How Threads is Changing the Social Media Landscape

This week we’re meeting with NuVoodoo clients to show results from our 22^nd Ratings Prospects Study that finished fielding earlier this month. This new study includes opinions from 2,504 respondents 14-54 nationwide – but there was a problem. The problem wasn’t something we did wrong, it was that Meta launched their new social media platform, Threads, four days after we finished in the field.

Undaunted, our fearless leader, Carolyn Gilbert, said “let’s field some more respondents!” So, we gave Threads a week to build up momentum and went back into the field on July 13 and 14. We collected another 1,873 respondents 14-54 nationwide.

For historical perspective, we have the results of Ratings Prospects Study XXI from January this year. We included three newcomers among the social media platforms we looked at in that study: Post, Truth Social, and Mastodon. And those three defined the bottom of our daily usage ranking at 15%, 14%, and 13% respectively.

Given the massive existing user base already signed up on one of the Meta platforms, Threads is different. In less than 10 days, Threads generated daily usage from 24% of our sample – including about a third of the Millennials (ages 27-43) and nearly 2 in 5 of those likely to participate in the ratings (labeled “RPS Yes” in the table below).

Meta Advertising Network, giving it an immediate advantage over Twitter. At NuVoodoo our marketing team pays attention to not only these daily usage levels, but also to what we refer to as “compulsive users” – those connecting with these platforms at least four times daily.

And Threads plants an impressive first data point for compulsive usage at 10% of this sample. Remember, these are numbers based on a platform launched 8 days before we began fielding this sample. For comparison, our January study showed compulsive usage levels of just 3% apiece for the newish kids on the block back then: Post, Truth Social, and Mastodon.

The social media numbers we’d collected with the main part of our study at the end of June-July 1 showed Twitter at 33% daily usage and 14% compulsive usage. As we’ve seen in the radio business, the entry of a strong new competitor raises the tide and floats all boats while users compare experiences. We’ve already heard some digital pundits compare Threads to Google Plus and predict its quick failure, but the strong advertising revenue available to this new entry suggests that Threads could be an addition for the long run.

We’re extending the Moneyball for Radio banner over the results of Ratings Prospects Study XXII and we’ll be releasing the results through our NuVoodoo Live series on YouTube and other social media. There’s a lot to cover:

• Daily audio media TSL trends
• How broadcast radio is faring in the car and at work
• How listeners feel about the prospect of AI DJs on music radio
• Beyond social media usage, which platforms are best at getting action from consumers
• An update on contest prizes and contest mechanisms
• What brings listeners in – and what sends them away (other than commercials)

If we’ve missed you (or our email invitation got caught in a spam folder) to schedule a preview session, please ping us with an email to TellMeMore@nuvoodoo.com and we’ll get you scheduled ASAP.