New social media updates and features to know this week
Including the growing clash between Threads and Bluesky.
The biggest storyline of the week continues to be the ascendency of Bluesky – and Threads’ scramble to recreate the most beloved features of the app.
As of last week, Bluesky had grown to 20 million users. That’s a miniscule fraction of any of the major social media platforms, but it’s attracting a highly engaged, highly influential group of people. Journalists in particular are enamored with the platform – and users seem to appreciate their presence. Bluesky differentiates itself from other platforms by not throttling the reach of links. Matt Karolian, VP of platforms and research & development at the Boston Globe, said that traffic from Bluesky is three times that of Threads and generating conversions from readers to subscribers at a rate 4.5 times higher.
All that from a userbase that’s less than one-tenth the size of Threads.
It’s still too early to say if Bluesky has staying power; we’re less than a month past its explosive growth just after the U.S. presidential election. But the stark contrast between Threads and Bluesky shows that while Threads has taken great pride in growing its userbase quickly to 275 million, those users aren’t necessarily engaging and interacting in ways that contribute to a vibrant community. The frictionless sign-up between Instagram and Threads helped the platform grow but hasn’t resulted in a resilient community.
Additionally, Threads’ choice to shy away from news content and throttle links meant that journalists, who were the lifeblood of original Twitter, had little incentive to invest time in the platform. Bluesky is demonstrating that where journalists are, regular people often follow. PR pros should be taking notice and using this opportunity to interact with journalists like the Twitter days of old.
Let’s take a look at how Threads is working quickly to copy some of Bluesky’s features – and a few updates from other social platforms as well.
Threads
Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram and Threads, confirmed that the Meta-owned Threads is indeed reacting to Bluesky.
“We certainly pulled forward a number of things that were already in the works – including shipping a few things with backtests instead of testing first – and then of course we did add a few things as well,” he said in response to a post accusing Threads of directly copying Bluesky.
Among those new features that seem, ahem, inspired by Bluesky are allowing users to swipe between various feeds – including custom curated lists, those you follow as well as Threads’ algorithmically driven feed – directly from their home screen. This is a key component of the Bluesky experience.
Threads is also testing – though has not yet rolled out – what seems to be its own take on Bluesky’s Starter Packs. These user-curated lists allow people to quickly build a feed around their interests without having to seek out people individually. In a platform that relies less on an algorithm to drive content, finding people to authentically follow is a gamechanger for filling out a feed.
We’ll see how the largest social media company in the world continues to respond to this plucky upstart.
Elsewhere in the Meta family, Instagram is making a number of tweaks. In particular, IG continues to invest heavily into the DM experience, which is becoming a vital part of the app as a great deal of interaction moves from public to private. This week, they’ve rolled out 17 new sticker packs for use in DMs, as well as the ability to favorite stickers shared with you. You can now also change usernames within DMs (and only within DMs) to various nicknames. Users will be able to control who can change their nickname in a chat and change it back, if they so choose.
Instagram has also implemented a new, limited duration location sharing among DMs and group chats to better facilitate in-person meetups. Off by default, users who opt in can share their location with either 1:1 DMs or group chats for one hour. Sharing will expire at the end of that hour. Users can choose to stop sharing before the offer expires.
Australia
All right, so Australia isn’t a social network. But it is undergoing arguably the biggest, governmental-led shift to social networks since the EU’s Digital Services Act.
All Australian users under the age of 16 will be banned from using social apps including TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram and more. “Messaging apps,” “online gaming services” and “services with the primary purpose of supporting the health and education of end-users” would not be part of the ban, nor would services like YouTube, that do not require sign ups to use the platform.
Expect the definitions of “messaging apps” and “online gaming services” to get a bit squishy as companies look to flout the law.
While there are no penalties for children or parents who may use VPNs or good old-fashioned lying to evade the bans, social media companies must take “reasonable steps” to keep kids off the platforms or face a $50 million fine – which might just seem like a slap on the wrist for the biggest players in the social space.
While Australia is a relatively small country (only about 5.7 million people in the country are under the age of 18), it could serve as precedent for other nations looking to crack down on the harmful effects of social media on developing brains. The law won’t kick in for another year, and certainly a lot can change in that time. But for anyone who holds minors as a key audience, take the opportunity now to begin finding other avenues for communications.
Allison Carter is editor-in-chief of PR Daily. Follow her on Bluesky or LinkedIn.
