Threads Expands Custom, Keyword-Based Feeds to More Users

Threads has expanded its roll-out of swipeable custom topic feeds from the main timeline, which could make it easier to engage in more community discussions in the app.

As explained by Instagram and Threads chief Adam Mosseri (I wonder at what point Threads will get its own chief), more users will now have the option to create topic feeds based on keyword searches in the app.

Not all Threads users have access as yet, but for those that do, you can create a custom feed in the app by:

• Entering your search terms
• Tapping the three-dot icon next to the search field on the results screen
• Select “Create new feed”

You can also add specific profiles to your custom feed by visiting the profile that you want to add, then tapping the three-dots icon above the profile photo and selecting “Add to feed”.

You can also create feed on desktop by selecting the “Pin to Home” option from the left hand side menu, then searching for whatever term/s you choose. That feed will also be active in the app, once the option is available to you.

Once you’ve created your custom search feed, you can set it to “Top” or “Recent”. Then you can swipe across to it from your main feed, by tapping the Threads icon at the top of the screen.

As noted, it could be a good way to stay on top of more topical discussions in the app, and contribute to more interests. Though Mosseri himself doesn’t expect it to be a big deal.

Back in January, in response to a user query about the possibility of adding custom lists, Mosseri explained that:

“My honest take though is that requested features like lists, an edit button, a following feed, trending, and hashtags are all good to build, but none noticeably grow Threads or Threads usage. We’ll continue to build them because it’s good to build features that your most engaged users are excited about, but it’s hard to prioritize them when the measurable impact is negligible.”

Threads has now added all of these elements, or at least its own versions of them, but Mosseri’s view is that these won’t contribute to a significant rise in usage, despite the constant requests for such from users.

So what will help to drive more usage?

Mosseri believes that reach is the key:

“[Reach is] always gonna be the thing that people focus on, for good reason. It is in our interest to help people’s reach grow. If you’re creating content that people want to see, if we show it to them, they’ll be happy, you’ll be happy, and our business will grow. If we don’t, we’re just leaving value on the table. I feel like people don’t always believe me when I say that, but that is very, very much true.”

As such, Meta has been trying to shift the focus away from things like Likes and follower counts onto “Views” instead, because that’s more reflective of relative “success” in the modern social media landscape.

Because like them or not, a lot of people do now rely on the “For You” algorithms to show them the stuff they’re most likely to be interested in every time that they log in, so they don’t need to explicitly follow accounts to get the best in-app experience. As a result, you’re not going to grow your audience in the same way as you did on Twitter or Instagram, but ideally, if you produce the type of content that the Threads algorithm likes, your reach will increase in-step.

So while people are still keen to add in features like lists and hashtags for their own purposes, Mosseri’s view is that these are not key features, at least not for Meta’s broader performance measurement, in terms of overall usage and engagement.

Yet, they may help to engage more power users, and with only a small number of people creating the majority of content, that may still be critically important. It just might not show up as clearly in the data, but there is a reason why Bluesky has recently seen a surge in interest, following Threads’ challenges on Election Day.

Bluesky feels more like Twitter once was, while you can also default to a chronological following feed.

Which is really the key thing.

The main allure of Twitter at its peak was that you could log in and get a real-time stream of updates on your chosen topics of interest, and it would continue to flow through as the tweets kept coming, giving it that active pulse feel. You felt connected, in-the-moment, and defaulting to algorithm-driven “For You” feeds is just not the same, while Threads’ shift away from whatever it deems “political”” also moves it even further away from this.

Yet, at the same time, algorithmic feeds drive more engagement. It’s inarguable, the data tells the tale on this. The capacity to be able to highlight more of the best-performing content from across the app, from more creators, helps to increase overall usage and engagement, and gives the best creators more reach. Which, in an overall data sense, is a much better option, which is why every app is now making algorithmic feeds the default.

The thing that you lose, however, is immediacy. So while Threads users keep coming up with different ideas as to what they might need to make it more Twitter like, what they really want, in most cases, is that sense of presence back, which Meta isn’t going to do, because it’s generating better response with its AI recommendations.  

As Mosseri explained back in September (in relation to the same on IG):

“Of course we’ve thought about [defaulting to the Following feed], and we’ve tested it and tried it a number of times. Every time we have, there’s a sub-group of people who are happy, there’s a bunch of people who forget that they’re in it, and then overall, everybody who’s in it uses Instagram less and less over time, and when we ask them questions like ”how satisfied are you with Instagram?”, they actually report being less happy with Instagram more and more over time, on average. And then there’s these second order effects where their friends start using Instagram less [and] because they use it less, they send less likes and comments, messages, and then there’s all of this other stuff, and it just gets worse and worse, and quickly.”

Users, overall, engage more with recommended content. In other words, that Twitter feel that you want, that Bluesky apparently now delivers on better than Threads for some users, it’s gone, and it’s not coming back. Bluesky will probably also lean further into this itself, when it eventually starts to rely on ad revenue for its business.

Social platforms make more money when you use them more often, and algorithmic feeds drive more usage.

So while Threads continues to add more Twitter-like features, and some of them will be popular with some users, there’ll always be another feature that’s high on the agenda that Threads “needs” to really win out.

But what you’re likely looking for is immediacy, and Threads won’t derive the most benefit if it focuses on that.