followers, which continues to grow but is comparatively less than its 10.8 million followers on Instagram.
Since its launch, Threads saw a staggering 100 million user sign-ups in its first week. Brands such as Wendy’s, with 270,000 Threads followers, McDonald’s, with 350,000 Threads followers, and Spotify, with 1.2 million Threads followers, quickly flocked to the new app despite it lacking performance data and discoverability tools.
However, Threads lost its top ranking in the Top Overall charts on Google Play last Thursday and on Apple’s App Store earlier this week (it’s still number one in the Social Networking category on iOS), according to app intelligence provider Apps Figure. Despite stuttering growth, brands are formulating their Threads’ strategies.
Converse is testing Threads to hone in on cultural moments and closely monitor user interaction. However, unlike its presence on other platforms like Instagram, the brand is not actively seeking to directly link these efforts back to sales. To that, the brand social media team—half a dozen people—works closely to shape the brand’s voice on this platform.
“There’s been a desire and a pent-up demand to find a new platform to shift to and have a different type of conversation,” said Miller. “[Threads] has the potential to have longevity, as long as Meta continues to do what they do best, which is bring on new features.”