Meta Aims for Knockout in Threads vs. X Showdown
They’ve never met in the boxing ring, but Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg are duking it out in a new arena, competing for your attention. It’s been a year since Meta launched Threads, its newest social platform — now boasting over 175M monthly users. This puts it within distance of its closest competitor, Musk’s X (formerly Twitter).
- X has 251M daily active users but has seen growth stagnate, rising just 1.6% year-over-year, while Threads added all of its 38M daily active users in that time.
- X’s revenues have dropped 45% in 2023 compared to its Twitter heyday, partly due to advertisers leaving following Musk’s controversial comments and posts.
Threads’ next big launch: As Threads gears up to launch ads, they’ll compete head-to-head with X — but Meta has a trick up its sleeve, aiming to keep advertisers pleased with lighthearted content, avoiding the overall outrage that has plagued X. Meta is no stranger to advertiser preferences, earning 40x X’s 2023 revenue in ad spend alone. Their best-in-class ad network could seamlessly plug into Threads, allowing the media goliath to cross-sell placements and lure marketers seeking safer shores. For now, the short-form text battle rages on, with both platforms striving for the X-factor.
