Meta’s Threads makes a play for podcasters and their rabid fans

Meta’s Threads is looking to drum up podcast discussions on its service. (Bloomberg)

Meta Platforms Inc.’s Threads will launch podcast previews, or the ability to upload snippets of shows that play directly in user feeds, as part of a broader effort to encourage podcasters and their fans to spend more time on the social network, according to a person familiar with the plans.

Threads already launched another podcast-oriented feature in recent months — the ability to link to a show on a profile and have it open in Apple Podcasts, iHeart or Spotify — and the company hopes that luring podcasters could foster community around their shows. If podcasters engage with the service, it could make Threads more compelling to listeners and viewers as a place to gather virtually to discuss episodes, said Connor Hayes, head of Threads.

“Could Threads be the canonical place where you’re talking about and engaging with other fans about what’s going on in a podcast?” Hayes asked during a recent interview with Bloomberg. “You should be able to depend on Threads to be the place where conversation is happening about that.”

Part of the company’s plan to lure podcasters to the service involves live events, including a recent taping of All The Smoke, a basketball podcast, in Los Angeles earlier this month. Influencers were invited to attend, and the result was that creators posted on Threads about the show, further driving conversation. Hayes plans to host more of these events, and said that conversations concerning podcasts about sports and reality TV are already happening on the app.

“It’s the format that has the highest overlap with the creators we care about,” Hayes added, noting that podcasters often have a strong perspective, offering analysis and insight, which people on Threads desire. “Podcasts have been extremely correlated with the creators that will have success on Threads.”

Threads was launched by Meta in 2023 in the wake of Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter Inc., now called X. There was a feeling that Musk’s many changes to Twitter had opened the door for another, similar service to take off. Threads has since reached more than 150 million daily active users, but is still working to lure some high-profile creators and newsmakers to post regularly on the app.

For many years, Facebook Groups served as the de facto place within Meta’s stable of networks for people to gather and discuss podcasts, but Hayes noted that those communities were usually borne out of fans rather than the podcasters themselves, meaning the hosts didn’t have control of the conversation. On Threads, he hopes podcasters will actively chime in and engage their fan base.

Threads will have competition from other platforms, which have emerged alongside Facebook as key homes for this type of discussion. Reddit has become a fan-centered online space, and podcasters often sell access to their thoughts and other exclusive content as a subscription perk. Podcasters have also turned to exclusive Discord groups as a perk for paying members, and newsletter platforms like Substack and Patreon, which also encourage podcasters to use their platforms, have used chats and engagement as a way to retain subscribers.