Instagram is promoting Threads in hopes of drawing in users

Instagram has slowly begun promoting the Threads app in what is likely an attempt at drawing in more users. Threads started off strong during its initial launch earlier this Summer with a large influx of users hopping over to see what things were about. But since then has seen a drop off in user engagement.

When it launched in early July it only took a week for the app to reach 100 million users. That’s a rather impressive feat though perhaps not entirely surprising given Threads comes from Meta. Who also owns other popular social media apps Facebook and Instagram, as well as the popular chat app WhatsApp. By the end of July, Meta had reported that it had lost about half of those users. And that’s a pretty steep drop off.

This new promotion tactic is potentially Meta’s first step in finding ways to drive Threads engagement back up and gain some of those users back. And perhaps even a few new ones who have yet to check out the platform. It makes sense. Instagram is still fairly popular and there are no doubt plenty of users who haven’t given it any thought. Meta seems to want to change that.

Instagram is promoting the Threads app via ‘For You’ carousels

The next time you’re scrolling through your Instagram feed you might eventually spot a ‘For You on Threads’ carousel in there. Nudging at you to pop on over to Meta’s new social app for conversations. They don’t appear to be popping up super often. But it’s also possible that Instagram isn’t pushing these carousels to all users just yet.

As seen in the image below, the carousel can show you a random collection of posts from accounts you may follow that also have a presence on Threads. You can scroll through them to find one you might be interested in and tapping on it takes you to the Threads app. Or presumably to the App Store or Play Store to download it if you don’t already have it installed. There’s also a button that says “open app” if you just want to get straight into it.

It’s not clear if this will help Meta increase Threads users but it probably can’t hurt.