What does the launch of Threads mean for medical marketing?

Threads, Meta’s rival to Twitter, has been around for just over a week but seems prepared to stay for a while.

With more than 100 million sign ups since its launch, Threads has already overtaken ChatGPT as the fastest-growing online platform.

The launch has generated interest in how the social media landscape will change and intensified the ongoing war of words and legal threats between Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter owner Elon Musk, best punctuated by the calls for a cage fight between the two.

O’Brien, no relation to the author, said that as Meta continues to improve the functionality of Threads and expand the features that made Twitter so popular in the first place, including its searchability, news promotion and bookmarks, healthcare professionals (HCP) will likely pivot to the new site.

As HCPs go, so will medical marketers and the brands they represent, she added.

“I’m seeing a lot of HCPs on Threads. I also understand that it’s hard to find people on Threads and those conversations [between HCPs] are happening but it’s going to take some time to improve functionality,” she said. “However, like Twitter, which isn’t user-friendly or intuitive, once you figure out how to do it, you can easily use Threads.”

Though there isn’t any immediate advertising opportunity on Threads, O’Brien said marketers should be doing their due diligence by familiarizing themselves with the app and experimenting with its capabilities.

Several notable pharma and biotech companies already have joined the social media app, including Boehringer Ingelheim, Moderna and Bayer, though O’Brien noted that Amgen has been actively posting since it joined.

O’Brien said that there is always the risk that the medical misinformation that has proliferated on Twitter finds its way to Threads, especially given Meta’s questionable history monitoring such posts on Facebook.

However, she added that given the new platform’s quick rise to prominence, HCPs and biopharma brands are uniquely positioned to push back on misinformation with medically-validated, scientific information.