Zuckerberg is looking for retention ‘hooks’ to mitigate Threads exodus

Meta is not happy about the exodus from Threads. Its Twitter-like (sorry, sorry – X-like) rival platform initially surged in popularity but struggled to maintain interest in the following weeks. More than half of the original users came, saw and… left. That’s why Zuckerberg’s Meta is now planning on developing retention ‘hooks’.

A high-level Meta gathering brought together Zuckerberg and Meta executives. The audio from the meeting was heard by Reuters: “Obviously, if you have more than 100 million people sign up, ideally it would be awesome if all of them or even half of them stuck around. We're not there yet”, Zuckerberg allegedly said at that forum.

As far as his own assessments on the Threads exodus, he considered the drop-off “normal”. He expected the drop-off rates to curb with the introduction of more features to the app, like a Threads desktop version and search functionality.

Chief Product Officer Chris Cox said Meta is looking at adding more “retention-driving hooks” to entice users to return to the app, like “making sure people who are on the Instagram app can see important Threads”.

Reels catch up with TikTok

Meanwhile, another Reuters report says that Reels videos are performing more than well, closing in on the ByteDance rival TikTok. Reels, available on both Facebook and Instagram, gather respectable numbers in terms of views – 200 billion per day, up from 140 billion last year.

“We can show Reels that we think you're interested in based on our discovery engines”, Justin Osofsky, Meta's head of online sales, operations and partnerships, said in an interview on Thursday and adds that the Reels’ boosted performance “creates a base that you have the opportunity to further monetize”.