Threads, Meta’s competitor to X, will now start focusing on a selected sort of creator: podcasters. The corporate mentioned on Tuesday that Threads will deal with bringing extra discussions round podcasts to its app and serving to creators promote their exhibits.

Initially, Threads will roll out a few new options to assist on this entrance. For one, it’ll give podcast hyperlinks within the feed a singular and extra pronounced look, with colourful backgrounds and picture thumbnails, making them simpler to identify.

Creators, in the meantime, will get a devoted spot of their person profile so as to add a hyperlink to their podcast. Threads says these hyperlinks, that are equally designed to face out, will assist podcasters higher promote their exhibits and develop their audiences.

Within the yr forward, these options will probably be adopted by others that may even deal with serving podcasters and their listeners, a Meta spokesperson informed TechCrunch.

Meta defined it’s within the podcast neighborhood as a result of it sees the potential in turning into the de facto place for individuals to speak about exhibits and have interaction with creators. As we speak, such discussions are distributed throughout social media, on locations like Reddit, X, Fb and Instagram, in addition to on the platforms the place podcasts are streamed, like YouTube and Spotify (the latter added assist for feedback final yr).

The corporate’s additionally attempting to faucet podcasts’ deep ties to tradition, which might drive discussions and encourage interactions. Threads at present has greater than 400 million month-to-month energetic customers and 150 million day by day energetic customers, lower than its rival X, which claims as many as 600 million month-to-month energetic customers. Capturing the podcast neighborhood, or perhaps a portion of that, may assist to slender that hole considerably.

Nevertheless, whereas Threads will goal the discussions that consequence from podcasts, the corporate informed TechCrunch it doesn’t intend to be a podcast distribution platform.

As an alternative, the corporate will deal with giving podcast hosts extra perception and analytics on how the conversations round their exhibits are resonating with followers. It additionally intends to develop extra options that may assist individuals uncover podcasts they could like, and join podcasters and listeners by way of conversations.

This isn’t the primary time Threads has focused creators as a approach to differentiate its social community from X, Bluesky, and others within the house.

The corporate in Could gave creators the power so as to add as much as 5 hyperlinks of their profile, permitting them to advertise their broader presence throughout the net, together with on different social media websites, video platforms, blogs, and portfolios. The corporate extra not too long ago additionally started permitting creators to share longer ideas and views by way of a textual content attachment characteristic.

Meta says customers can count on to see Threads discover extra options centered on podcast discussions within the months forward.