Converse’s CMO on Building Nearly Half Million Followers on Threads

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.”

Building cultural relevance

Converse’s social media strategy lies in each platform playing a role in effectively interacting with its audiences in different ways.

The shoe brand isn’t using Threads as a space to talk about product launches or run campaigns. Instead, the social media team convenes to discuss cultural moments and approach the platform with a conversational and humorous brand voice, which it attributes to increasing audience interaction on Threads.

For example, playing on its customizable feature, Converse By You, the brand invited its Threads followers to interact in its shoe-making process, choosing the laces, logo patch, threads and soles to co-create a Converse shoe.

The idea is to drive brand audience interaction and provide its followers with an opportunity to comment and share photos, which the brand considers a success metric. To that, Converse cross-pollinates what resonates on Threads, like the shoe co-creation, across more established platforms such as TikTok, where it has nearly 832,000 followers.

“We want to lean into a strategy that reflects creativity, cultural relevance and brand engagement,” said Miller.

Tracking success through comments

For Converse, measuring audience metrics is more than tracking follower growth and likes.

“We can look at likes, but that’s a passive form of engagement,” said Miller.

Instead, the brand focuses on building interaction with its audience via comments and analyzing the sentiments, categorizing them as positive, neutral, or negative. When it comes to Threads, Miller notes that the comments are positive, optimistic, and filled with a sense of playfulness.

The brand doesn’t have a daily post limit. However, the cadence of posting varies on what’s trending on Threads and whether it’s participating resonates with the brand voice. In the audience shoe co-creation moment, the brand posted 19 Threads, said Miller.

New e-commerce features to lure ad dollars

Although driving sales via Threads is not on Converse’s immediate plan, new shopping and e-commerce features on the platform alongside performance tools will let the brand establish its sales strategy and spend on the platform.

A majority of its ad spend is focused on digital media and social platforms, according to Miller, who will include Threads in the brand’s marketing mix once paid ad formats are made available on the platform.  

“We will test and learn, and then we scale from there if we start to see movement,” she said.