You have a handful of people who are super active on social networks. From those sets of hubs you end up with some very active nodes and some less active edges. Some of this was done with extra special Twitter algorithmic boosts [1]. At the very start yesterday (7/5), Threads by Instagram was certainly seeding feeds with some prime accounts [2]. That is an important element of things as you do not want to serve up a ghost town of a social network you had to provide some early access and seeding [3]. The part of the equation that is the most interesting in all of this is that the early platform engagement buzz is real. You can find me over on the Threads application if you want [4]. 

1. Gathering: People who have not really seen subscriber counts grow in some time get a new chance to watch it all happen again
2. Active Users: The super users are out in force and all in the same place. You don’t have large swaths of inactive users
3. Authentic Engagement: High engagement and conversation with the most engaged people is awesome before the flood of automated responses show up
4. Learning is happening: Everything is new on the application for a little bit creating a bit of discomfort and surprise

One of the more interesting parts of this launch is that it was not web based. The web version of Threads sort of sends people back to download applications. That was an interesting decision to have made by the development teams. Maybe that helps with the aforementioned drivers that are creating some real buzz at the moment. 

Footnotes:

[1] https://fortune.com/2023/03/28/twitter-elon-musk-boosting-users-lebron-james-marc-andreessen-alexandria-ocasio-cortez/ 

[2] https://about.instagram.com/blog/announcements/threads-instagram-text-feature

[3] https://www.businessinsider.com/meta-threads-app-twitter-creators-early-access-guide-2023-7?utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=topbar 

[4] https://www.threads.net/@nelslindahl