The Shocking Truth About Threads: I Tried 2 Approaches, Here’s What Happened

Welcome to Issue #11 of How To Win Thriends!

Today’s my grandma’s 68th bday.

I made her subscribe to HTWT, so HAPPY BIRTHDAY GIGI 🥰 

Oh, btw.

This Issue of HTWT is also about my affair…

WITH NOTION!

T H R E A D L I N E S 📌

• Threads News 🗞️

• Tools & Tests 🛠️

• Top 3 Threads of the Week 👍

• My Best Thriends of the Week 🫶🏽

• Thread The Love 💓

• Tip of the Week: From Me 🪡

• Tip of the Week: From a Threxpert 🧵

• Questions From The Community 🙋🏽

• Account Growth 📈

• Suggestion Box 📥

• Threads is working on the ability to save posts 👀 (!!!)

• Threads is working to display the post date instead of indicating the number of weeks since posting 👀

• Mosseri says Threads is filling this gap in the ecosystem in a recent AMA

• NOTION LAUNCHED NOTION CALENDAR!

  • You can expect to see more about Notion Calendar in a future issue of HTWT.

  • Early testing gets me VERY excited about how it can be leveraged with Notion and Threads to create a content system.

    • Watch. This. Space.

• What happened to new, weekly features?

  • Answer from @camroth: “Thanksgiving, Christmas, holidays. We’re also only human ☺️”

• ICYMI: There’s a new Threads Easter egg on desktop

• @threads just dropped an official wallpaper!

• Threads Now Lets You Hide Both Like and Share Counts

• Threads will allow you to follow Mastodon users by year-end, according to Meta meeting details

• How Threads will integrate with the Fediverse

  • A great (and very comprehensive) read!

NB: Check out HTWT#7 here and here for more info about Threads, ActivityPub and the fediverse.

Tool: Threads Growth Chart for Notion

What is it?

• A simple Canva chart showing your Threads growth over 2024 that you can embed in your preferred Notion page.

  • Simply duplicate the page to use this in 2025>.

    • Sidenote: It’ll be cool to create multiple pages over multiple years and reflect back on this growth in a decade.

      • Imagine where we’ll be then!

• It’s a liteweight way to track your Threads growth in a place that you (potentially) frequently look at throughout the day.

• A couple of things to mention:

  • You have to manually update the chart within Canva.

    • That’s why it only tracks the number of thriends you have on the 1st of each month.

      • Of course, you can configure the chart to suit your preferences!

  • However, it will automatically sync with the Notion page you’ve embedded the chart on!

    • (As shown in the demo video below, it might take a couple of refreshes 😅 but it does sync!)

Before we discuss what this tool can do for you, gotta give credit where it’s due.

(unintentional rhyme/11)

Shoutout @itskevinhood for sending me this one.

If you’re not already Kevin’s thriend, you should change that.

He puts A LOT of care, effort and intention into his Threads community. One of few who takes the long view.

(intentional rhyme/11)

What this can do for you

Two main things to note here:

1️⃣ Visual reminders

• Idc what the science may or may not say about habituation to visual reminders — I love them.

• I look at my “Today” Notion page (pictured above) more times throughout the day than any other digital page.

  • Excepting For You on Threads, perhaps 🤔

• So it makes sense to embed the chart on my Today page.

• That way, I’m consistently reminded of where I’m at in #TheJourneyTo10KContinues.

• In turn, this leads to the second main thing to note 👇️ 

2️⃣ Behaviour change

(shoutout @thebehaviourchangecoach)

• If you’re serious about growing on Threads, there’s no other way to put it: the data’s important.

• Obviously, you can just check how many thriends you have on your profile page.

• But I think taking the extra step of using this chart (at least until the Threads API is launched)* is a tiny action that represents a big commitment.

  • That action is a vote for the type of person you want to be (thanks, James Clear) — someone who’s serious about their growth!

  • I’m a big believer in that shit.

Summary

• So, in a nutshell, the Threads Growth Chart for Notion can:

  • Help you in a small but meaningful way to take your Threads goals seriously (while obviously still having fun);

  • Repeatedly remind you of where you are in your journey, where you’re going and how far you’ve already come.

* See HTWT Issue #1 and Issue #7 to read more about the Threads API.

How to get it and how to embed it

How to get it:

1. Go to this Canva page

2. Click “File” → “Make a copy”

How to embed it: (or just watch this walkthrough)

1. In Canva:

   • “Share”

   • “… More”

   • “Embed”

   • [Smart embed link] “Copy”

2. In Notion:

   • Go to your preferred Notion page.

     • ≈ the one you look at the most.

   • Click on the block where you’d like your chart to go.

   • Paste the smart embed link.

Voilà!

Test: Post Whatever The Fuck U Want When U Want (PWTFUWWUW)

What is it?

• PWTFUWWUW is pretty self-explanatory.

• Instead of rigidly posting X* number of times per day, at certain times of the day, you just PWTFUWWUW.

  • NB: the only rule I had for myself was to post at least once per day. Why? I’ve done that since I got Threads on July 10, 2023, and don’t want to lose my streak 🤷‍♂️

* Just had to wash my keyboard’s mouth out with soap.

Why I did it

1. Build in public

2. Authenticity

3. Spontaneity (→ fun)

1. Build in public

   • As you might’ve read in HTWT#6, I’ve been pretty regimented with posting 3 times per day — almost every day — for the past couple of months.

   • But as you can see below, I’ve got 260+ unpublished posts.

     • Meaning I get more than 3 ideas per day. Meaning, if I continued to be rigid about posting 3 times a day, over a few years, I’d have thousands of unpublished ideas.

   • That kinda goes against one of the main reasons I started Threading: to share what I kept private for years.

2. Authenticity

   • Another related reason to try PWTFUWWUW: I believe in authentic expression on Threads.

     • And I think my rigid approach of posting 3 times per day was taking away some of that authenticity.

3. Spontaneity

   • A final reason: rigidity and structure can be useful, but it can also be burdensome.

     • (Anyone who knows me well IRL would laugh at how accurately that sentence encapsulates me)

   • I’m obviously pretty big on playing the long game on Threads.

     • In fact, I don’t plan on the game ending. Ever.

     • It’s an infinite game.

   • And if I’m going to be playing a neverending game, I want it to be fkn fun.

     • My way of injecting some fun into my Threads experience is by being more spontaneous.

     • The easiest way to be more spontaneous on Threads is to PWTFUWWUW.

The results

Quantitative

Qualitative

• I had more fun.

Conclusion

I know this is far from a perfect test. I haven’t controlled every variable. Bearing that in mind, here are the key takeaways.

I’m gonna continue embracing the PWTFUWWUW approach for as long as it continues to enhance my subjective experience on Threads.

• It looks like the unhinged era continues!

Mileage may vary, but it’s worth a shot if you’re like me and have a habit of systemising everything.

P.S. @MKBHD — I did it first.

P.P.S. Do these results reveal a shocking truth about Threads? A shocking truth that more = better? Idk the answer, but it’s nonetheless an interesting question.