Top ministers, including S Jaishankar, chief ministers like Arvind Kejriwal, Bollywood stars such as Madhuri Dixit, cricketers in the likes of Shikhar Dhawan and spiritual guru Sadhguru are among the top Indian celebrities who have joined the just launched Threads - the Twitter rival which has racked up more than 50 million sign-ups within two days.
Union Ministers such as External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, Minister of Commerce Piyush Goyal and Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari joined the newly launched text-based social media platform Meta Threads.
Notably, Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology, Rajeev Chandrasekhar has also joined Threads.
Other union ministers to join the platform include Pralhad Joshi, Giriraj Singh and Gajendra Singh Shekhawat.
Andhra Pradesh chief minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy, Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, as well as Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan, alongside the chief minister of Assam, Himanta Biswa Sarma and chief minister of Goa, Dr Pramod Sawant have also joined the platform.
Threads, which is seen as a direct rival to Elon Musk-owned microblogging site Twitter gained 30 million users within 24 hours of its launch, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on his official Threads account.
Several celebrities have also joined the platform including Bollywood director Karan Johar, cricketers Shikhar Dhawan, Rishabh Pant and Suresh Raina alongside actors Kajol, Madhuri Dixit, Abhishek Bachchan, Allu Arjun, Jr. NTR, Taapsee Pannu, Chiranjeevi, Tamannaah Bhatia, Mahesh Babu, Mrunal Thakur, Ali Fazal, Sonakshi Sinha and Parineeti Chopra.
The official accounts of Red Chillies Entertainment, Netflix and Yash Raj Films have also appeared on Threads. Spiritual gurus Sadhguru and Gaur Gopal Das were among other joinees of the app.
Meanwhile, according to reports, Twitter has threatened legal action against Meta over the new app. Twitter has reportedly charged Meta of illegally using Twitter's trade secrets and intellectual property by taking former Twitter employees to built a copycat app.
Responding to a tweet about possible legal action against Meta, Musk said: "Competition is fine, cheating is not."
Meta Threads allows users to retain their followers from Instagram. According to industry watchers, this is one of the reasons for the platform's growth.
Rajni Daswani, Director - Digital Marketing, Socheers believes that while it bears similarities to Twitter but unlike it, 'Threads' comes with a huge advantage of Instagram audience and reach, majorly the Gen Z, which will further help in accessing the younger audience who are open to newer experiments on the platform.
Vivek Das, CEO of FoxyMoron, Zoo Media said the launch of Threads can have significant implications for advertisers. "...advertisers will have to consider the fundamental differences between the `Insta mindset' and the `Twitter mindset' when crafting their marketing strategies. They will need to adapt their content to suit the visual-centric nature of Instagram and the more conversational and news-driven environment of Twitter," Das said.
Das added that the hype generated by the "rivalry" between Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk, along with their respective platforms, may create an opportunity for advertisers to leverage the increased attention and engagement on both Instagram and Threads.
According to Das, advertisers who can tap into this rivalry and align their campaigns with the interests of the fans may experience a sharp rise in uptake and usage, thereby enhancing their brand exposure and potential conversions.
Threads lets users log in using their Instagram account and post up to 500 characters on the app. Links, photos, and videos up to 5 minutes can also be shared.
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