Meta has been testing a new integration in Threads called ‘topic
tags’ for the past few weeks, and is now rolling it out to all users. Topic tags
could be compared to hashtags, but according to Instagram chief Adam Mosseri, their
purpose is to drive conversations in the app around specific topics.
Unlike how regular hashtags are used, users will be allowed to add only one tag per post. Moreover, for a tag to be functional, it needs to be composed manually in each post, therefore a post with a tag can not be copied and pasted for it to drive conversations. Another element that makes topic tags different from hashtags is that they can be created consisting of multiple words with spaces, without adding the ‘#’ symbol.
Tagged posts can get discovered more easily as compared to regular
posts, as other users can search for them with specific subjects. However, when
searching for specific words or topics, tagged posts will not be displayed in a
chronological order. This is Meta’s strategy to prevent “spammers and other bad
actors pummel the view with content by simply adding the relevant words or tags,”
as Adam Mosseri explained last week. This is also why Threads has added a limit
on the number of topic tags to one per post, for now at least.
