What Occurred When 15 of Twitter’s High Celebrities Joined Threads

Threads, the brand new social app from Meta, had a quick begin this month when it racked up 100 million downloads in lower than per week. With a lot momentum, the app appeared nicely on its technique to dethroning Twitter.

However speedy downloads do not necessarily translate to long-term success. Now the query is whether or not Threads has endurance.

So we launched into an experiment. We compiled an inventory of 15 of a few of the most-followed celebrities and high-profile figures on Twitter who joined Threads, together with Katy Perry, Ellen DeGeneres, Invoice Gates, Britney Spears, Shakira and Oprah Winfrey. Then we in contrast their exercise on Twitter with their exercise on Threads day by day since July 5, when Threads was launched. We additionally checked out what they did on Instagram, which is owned by Meta and developed Threads.

The concept was to see which social platform stored the celebrities — who both declined to remark or didn’t reply to requests for remark — essentially the most lively. What we discovered is simply an early snapshot, however it might present some clues to the place Threads is headed.

Many celebrities initially embraced Threads.

Ms. DeGeneres, who joined Twitter in 2008, had not tweeted since late April. When Threads rolled out, she was among the many first 3,000 folks to obtain the app.

“Welcome to Homosexual Twitter!” she posted on Threads on July 5. Her message shortly garnered over 7,000 replies.

Of the 15 celebrities we {followed}, Ms. DeGeneres was considered one of three who had stopped posting on Twitter in current months and have become lively on Threads. The opposite two have been Selena Gomez, who hadn’t tweeted since late Could, and Ms. Winfrey, who hadn’t posted on Twitter since January. Ms. Gomez used Threads to say “hello” to her followers, whereas Ms. Winfrey mentioned she was on Threads to advertise a musical remake of the movie “The Shade Purple,” which she produced.

Different celebrities, akin to Demi Lovato, started posting extra commonly on Threads than on Twitter. Within the first week of Threads’ launch, Ms. Lovato posted six occasions on Threads and shared two replies to considered one of her posts, however posted simply as soon as on Twitter to advertise the rock model of her hit music “Sorry Not Sorry.”

Ms. Lovato used Threads to have interaction together with her followers, asking them for music suggestions and thread puns, whilst her followers on the app have been a small fraction of what she had accrued on Twitter. As of Wednesday, she had two million followers on Threads and 53 million on Twitter.

Of the celebrities we {followed}, Wiz Khalifa was essentially the most lively on Threads by far, publishing unique posts and sharing different folks’s messages and replies.

The rapper, whose actual identify is Cameron Jibril Thomaz, posted a mean of 38 occasions a day on Threads within the first two weeks of the app’s launch, whereas averaging 5 posts a day on Twitter.

His Threads posts usually blended textual content, images and movies with nuggets about his private life. “Proudly bringing the weed to threads,” he wrote in his first submit on July 5, accompanied by a brief video of him lighting a joint.

However the rapper’s exercise on Threads step by step declined. He replied to over 100 posts — largely to individuals who had responded to his personal posts — the primary week after Threads was launched. That quantity dropped within the second week, coupled with fewer unique posts and shares.

Beginning on July 16, he ramped up on Twitter, generally posting greater than 10 occasions a day. He’s nonetheless extra lively on Threads, however has begun publishing comparable content material on each platforms.

Some celebrities have began treating Threads and Twitter the identical.

Is there a distinction between Threads and Twitter? Not in case you ask Jimmy Fallon, Shakira or the Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan.

During the last three weeks, they have been among the many celebrities who printed similar or just about similar posts on Twitter and Threads. That confirmed they will not be making a distinction between the platforms and are utilizing each as broadcast mechanisms.

On July 12, for example, Mr. Fallon retweeted congratulations to “That’s My Jam,” a sport present he hosts, for an Emmy Award nomination. He printed the identical message on Threads, although with out the hashtags he used on his Twitter submit. He has since not posted on Twitter or Threads.

From July 6 via July 13, Shakira posted a collection of images to Threads, together with of a Fendi trend present, an image of herself and the songwriter David Stewart, and images of herself in London — all of which she additionally placed on Twitter with the identical captions.

Mr. Khan shared posters of his upcoming film “Jawan” to Twitter, Threads and Instagram with the identical captions. However he appeared to have a slight choice for Twitter: On July 13, he used the “AskSRK” hashtag on the platform for followers to ask him questions concerning the film.

Instagram wins!

Of the 15 celebrities we tracked who joined Threads, 4 — Ms. Perry, Kim Kardashian, Kylie Jenner and Miley Cyrus — had not posted on the brand new app.

And like Mr. Khalifa, others appeared to lose a few of their preliminary enthusiasm for Threads. Shakira, after being lively on Threads through the app’s first week, had not posted on it since July 13. Ms. DeGeneres, who posted six occasions throughout her first week on Threads, had finished so solely as soon as previously week.

Their falling engagement was commonplace. The typical time that customers spent on Threads was 3.3 minutes a day as of Monday, down from 19 minutes as of July 6, in line with knowledge from Sensor Tower, a market intelligence agency. In distinction, customers spent a mean of 60 minutes a day on Instagram and 29.3 minutes on Twitter, in line with Sensor Tower.

A Meta spokeswoman declined to remark. On Wednesday, Mark Zuckerberg, the corporate’s chief government, mentioned in an earnings call that Threads had exceeded Meta’s expectations and that it was engaged on making quick enhancements to the app and bettering retention. He mentioned he didn’t anticipate to earn cash from Threads for not less than just a few years till the corporate acquired the consumer expertise proper.

Twitter, which its proprietor, Elon Musk, is renaming X, didn’t reply to a request for remark.

Instagram was the most well-liked with greater than half of the celebrities we {followed} over the previous three weeks, primarily based on the variety of days they have been lively on every platform. (We excluded Instagram Tales that they posted from our tally since these will be ephemeral.)

Ms. Kardashian was on Instagram for 16 days throughout that interval, in contrast with none on Threads and three on Twitter. Her exercise in that point consisted of 19 Instagram posts and 16 tweets.

Ms. Spears was on Instagram for 14 days, in contrast with three on Threads and three on Twitter. She posted 35 occasions on Instagram, versus fives occasions every on Threads and Twitter.

However in an indication of the tempestuous relationship that folks can have with social media, the singer briefly deactivated her Instagram account on Saturday — which additionally turned off her Threads account, since each are linked — earlier than reactivating it.

Mike Isaac contributed reporting.