Threads is no longer a fallback for people who left X. In June 2026 Meta announced 500 million monthly active users, up from 400 million in August 2025. According to Similarweb, in January 2026 the Threads mobile app had 141.5 million daily active users against 125 million for X. The audience has already gathered, and the only question is how to reach it.
The "For you" feed shows a user not only posts from people they follow but also posts from strangers. Meta describes ranking through five predictions: the likelihood of a like, of opening replies, of following the author, of visiting the profile and of scrolling past the post. This gives an author without an audience a chance, because a stranger's post reaches someone else's feed if people react to it. In an analysis of 1.7 million posts, the median Threads post earned 5 interactions in February 2025. Followers come to where the conversation is.
Below is a working order for a new account: profile, first followers from Instagram, topic and tag, posts, replies, communities, frequency and timing, formats and a way to check the result. The data in the text covers 2025 and 2026.
How to set up your Threads profile so people follow it
A reader lands on your profile after a post and decides within a couple of seconds whether to follow. Meta estimates the likelihood of a profile visit and the likelihood of a follow separately, so the profile affects growth on a par with posts.
Start with an avatar that makes you recognizable in the feed: a face on a personal account, a logo on a brand account. Then move to the bio. It holds up to 150 characters, and that is enough for one idea. Name your profession with one specific word, such as "marketer" or "travel writer", instead of the generic "creator". Add the topic you write about and the benefit to a follower. A vivid detail sets you apart from dozens of similar profiles, for example: "I break down SEO and content without fluff. A new case study every Thursday." A bio like that answers the question "why do I need this person" in one line.
Pin a post. A good pinned post briefly explains who you are, what you write about and where to go next. Put advertising in the pinned post and keep it out of the feed. Leave one link in the profile, pointing to the most important place: a site, a newsletter or a channel. One clear next step works better than a set of five.
How to bring followers from Instagram to Threads
Threads is built on Instagram, so the easiest way to get your first followers is from there. A Threads profile is created from an Instagram profile, and Instagram followers get an offer to follow you on Threads as well. One notification is not enough, and you have to remind people yourself. Add a link to Threads in your Instagram bio and explain in Stories why you have a second account: quick thoughts and live discussion that Instagram does not offer. Any Threads post can be sent to Stories through the paper plane icon under the post. In Stories it appears on a branded background, and a tap on it opens your feed.
Keep the formats distinct. Instagram runs on visuals, Threads on short remarks and dialogue, so there is no need to copy posts one to one. The feed also counts visits from Threads to your Instagram profile as a signal, so both platforms should tell the same story. Outside Instagram, remind people about Threads wherever your audience already is: in your newsletter, on your site, on LinkedIn.
Topic and tag: how people find you in Threads search
An account with a clear topic is easier to remember than an account about everything. Pick one topic or a tight set of topics and work their keywords into almost every post. The niche does not have to be broad: Threads finds an audience even for narrow interests such as music theory. Off-topic posts blur the profile, because a reader who came for marketing will not follow you for cooking. If you want to write about different things, start a second series and run it just as regularly.
Threads allows one tag per post. It was introduced so that tags connect people through a shared interest rather than serve as a way to inflate reach. A tag can be a whole phrase with spaces, and tapping it opens a search for the topic. Start typing a topic and watch the suggestions: Threads shows how many posts each topic already has. Between two similar topics, choose the more populated one, because "NBA" and "NBA Threads" split the audience between them. Also put keywords in the text of the post, because search finds any word, not only the tag. The string of hashtags at the end of a post that is familiar from Instagram is not needed here.
How to write Threads posts that get replies
The feed tracks whether readers open the replies under a post, so every post has one job: to start a conversation. The first line works as a headline. Name the reader's problem, ask a question or take a position. Open questions work well, such as "Which productivity tool has actually stuck for you?", as do opinions people can argue with, reactions to news in your topic and light formats such as "Algorithm, introduce me to people who like...".
A regular post holds 500 characters. If your thought is longer, use a text attachment: since September 4, 2025, a post can carry up to 10,000 characters of formatted text, and the reader opens it without leaving the app. A short post with a sharp wording becomes the headline, while the breakdown or instructions sit in the attachment.
Replies under other people's posts
Threads is built around replies, and for a new account they work better than your own posts: a reply under someone else's post is read by people who do not know you. An analysis of almost 2 million posts from six platforms, published in March 2026, found that Threads posts where the author replied to comments earned on average 42% more engagement. This is the largest increase among the six platforms, and about two thirds of Threads accounts did better on exactly such posts. The study's authors treat this link as an association, and causation is not proven.
A daily routine is simple. First reply to comments under your latest posts, then leave five to ten substantive remarks under posts in your niche: experience, a clarification, a counter-question. Only after that publish your own post. That way readers who arrive through your replies see a fresh post right away. A remark does not have to be long, but one that adds a fact or an observation introduces you better than "agreed" or an emoji.
Communities on Threads and current topics
In June 2026 Meta took communities out of beta. These are public interest feeds with a separate "Communities" item in the main menu, icons for each community and a Community Champion status for the most active members. You can join through search or by tapping a tag in someone else's post. Choose two or three communities in your topic and take part in the discussions: people who chose your interest themselves have already gathered there, and they are the ones who see your replies.
Follow the news in your topic and reply to it the same day, while the discussion is still going. Jump into a trend only when you have something substantive to say.
Since February 2026 there has been Dear Algo: a user writes a post that begins with the words "Dear Algo", and their feed is adjusted for several days to match their request to see more or less of a topic. In June 2026 Your Algo was added to it: a user picks a topic and the length of the request, one, three or seven days, and manages requests in one section together with Dear Algo. Your Algo is available first in the US, the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. For an author, such posts serve as free demand research: they show what people are asking to see more of right now.
How often and when to post on Threads
Start with one post a day and set aside separate time for replies under other people's posts. Choose a pace you can keep up for a month: consistency matters more than a record first week.
Posting time is better chosen from data. An analysis of 2.5 million posts, published in February 2026, named Thursday at 9 a.m. in the audience's local time as the best slot, followed by Wednesday at 12 p.m. and Wednesday at 9 a.m. Evenings from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m. were weaker on every day of the week, and Saturday had the lowest engagement. Another analysis, based on 50,000 accounts and updated in March 2026, names different hours within the working week, and there is no single schedule for everyone. For two weeks, post in the Thursday and Wednesday windows from morning to lunchtime, then compare the number of replies with your own statistics and shift the time to where you get more replies.
Which formats and links work on Threads
Threads remains a text platform, but images and video work better here than text. A report on engagement published in March 2026 shows that posts with images and video get higher engagement than text posts, and posts with a link lag behind the most. These are median values, and the spread inside each format is large: a strong text post beats a weak video.
Publish short text posts, because they are easy to produce often, and add photos to personal stories. If you already shoot video for other platforms, post it here too. Polls, GIFs and memes suit you only if they match your tone. Publish different formats on one topic in the same time window and compare the number of replies. An image should complement the text, so do not build a feed of images alone.
Posts with a link earn the least: this format has the lowest median engagement. Keep one main link in your profile, and in the feed write self-contained posts that can be read without leaving for a site. A text attachment of up to 10,000 characters replaces a link to a long read when you need to give the reader more than fits in a post.
Why you should not buy followers on Threads
Buying followers violates Instagram's rules, and they apply to Threads as well. Meta removes such activity. Beyond the ban there is a practical reason: bought followers do not reply to posts, and the feed builds its recommendations on reactions. Under the posts of an account with a thousand bots there are zero replies, and replies are exactly what the feed takes into account when recommending.
Direct advertising works just as badly. Threads readers follow people and conversation, so keep promotion in the profile and the pinned post, and in the feed give value and an opinion.
How to tell that it is working
Watch three ratios in your profile statistics: replies to views, profile visits to views and new followers to profile visits. Each one shows the weak point of its stage. If there are few replies, rewrite the first line of the post: it should ask a question or take a position. If there are many replies but few profile visits, your posts lack the personal experience that makes people want to know the author, so add your own figures and observations to them. If there are many visits but few follows, the profile does not convince, and it is time to rewrite the bio and the pinned post. Change one factor at a time and wait a week, otherwise you cannot tell what worked.
What changes on Threads by 2027
Threads enters 2027 having grown by 100 million users in ten months, from 400 million in August 2025 to 500 million in June 2026. In June 2026 Meta moved communities into the main menu and promised to launch Live Chats in more communities and add co-hosts to them. The takeaway for an author is practical: communities give you a ready audience on your topic that does not follow you yet, so daily replies in two or three communities in your topic are more useful than posts to the general feed.
Your Algo, launched in June 2026, is so far available in the US, the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. If your audience lives there, read "Dear Algo" posts on your topic: they hint at what to write next. If not, look for demand in Threads search and in tag suggestions, where you can see how many posts each topic already has.
Launch the methods from this article one at a time and check them against your own statistics. There is no single formula on Threads, and the result is decided by experiment: change one factor, wait a week and keep what brings followers.
