🧵 How to Launch A Brand Community at Scale in Less Than 30 Seconds

Happy Tuesday. What a week!

One of the best ways to build a strong brand is to build a digital community.

Building a community brings your friends, customers, and fans closer to you in emotional proximity, allowing them to “get to know you,” and learn from you and each other, all while growing your audience and building trust with newcomers. A brand community also creates a space for people with many similar interests or goals to come together around you and your business and grow together.

Unfortunately, most of us never take this leap and use platforms like Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Discord, etc. to build and foster a community for ourselves or our businesses. They’re time-consuming, hard to manage, and it’s hard to know where to start.

Starting a community for your brand at scale has never been easier.

This past Wednesday, Threads (by Instagram), Meta’s Twitter competitor, launched and grew to 2 million users in just 2 hours. Within 5 days, Threads surpassed 100 million users worldwide.

Well, that escalated quickly. 😅

For context, the previous record to 100M users was 2 months by ChatGPT, and 9 months by TikTok before that.

Leverage Threads, the fastest-growing social network in history, to build your brand.

IN LESS THAN 6 MINUTES:

1. What It Is + What It Do 🧵

2. Thread The Needle in Seconds 🪡

3. Be, Do, Achieve 🧶

What It Is + What It Do 🧵

You may be thinking, “Really?! Another social network to join and create daily content for?! I’m barely active on the others.” 😩

I hear ya, I’m with ya, and hear me out.

These moments have only happened four or five times in history. The last was TikTok in 2017 and a lot of people waited or never jumped into that opportunity to capture the attention of thousands or millions of people for free. 📢

I believe that this is our moment.

As the great American poet, Marshall Mathers, once said, “You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow. This opportunity comes once in a lifetime.”

WHAT IS THREADS?

Threads is a new social network by Instagram, from your frenemies at Meta. It’s very similar to Twitter and has the same look & feel. Here’s the official description of Threads from the app store:

WHAT FORMAT IS THREADS?

Unlike Instagram’s photo and video focus, Threads is for sharing text updates and joining public conversations. Say goodbye to worrying about how you look or sound on camera.

You can post threads up to 500 characters long and include links, photos, and videos up to 5 minutes in length.

It’s worth noting that the Threads platform is technically still in Beta, meaning it isn’t ready with the full feature set you may be familiar with on Twitter or Instagram. Meta likely moved up their release schedule to take advantage of the confusion and anger of Twitter users when news broke about Twitter limiting the number of tweets users can view each day. Update: It worked.

Thread The Needle in Seconds 🪡

One of the most brilliant parts of Threads is the ease of sign-up. Since the app was built on the Instagram platform, there isn’t a true sign-up process.

It takes about 30 seconds to create a Threads account after downloading the app. Here’s a look at the sign-up process for those who haven’t already joined.

You don’t even have to type your name.

Your Instagram handle (username) becomes your Threads username.

Import your Instagram Profile. Choose your Privacy preference. Done. ✅

The best part? With one click, you can auto-follow every account you’re already following on Instagram (not shown in screenshots). Assuming the people who follow you leverage this feature as well, your IG followers will also be following you in Threads as soon as they join. 🙌

Be, Do, Achieve 🧶

This is it. You’re in. There’s no turning back now.

BE YOUR AUTHENTIC SELF

First, determine who you’ll be writing as on Threads. This should be answered by which Instagram account you signed up with. Is it your personal account, or maybe a business account?

I started with my personal account, and intend to add my businesses later. My current focus is building a personal brand and a community around it. If your focus is your business and not your personal brand, then I would start with your business account. Pretty straightforward.

DO THE WORK

Next, begin writing like you’ve been there all along. No need for a cheeky first thread, just start providing value. By posting at least once per day, your reach, and community, will grow organically. Be sure to reply to replies on your posts too. Algorithms like that. After all, that’s what creates community.

If you’ve already been writing on Twitter, LinkedIn, or a blog, simply repurpose your best-performing content and post it on Threads. It’s already proven to be successful content.

Don’t overthink this. Your existing followers have likely forgotten about these posts and there will be plenty of people who’ve never seen them and may become new followers and community members if they like what they read.

From there, just test and try new things. Some will hit and many won’t. Keep writing and sharing interesting things you’ve learned, and things people should know about your industry and your business, and answer the FAQs you’ve gotten throughout your time in business.

Here are a few examples of posts you can create.

• Stories

• Observations

• Contrarian Takes

• Past vs. Present

• Listicles

Check out this newsletter from Justin Welsh, The Saturday Solopreneur, breaking down each type.

ACHIEVE RESULTS

One note of caution. This isn’t a place to sell. Give, give, give, and give some more. Eventually, you’ll earn the business. A lot of it. The consistent effort yields exponential results over time.

Again, remember to engage with people who reply to your posts. It takes a few minutes a day and goes a long way toward building a strong community of raving fans.

Have a productive week, my friends!

ONWARD TOGETHER.

In The Weeds 🌾

Additional resources for you to dive deeper.

• Introducing Threads: A New Way to Share With Text [Meta]

• Threads 101: a strategy guide for brands [Future Social]

• Threads [Instagram Help Center]

• Threads Dictionary (Threads definitions)

• An introduction to brand building through social media [Canva]

• A better way to build a brand: The community flywheel [McKinsey]

• Community Management: What It Is and How To Create a Profitable Strategy [Shopify]

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