April Rudin on Threads: 'Look Before You Leap!'

Many advisors are likely to sit on the sidelines for now when it comes to using Threads, the new social networking app from Meta Platforms that’s competing with Twitter, for business.

Issues include a lack of approval from compliance departments, according to industry executives including marketing strategist April Rudin, founder and president of The Rudin Group, who pointed out some things advisors should consider before investing their time in the new platform.

Threads topped 100 million sign-ups over the weekend, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Monday in a message on the platform, which has not launched a desktop interface.

While setting up a Threads account may be easy — especially for existing Instagram users — getting started on a new social media platform as a financial advisor is not so simple.

“First we need compliance to OK it and be able to archive,” tweeted Mitlin Financial founder Larry Sprung, responding to a tweet by Jamie Hopkins, managing partner of Wealth Solutions at Carson Group.

Agreeing, Susan Theder, chief marketing and experience officer at FMG Suite, told ThinkAdvisor by email: “Clearly it would need to be approved by firms before advisors affiliated with those firms could use it and dependency to that would be an archival and surveillance solution which doesn’t yet exist.”

Theder noted Friday she “just signed up for Threads myself yesterday and honestly haven’t heard anything from advisors about it yet.” She added: “I think Instagram is likely the next most widely adopted platform and we’ll have to wait and see if Threads becomes a valuable platform for advisors.”

In any case, Theder said, “I don’t think advisors need to be on every platform. The important thing is that they focus their efforts on the platforms where their target audiences spend time.”

For Rudin, too, it remains to be seen if the prospective clients that advisors are looking to target are even on Threads yet or will be in the future, she told ThinkAdvisor in a phone interview on Friday about the new app.

Rudin’s responses to a few of the questions we asked are below.

THINKADVISOR: What should advisors do about Threads now? Should they get on it or wait, and why?

APRIL RUDIN: There’s a lot of buzz just like any new shiny penny, but as an advisor, I would take a “wait and see” attitude.

The most important reason is that it is yet to be determined who is adopting this platform and why. If there are not enough [centers of influence] or opportunity to reach end prospects, it may not be worth the additional time spent to learn, create content for this platform, etc.

And it’s not been compliance approved anywhere yet that I know of.