Social Media Marketing: Foundations to Practice · The Social Media Platform Landscape
Emerging and Alternative Platforms
Threads, Bluesky, and a fragmented text-based landscape represent the biggest platform shakeup since Twitter's rebrand to X. This chapter covers what's genuinely changed and what it means for brands deciding where to show up.
Threads, Meta's text-based platform launched as a response to Twitter's instability, surpassed roughly 400 million monthly active users by mid-2025 and continued growing into 2026, with daily mobile users reportedly overtaking X's during this period; its direct connection to Instagram accounts makes it a low-friction extension for brands already active there [8].
Key Takeaways
- Threads surpassed roughly 400 million MAU by mid-2025 and has grown further into 2026, benefiting from its direct connection to Instagram accounts.
- X retains a sizable user base but has seen declining daily mobile engagement, alongside an open-sourced algorithm updated roughly every four weeks.
- Bluesky has grown to over 40 million registered users but remains a niche platform, with regular usage below its registered total.
- A platform's growth rate alone doesn't justify investment; the real test is whether a brand's specific audience is genuinely concentrated there.