Instagram Threads, the new social media platform on the block, is looking like a strong contender to be adopted as a new SEO hangout.
The social media space in the SEO community has seen a lot of disruption over the last year.
Twitter has always been a core favorite hangout until Elon Musk bought it, and many people began to ditch the platform.
Although Mastodon launched in 2016, suddenly, at the beginning of 2023, many SEOs saw it as a new Twitter alternative after renouncing the bird app.
Although promising initially, the decentralized platform has limitations in connecting with other servers, and establishing the SEO community was constrained as people were divided between different servers.
Then Bluesky came along – and yet again, SEO people waited to see if this would catch fire. As yet, apart from a few early adopters, it hasn’t seen mass uptake or threatened the domination of other platforms.
For over a year, LinkedIn has been enjoying a resurgence with a lot of activity in the community. Many SEO pros historically vocal on Twitter have started posting long messages about case studies and thought leadership on the platform.
One real positive about being part of LinkedIn is the absence of politics, outrage, and snarkiness that is consuming Twitter.
LinkedIn is professional and a great platform to showcase what you are working on and share ideas about work.
And then, Instagram Threads launched on July 5 at 7:00 p.m. EDT.
It achieved 2 million sign-ups in the first 2 hours.
In 24 hours, it had 30 million. It took ChatGPT two months to get 100 million followers. Threads took five days.
It took Twitter two years to get one million followers; Instagram took two and a half months. Threads did this in less than an hour.
Will Threads manage to sustain and create a new SEO community? At this point, we can’t say.
We jumped on the platform quickly within the first few days as it was launching and watched countless people we knew in the community come on board.
It has a fresh feel to it and was like a reunion of old friends together that hasn’t been felt in some time. A buzz and vibe of excitement and interest felt like Twitter from many years ago.
For new users to a platform, one of the first things to do is follow people and build your follow list.
Threads doesn’t currently support hashtags, so it’s even more important to follow the right people to find the discussion you want to participate in.
For anyone in SEO, we’ve compiled a short list of SEO experts to follow on Threads to help get you started on the platform.
This list isn’t intended to be exclusive, all-encompassing, or any statement about who is considered to be better than anyone else.
It’s compiled from experts in SEO who are already active on Threads, and we included current Search Engine Journal authors.
An expert is someone who we consider to contribute significantly to the industry through social media and speaking, and through posting content that offers value.
Search Engine Journal Staff On Threads
- Search Engine Journal, the official account.
- Shelley Walsh, SEO Content Strategist.
- Kristi Hines, Associate News Editor.
- Matt Southern, Senior News Writer.
- Roger Montii, News Writer at SEJ.
- Brent Csutoras, Owner at SEJ.
Search Engine Journal Contributors on Threads
Not all of the SEJ community are currently on Threads, so we have only included the ones that are active so far.
- Andrew Shotland
Founder of Local SEO Guide.
Read Andrew’s posts on SEJ. - Benji Hyam
Co-founder of Grow and Convert. - Dixon Jones
CEO at Inlinks.
Read Dixon’s posts on SEJ. - Frederick Vallaeys
Co-founder of Optmyzr.
Read Frederick’s posts on SEJ. - Kevin Indig
Growth Advisor.
Read Kevin’s posts on SEJ. - Kevin Rowe
Founder of PureLinq.
Read Kevin’s posts on SEJ. - Kristopher B. Jones
Growth Advisor, Founder of LSEO.
Read Kris’s posts on SEJ. - Lidia Infante
Senior SEO Manager at Sanity.
Watch Lidia on SEJ. - Ludwig Makhyan
Co-Founder of Mazeless.
Read Ludwig’s posts on SEJ. - Mordy Oberstein
Head of SEO Branding at Wix.
Read Mordy’s posts on SEJ. - Motoko Hunt
International Search Marketing Consultant at AJPR.
Read Motoko’s posts on SEJ. - Navah Hopkins
President at Navah Hopkins LLC.
Read Navah’s posts on SEJ. - Ron Lieback
Founder of ContentMender.
Read Ron’s posts on SEJ. - Ruth Everett
Technical SEO at SearchPilot.
Read Ruth’s posts on SEJ. - Ryan Jones,
SEO lead at Razorfish
Read Ryan’s posts on SEJ.
SEO Experts To Follow On Threads
As mentioned above, this isn’t an exhaustive or exclusive list and only includes SEOs that were active on Threads in the first few weeks. All of the names below are well worth following for their expertise and community contribution.
There might be lots of names we have missed, and this is not intentional, or any rating of the SEO community.
- AJ Ghergich
SEO consultant. - AJ Kohn
Founder of Blind Five Year Old. - Aleyda Solís
International SEO Consultant. - Amanda Natividad
VP of Marketing at SparkToro. - Andrew Charlton
Managing Director of Crawl Consultancy - Areej Abuali
Founder of Women in Tech SEO. - Barry Schwartz
Founder of Search Engine Roundtable. - Bastian Grimm
CEO at Peak Ace. - Brett Tabke
Founder of PubCon. - Brie E Anderson
Analytics Consultant. - Brodie Clark
SEO Consultant. - Bryan Eisenberg
Author of Call To Action and Waiting For Your Cat To Bark. - Chris Green
Analytics Consultant. - Craig Campbell
SEO consultant at Craig Campbell SEO. - Danny Goodwin
Managing Editor of Search Engine Land - Dawn Anderson
Search consultant. - Eric Wu
Partner, SEO @ a16z. - Gianluca Fiorelli
International SEO consultant. - Glenn Gabe
SEO consultant. - Greg Gifford
COO at SearchLab and local SEO expert. - Hannah Rampton
SEO and Data Consultant. - Itamar Blauer
SEO Director at StudioHawk. - James Norquay
Founder of Prosperity Media. - John Doherty
Founder of Credo and EditorNinja. - Jono Alderson
Independent Technical SEO Consultant. - Kelvin Newman
Founder of BrightonSEO. - Kevin Gibbons
CEO and Founder at Re:Signal. - Lee Odden
Founder of TopRank Marketing. - Lily Ray
Head of SEO at Amsive Digital - Lukasz Zelezny
SEO Expert and Consultant. - Mark Traphagen
VP of Product Marketing and Training at seoClarity. - Maria G White
Head of SEO at Kurt Geiger. - Martin MacDonald,
SEO Consultant, SEO Consultant. - Michael King
Founder of iPullrank. - Michelle Robbins
Decision Science Leader at LinkedIn. - Montse Cano
International SEO and Digital Strategy Consultant. - Nati Elimelech
Head of SEO at Wix. - Nick Wilsdon
CEO and Founder at Torque. - Noah Learner
Director of Innovation at Sterling Sky. - Olga Andrienko
VP of Brand Marketing at Semrush. - Paul Shapiro
Technical SEO and SEO Product Management at Shopify. - Pedro Dias
SEO Consultant at Visively, Ex Google. - Ross Hudgens
Founder of Siege Media. - Si Quan Ong
Marketing at Ahrefs. - Suganthan Mohanadasan
Co-founder of Snippet Digital & Keyword Insights. - Taylor Berg
Director of Growth & Web Strategy at Talkspace. - Tess McKeever-Voecks
VP of Operations at Local SEO Guide.
More resources:
- 10 New Social Media Platforms & Apps To Have On Your Radar
- 6 Alternative Social Media Platforms to Consider
- 134 Social Media Statistics You Need To Know For 2023
Featured Image: Emre Akkoyun/Shutterstock
