Trade Publication Article

Threads is Hiding Hashtags in Cross-Posts from Instagram

Hutchinson, Andrew

2025

Overview

Or maybe just clutter in-stream, but either way, Threads remains opposed to hashtags, as it has been from the start, with the Threads team keen to avoid the rampant spamming of popular tags in order to get more post reach. In July 2023, shortly after the launch of the app, Mosseri said that hashtags “come along with a lot of safety and integrity work that I think a lot of people underappreciate,” which is why he wasn’t sure that Threads should have them In August 2023, Mosseri said that he was still unsure about adding hashtags on Threads as they could “cause more trouble than they’re worth” In October 2023, Mosseri said that hashtags will not “meaningfully change the trajectory” of Threads’ development Then in late October, Threads rolled out topic tags, which enable users to add one topic to each update, in order to “make it easier for others to find and join in on the conversation” In January 2024, Mosseri said that hashtags may be “good to build” for Threads, in line with user requests, but that they won’t “noticeably grow Threads or Threads usage” In February this year, in a talk about Instagram, Mosseri said that hashtags “don’t work” to increase reach In March this year, Threads added topic tags on profiles to help showcase what you’re likely to post about In May this year, Mosseri once again said that hashtags don’t improve visibility on Instagram, but they are “a great way to let people know what a post is about and connect posts” So, to be clear, Mosseri (who, it’s also worth noting, is no longer in charge of Threads) doesn’t see much potential for hashtags, at least with respect to how a lot of people have used them in the past in increasing post reach. [...]Threads is still trying to work out a better alternative, with its latest Communities feature being another experiment in helping to guide topic-based discussion in the app. [...]they don’t, which means that, really, it depends on how people are searching for your topic of focus as to whether you should be adding hashtags or not. Because even if they aren’t clickable, if the search results displayed for each are different, then the specifics may matter for linking into relevant queries. [...]we don’t have any insight into how people are searching on Threads, because Threads doesn’t share data on keywords and/or search trends.

• Publisher: Industry Dive
• Subject: Tagging