ICYMI: Raisin Bran’s Comments-as-Creative-Strategy on Threads
Hello — this week I tested the DualShot app which allows you to capture content in portrait and landscape mode all at the same time. The quality is pretty good for social video and the dual recorder action is incredible. But it did take me some extra attention to make sure both shots were well framed. You can see my side-by-side here. Next week I’ll be testing taking pictures with a Google Pixel 10a (this isn’t sponsored — it just seems like cool stuff to test).
I’ll also be at Social Media Week Tuesday morning moderating a panel called Wellness Is Out. Coping Is In. How Brita Became a Gen Z Survival Tool.
⏰ 1-SECOND SUMMARY
Instagram now allows you to edit your comments
YouTube is expanding its Media Kit feature for YPP creators
TikTok is casting actors to make its own micro dramas
LinkedIn added playback speed controls that let you watch video up to 2x speed
Platform Playbook: Threads rewards replies more than any other platform — and the Raisin Bran team is all over it
Article: Gen Z is using A.I., but doesn’t feel great about it
💻 ROADMAP
📲 Meta Updates
Instagram announced you can now edit your comments (text only) within a 15 minute window of posting.
Meta announced Muse Spark, an LLM developed by Meta Superintelligence Labs. What does that actually mean? It’s the technology powering the Meta AI app, which is where you’ll find Chat, Vibes (a Gen AI video feed) and connect your Meta Ray Ban smart glasses. Meta is attempting to catch up to Google, OpenAI and others after spending billions, according to CNBC.
Spotted: Instagram is testing a Notes update that allows you to share with all your followers, even if you don’t follow them back.
Facebook and WhatsApp partnered with Arsenal Football Club. For fans that includes the release of a new short film, access to unique digital experiences, and opportunities to attend matches.
Related Meta News
📲 YouTube Updates
Last week, YouTube announced it would be streaming from Coachella. Buried in that announcement was the mention of Stations — a 24/7 interactive and uninterrupted music viewing experience of old and new clips. Stations is being compared to FAST (free, ad-supported television) streaming channels. It’s not the first time YouTube has experimented with FAST channels — but now everyone can access Coachella TV and a YouTube exec was quoted saying that soon, anyone will be able, “make a playlist and click ‘Start a Station.” Get ready to dig into your content archives when creating Stations becomes possible for everyone. [First seen in Jim Louderback’s newsletter]
YouTube announced it’s expanding Media Kit with added insights you won’t find in YouTube Analytics, like Audience Watch and Shopping Interest. Media Kit is an auto-generated PDF that creators in the YPP program can share with brand partners for added insights.
YouTube released a new Culture + Trends Report: Animation’s New Wave exploring how creators are finding success with independent animation and what this means for entertainment at large.
📲 TikTok Updates
Spotted: TikTok is casting actors to make its own micro dramas as it jumps headfirst into the hot format.
📲 LinkedIn Updates
LinkedIn is quietly rolling out playback speed controls with the option to go from .5x to 2x speed. If you’re team 2x, let me know in the comments — no other way to watch video IMO! [First seen in Social Media Today]
📲 Snapchat Updates
Snapchat announced its #marchmadness Topic Chat is one of the platform’s most active real-time group chats.
🔑 ONE BIG THING
Raisin Bran’s Comments-as-Creative-Strategy on Threads
I’ve been spending a lot of time on Threads this year — me and about 150M other daily users. The platform launched as a Twitter-killer but has found its own groove. Beyond the emphasis on text-based content, it’s not an X duplicate: the moderation tools are more powerful, the conversations less toxic, and brands have brought a TikTok-style emphasis on comments to the feed.
In fact, Buffer recently found that replying to comments on Threads can boost engagement by 42% — rewarding replies more than any other platform.
The team behind the Raisin Bran account has figured out how to make that work. Sam Lurie, Lead Creator at VaynerMedia, and Katie Haller, Associate Creative Director, walked me through the nostalgic vibe that drew them to the platform, the faster approval process they negotiated with their client, the communities they’ve embedded themselves in, and the strategy behind it all.
If 2026 is the year your brand joins Threads, this is the inspiration you need to get your wheels turning.
ICYMI: What was the ignition point for joining Threads?
Sam Lurie: Katie and I wanted a place where we could have that real-time social engagement. And we miss 2014 Twitter dearly. So, we came together and we pitched them a month before the Super Bowl, and then, lo and behold, a few days before the Super Bowl started, we got approval to start our [Threads] account.
ICYMI: There are a lot of brands on there — Beyond Meat, Calm, PBS... Did any of those accounts inspire you?
Katie Haller: When we went through an overview of the platform and how it works, a lot of those brands were sort of listed as examples of brands that are doing it right and really using the platform well and building a community there.
SL: Beyond Meat, especially building out a mascot tone of voice, I really admired how all of their Threads are from the perspective of a cow.
Sunny, Raisin Bran’s mascot, is obviously a sun figure. And there are many different directions you can go with that. And because the sun is this witty, acerbic figure, 4.6 billion years old, and also a little bit of a ball of fire, it gives us a little bit room to have some fun with it. So I’ve been working with Katie writing from the perspective of the sun to make that brand association.
ICYMI: I love that. How do you describe your approach to Threads, whether it’s to the Raisin Bran team or your friends?
KH: We included a couple of screenshots of people describing Threads as that AOL chat room vibe that millennials love and miss.
The other thing that makes it unique — and we pitched it this way as well — is that it should be treated differently from our longer approval process. The brands that are winning are the ones that feel like someone’s stream of consciousness. It’s just a bit freer. And so we were very adamant about that being true in order for us to win.
ICYMI: That‘s so interesting. I was going to ask, how does the Raisin Bran voice differ from Threads to other platforms? But is it the voice that changes or is it the process?
SL: A little bit of both. Threads shows more Sunny stream of consciousness, whereas platforms like Instagram and Tiktok are more visual, so they’re showing Sunny’s behaviors in the office and how that comes to life.
On Threads, we’ve really hit our stride with finding communities in the astronomy community, with plants and books, especially with our initial Threads post which Katie will get into about libraries, and we’ve been able to build a good rapport with Mychal the librarian and PBS and Nat Geo.
Typically, we see that on Threads it skews a bit more toward an older millennial, Gen X audience. Whereas on Instagram, our audience skews a bit younger so we try to show Sunny a little bit more chaotic physically.
KH: Threads has been more Sunny speaking from his point of view, and then our Instagram has evolved into the social team running it, and he’s our co-worker. It’s a kind of subtle thing. We don’t make a hard and fast rule. It’s just what we found to be working.
ICYMI: Do you call it a proactive engagement strategy or what’s the marketing-speak for joining conversations on Threads, especially with people who aren’t tagging you or talking about the brand?
SL: At Vayner we call that CasC. It’s Comments as Creative. The work is usually split between the creative department and our strategy department where we’re mining for insights in real time with our comments as creative.
And then there’s another Vayner term, AIM sessions, which is like a writer’s room, where we analyze, ideate and make every week. We’re able to bring those insights, the conversations we’re having and what’s performing, and then we’re able to bring that into bigger campaign work.
ICYMI: You talked about the approval process and how you knew that on Threads you were going to have to shorten that. So I’m curious, how do you negotiate that? And what does that system look like now?
KH: We use the approval process as an analogy to what our CasC approval process is in terms of what we comment on. There are certain things that we know are going to be a hard no that we just won’t touch. And then there’s things that we know are generally safe to comment on. For example, if PBS posts something we want to comment on, we don’t need to reach out to the clients for that. But if we wanted to come up with a net new post, that would obviously have to be routed.
We set it up with the expectation that, “We’re going to run most of our Threads by you. But don’t be surprised if you check the feed and some days Sunny is just saying, ‘Good morning.’” There has to be a bit of fluidity, because if it feels too scheduled and regimented, it won’t work. The brands that are winning have this process in place.
SL: To add on to that, we have a list of Threads that we brainstorm way ahead of time. And usually we’ll pick from that list and then see what’s going on, and what conversations Sunny would be a part of.
For example, Artemis II was launching and Sunny being the sun, obviously astronomy is a huge conversation for us. So we were able to adjust some pre-approved writings to participate in the conversation.
ICYMI: People say if you’ve already built up trust with a brand then they tend to be a little bit more… lenient or laid back about the whole thing?
KH: Yeah, making them feel safe knowing that we don’t give everyone the logins and then staying within the realm of things they have seen … we’re able to have a lot of freedom within that framework they’re comfortable with. Trust is huge. Every brand that’s winning, clearly someone has the trust to be able to do what they do.
ICYMI: You comment on the PBS account or around Artemis II, but I noticed that you also respond to regular people on the platform as well. What’s the decision making process there?
SL: Yes, I usually have a vetting process of checking accounts and I’ll cross reference with a quick internet search to make sure that there are no red flags.
At first, I thought, “OK, I bet that Sunny would have a lot of opinions about cereal and spoon conversations. So let’s do a quick search, and see what the conversations are.” And, lo and behold, people are really passionate about their spoon choice when it comes to cereal. And I was like, “Sunny definitely has an opinion on this.” It’s finding conversations that make sense, in the community surrounding what Raisin Bran is as a product
Sometimes it can feel like a brand is talking at an audience rather than with an audience. But what’s been working for us is this community-driven approach, and that was our whole point in going to Threads. We want to be able to be part of these real-time conversations. Sunny doesn’t hop on trends as much as he follows the conversation and he has something of value to bring to it.
You’ll notice whenever we comment on things, it’s pretty specific to, cereal conversations, education, space, astronomy, and plants because of Sunny being able to photosynthesize.
ICYMI: I did not know about Spoon TikTok until one of my friends told me she’s in deep. So, that’s a big thing?
SL: Oh yeah, I’m very much deep into SpoonTok. People have an affinity for the small spoon, and some people really do not like metallic silverware.
ICYMI: I love that tangent but back to Threads. What’s the rough breakdown between feed posts, replies to comments under your own posts and CasC or proactive engagement?
KH: It depends on what me and Sam’s day is like, but we both are such nerds about it. It’s fun for us. It’ll be Saturday at 11am and Sam and I are texting each other, like, “What should I say about this cat who’s sitting in the sun?”
I would say it’s a lot of CasC and one to five in-feed posts, and then if something’s blowing up, for example that library one that took off, we try to divide and conquer.
ICYMI: What is the library post?
KH: One thing that we love about Threads is that people get obsessed with Threads lore that is just normal people’s stories. This was just an average couple, but she posted that she got broken up with and in the breakup text, he said something like, “Your library card is immature.” Everyone on Threads was like, “This is insane. Reading is cool.” Everyone was talking about how having a library card is the biggest flex. And so we said something like, “If you love Raisin Bran, you’re legally required to have a library card.” And we added the topic, which is a great feature on Threads. That started to do well.
And then we took a learning we got from Instagram the week before, where we had this post blow up that was Sunny watching his followers go from 230 followers to 231 or something like that. So we posted, “We may be an unverified brand account with only 20 followers, but at least we have a library card, and no one will take that away from us.”
That post alone got us 8,000 followers. I’ve never seen anything like it in my seven years here of posting for brands. But that really opened up this reading community. And then people started following us, and then we had the brands follow and start commenting. That really unlocked a lot for us.
ICYMI: Have you been able to replicate the success of the library post?
SL: Last Friday there was this trend on Threads called the Bro Cruise. There was this woman in North Carolina who was texting with her friend about this bachelor cruise he was on and she essentially narrated the story and assigned color coded emojis to every character.
I saw this, and was like, “Oh, we have some Threads about the weather forecast. Do you think we could tie that to sunny skies, smooth sailing, unless you’re on a Bro Cruise?” And then that ended up catching fire like crazy. Everyone was like, “Oh my god, Raisin Bran is in on the Bro Cruise.” And we just kept commenting.
And this has to do with a cruise, right? We know that we’re an offering on Royal Caribbean’s continental breakfast so can we say that we’re making a special appearance at the Bro Cruise breakfast, weather permitting? That was the thought process behind getting involved in the conversation.
ICYMI: To tie this up, what advice would you give to someone at an agency or brand about activating their account on Threads?
KH: I think the biggest thing that helped is Sam and I having such a love for this text-only format It has to be one or two people’s main focus on the creative team. Really dedicating somebody to that platform is like the biggest thing.
SL: I agree that having dedicated time and people working on Threads has definitely been an asset for us. And the love of a text-only platform. A lot of our platforms right now are so visual, people are craving community and they’re not able to find it in the same way that they did like when they were on Twitter or Tumblr back in the day.
And my last piece of advice would be, “Don’t be afraid to pander to the mundane,” if that makes sense. A lot of marketing has been a romanticized version of a life. But our best posts have been from people who have slowed down and we’re part of their daily routine. As people get older, it’s not as romanticized to have everyday routine things show up in your feed.
“I’m in a Discord with a bunch of social media managers. It’s funny, we all talk about how we crave this community, and we have it on Discord, but it’s not the same. It’s more of a group chat, whereas Threads is like a forum. I keep trying to sell it to my friends, so hopefully they’ll get there soon” - Sam Lurie
Threads tl;dr
The basics: Threads is a text-based platform, developed by Meta, and deeply integrated with Instagram. It’s designed for real-time’ish conversations around things people love (sports, TV, K-Pop, books, tech) with a growing presence of journalists and news outlets. Note: it’s Meta, so of course the feed isn’t chronological.
By the numbers: Threads has 150 DAUs and 400M MAUs — similar to Pinterest. (This data is from August 2025 because Meta hasn’t released new active usage numbers yet.)
Accounts to inspire you: Beyond Meat, Calm, The Whitney Museum, Lake Lanier, Channel 4, King Arthur Baking, PBS, Tim Hortons
Related: The Secret to Beyond Meat’s Threads Strategy
👀 ICYMI: JUST THE HEADLINES
The content that gets “engagement” on Twitter is mostly complete crap - Nate Silver
What to know about the third model in the Creator Economy: Pay for participation - Forbes
Gen Z is using A.I., but doesn’t feel great about it - NYTimes
AI is creating B2B content monoculture that’s saltine-cracker bland - Kaleigh Moore
The Slop War: About those viral social videos dominating the war narrative - Intelligencer
Alix Earle shares how she built her Reale Actives skincare brand launch strategy - AdAge
Gen Z buys at least one item per month based on creator recommendations at a 69% rate, versus 50% for Millennials and 24% for Gen X - NeoReach Creator Impact Report
100% on going deep on spoons. people presenting their spoons for approval? i, along with the internet, have VERY strong opinions.