Meta for months has been experimenting with letting people cross-post from Instagram and Facebook to Threads, its social networking platform competing with X (formally known as Twitter). Meta confirmed to TechCrunch that the feature has officially rolled out globally to all countries where Threads is available.
The new cross-posting capability is part of Meta’s larger goal to get the most out of the content people share on its family of apps. Meta has done this with Instagram and Facebook for years now, allowing users who are active on both platforms to share Facebook posts to Instagram and vice versa. The company also played around with cross-posting in 2023 when it automatically displayed suggested Threads posts on Instagram and Facebook. (You can now turn this option off.)
Connecting Threads more closely to Meta’s larger app ecosystem and its billions of users could also help boost Threads’ app — which recently surpassed 200 million active users — even more.
How to cross-post Instagram images to Threads
The new cross-posting feature on Instagram, which first became available as a test in early May, is an opt-in experience and requires users to toggle on the Threads sharing button when posting an image. Once users cross-post their Instagram posts, the caption becomes text for the Threads post, and hashtags convert into plain text.
Users can either choose to use the cross-post option once or set up automatic sharing to always cross-post to Threads. The feature is available to all users globally on iOS and Android devices. However, there’s no option to cross-post Instagram Reels to Threads.
How to cross-post Threads posts to Facebook
Threads cross-posting tests started rolling out to Facebook users in late February. Similar to how users can turn on the option for Instagram cross-posting, there is a new Threads option that users can enable when typing a post. At the top, next to options like “Only Me” and “Add an Album,” users should see the Threads logo with it either turned “On” or “Off.”
The feature only applies to text and link posts, not videos. The feature is available on Android, iOS and in all countries where Threads is available.
What is the point of cross-posting?
The ability to cross-post from Instagram and Facebook to Threads could simplify the posting process for content creators, social media managers and business owners, saving them valuable time and effort. Instead of creating different content for each platform, they can reach multiple audiences simultaneously with the same post.
However, it’s important to consider if posting the same content across platforms is the right strategy for certain posts, as they may not translate well. For example, an Instagram post with a bunch of hashtags may look odd on Threads since it’ll appear as plain text. Threads has tags, but they don’t use the hash symbol.
