SaaS Strategists,

I have to apologize.

Last week I was on vacation, so the issue didn’t arrive on time.

I’m back now & ready to prepare even better content.

Today I want to talk about a hot topic happening in the world of social media giants TODAY. 🔥 

Instagram Threads. 🧵 

Twitter’s first real competitor in a long time.

Let’s dive into the news & the strategy Meta utilizes for over a decade to keep their competitors on their toes 👇️

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🐦 Zuck's coming for Elon

The past few weeks have been hectic in the social media world.

A little while ago Meta announced the release of its new Twitter competitor called Instagram Threads.

Twitter blew up.

People shared divided views & opinions on the release.

Some were saying that Meta is blatantly copying Twitter.

The others being eager for a breath of fresh air.

One thing is certain.

The release of Threads will bring giants to their toes & make them compete for the user share.

Which directly impacts our experience as users, in a good way.

Innovation is always driven by competition, so I see this release as a positive thing for creators & regular users.

Meta’s decade-old strategy

Meta has started using one strategy for over a decade now, and it works well in 90% of cases.

People call it the Zuck Jugular Strategy.

Or clearly speaking - Destroying the Competition.

You see, Meta has one leverage that maybe only 0,1% of companies in the world have.

They have a MASSIVE user share.

While Twitter has only ~250 million active users, Instagram has ~2 billion.

This means that if only 1 out of every 10 Instagram users starts using Threads actively, they already have the same user base Twitter has.

They can accumulate users in a matter of days, not years.

Yikes.

Let’s take a look at some similar examples of this strategy 👇️ 

• TikTok = Instagram Reels

• eBay = Facebook Marketplace

• Signal = WhatsApp

• Slack = Facebook Workplace

• YT Gaming = Facebook Gaming

• Snapchat = Instagram Stories

Every one of these products was a big success & brought in a massive revenue that is measured in billions of dollars.

They either buy out their competition or destroy it completely by developing their own version & migrating its massive user base.

And now they’re coming for the bird app. 🐦️ 

Recent events

Clearly, Elon wasn’t satisfied with the news.

But no one thought he would go to the extremes.

So he…

Well…

He challenged Mark Zuckerberg to an MMA match…

Yeah…

There’s already some footage of Lex Friedman training with both 😂 

So, yeah, this should be interesting.

In other news, Elon started rolling out restrictions on Twitter.

The most recent being the following:

Again, people had divided opinions, with those who aren’t Twitter Blue subscribers saying it took them 10-15 minutes of scrolling to reach the 600 post limit.

You also can’t view any tweet if you aren’t logged in.

And here’s the thing:

It is speculated that these limits are rolled out due to Meta’s tweet scraping so they could fill the initial content on the Threads app.

Instagram Threads 🧵 

So what do Threads bring?

Well… nothing too new.

Just a fresh new interface & the ability to connect with your followers in a different format.

Once you download Threads, you’ll be able to log in with your Instagram credentials.

You can also choose between transferring the accounts you follow to Threads, or to start following people from scratch.

It’s cool to see that Meta separated this & that you won’t be limited in this way.

So you can look at Instagram and Threads as too separate apps, with the same shared login.

The only difference to Twitter so far is that the post character limit will be capped at 500, compared to Twitter’s 280.

The interesting thing is that Meta already tried going against Apple iMessage by launching the app with the same name in 2021, and shutting it down shortly after launch.

Weird to see they chose to reactivate the same name & attack Twitter.

Instagram Threads launches today, July 6th, 2023. 🎉 

I’m quite interested to see how the launch will go.

I’ll definitely be following Twitter & Instagram for updates & news.

Let’s see if Threads can give Twitter a run for its money & make the competitors roll out more interesting features.

🔝 Top Tweets

Here are the 2 top tweets from this week:

🔥 SaaS Fire

SaaS products so good they'll light up your week:

It would be unfair to talk about Threads & not drop it in here, so here’s the official Instagram Threads ProductHunt page:

Pipedrive is the lightweight CRM to propel your bizdev & sales effort forward.

💡Idea of the Week

Here’s the SaaS idea of the week:

The Intelligent Code Analyzer and Completion Tool is a cutting-edge B2B SaaS product that empowers software developers to write better code with the help of advanced AI algorithms. The software provides an intelligent code analyzer that scans code for errors, inconsistencies, and security flaws. It also includes a code completion tool that uses machine learning to suggest code snippets and libraries that fit with the project.

Pros

• Saves time and effort by automatically detecting and fixing errors and inconsistencies in code

• Provides intelligent code completion suggestions, reducing the need for manual research and implementation

Cons

• May not be useful for very specific or niche development projects

• May not provide accurate code predictions & completions in 100% of the cases

What do you think?

Will Instagram Threads become a big success and leave Twitter in the shadows?

Or will Twitter come back with an unexpected blow?

Reply to this email, I would love to hear your thoughts!

Ognjen Gatalo

Chief SaaS Strategist ☁️