Now piloting: Substack Threads
A new way to cultivate conversations and community with your subscribers
Update: The Threads pilot has concluded and launched under a new name, Substack Chat.
Today we’re introducing Substack Threads: a feature we’re testing that gives writers a dedicated space to host richer conversations with subscribers.
As we said recently, we’ve seen many successful Substacks evolve into far more than just an email newsletter. Writers are hosting book clubs, live events with subscribers, and sourcing ideas and inspiration directly from their reader communities. There is great beauty and power in writers having their own “private social network,” where they set the rules of engagement, and where they own the relationships with all the members.
With Threads, we hope to make it simpler than ever to connect with the people who care the most about your work—all in an intimate, controlled, and private space. You can interact casually with subscribers and cultivate a vibrant paid community without having to compete in a news feed algorithmically optimized for engagement.
To begin, we’ve added a new Threads tab to the Substack app for iOS for a select group of publications and their readers. Each Substack in the pilot gets its own Thread, a dedicated space where writers can kickstart conversations. When writers share text, images, and links directly from the app, readers can react and reply.
We take seriously the challenge of designing vibrant and healthy spaces for conversations on Substack, so we’re starting small and plan to evolve the product and expand the pilot as we learn from writers’ experiences.
The partner publications who are helping us build this feature are role models for community-building on Substack. They will be launching their Threads over the next couple weeks, and you can subscribe to join the conversation:
Terrell Johnson’s The Half Marathoner covers running, reading, and living
Suleika Jaouad’s The Isolation Journals transforms life’s interruptions into creative grist
Darryl Cooper’s Martyr Made podcasts on history, religion, nationalism and identity
Elle Griffin’s The Novelleist discusses being an artist in the age of the internet
Marc Stein’s The Stein Line shares insider coverage of the NBA
Bill Bishop’s Sinocism is helping you get smarter about China
Haley Nahman’s Maybe Baby chips away at the inscrutability of modern life and popular culture
Update: The Threads pilot has concluded and launched under a new name, Substack Chat.
So excited for this. Can't wait to see what all these wonderful writers and communities do with Threads <3
This is tremendous. Excited to see how it develops!
This sounds like something that should work! Best wishes with the Beta testing.
Building a community around my art/newsletter is important to me. I applaud your efforts to that effect.
Hopefully the Substack Android app with the new Threads feature comes out soon
Working on web & android access to Threads is definitely a priority to us!
If it's viable I would certainly use Polls to interact with my readers on a more regular basis. Polls within posts themselves seems not as immersive as I had hoped thus far for my audience.
I know what a Twitter thread is but still not able to picture easily what this is. Since I cover breaking News in the A.I. and tech space, I could see myself using this I think in that context.
You can subscribe to one of the pilot publications to check out what Threads look like in action :)
Thank you Jasmine, for a second there I thought this was something new besides the discussion threads already possible. Curiously they seem to perform better to a micro niche, than more general category topics from my research thus far.
Oh it is a new feature! Subscribe to one of those publications, then restart your Substack app and you should see the new space.
I guess where it makes the most sense is when other writers are your actual audience and readers. You'd need a critical mass to adopt the app and topical discovery that makes sense on mobile. I haven't yet seen the app so I cannot really comment (I'm not an iOS user). I'm not 100% certain "Threads" is the right name for this feature.
Such a great feature - excited about trying it
What a hell of a great idea!
Would someone like to collaborate with me? I have a new Substack and am looking to grow! Open to any ideas or feedback.
Thank you!
jaroslavnovosyolov.substack.com
Interesting! Any (rough) idea on when a full rollout might happen?
Hopefully within a few months, but it depends how the pilot goes and what we learn!
I think I'll give this a shot over the next few days! Very cool to see Substack piloting features like this. There seems to be such positivity in this community, that's inherent in how the platform was built. Will be curious to see how behavior continues to evolve with features like this. Anybody doing well "threads" out there?
I'm new to Substack - not even a month yet - and I'm having trouble understanding how threads differ from a regular post. I published one thread just to see what happened and the process was the same I think? I looked at some of the examples linked in the article and they also look the same as a regular post. Can you help me understand the differentiator and how it might enhance my readers' experience? Thank you.
Quick question - on Elle Griffin’s substack, the top menu items have custom names... is that a feature that will be rolled out (or is it something i've missed).
Do you mean publication sections? https://on.substack.com/p/a-guide-to-publication-sections/
I have already been using this and created a separate section on my stack that is only focused on "Discussions" or Threads: https://ti0x.substack.com/s/discussions
I love this feature and invite you'll to participate :)
I don't trust or recommend apps. The only ones I use come with my Apple devices.
I've been online only about 40 years, so I have a lot to learn.
At this point, I think the best use of my time is to produce good content that keeps readers coming back for more. Like most publications, my subscribers have a lot of other places to go including some that have much more active and interesting comments sections than I'll ever have. Without message boards, however, none have real "communities." See wsj.com. NYT.com, WashingtonPost.com. SeekingAlpha.com.
Unless you have readers starting threads, asking each other questions and really talking to each other, you don't have a community.
In my experience and reading, I've learned that maybe 1% to 10% of a publication's readers will participate in a message board or a thread. I had a message board that had about 50% as many people as the number of subscribers to our affiliated and sponsoring parents magazine.
Now most magazines and newspapers have comments sections that are nowhere as reader friendly or inviting as message boards. It is very difficult to form communities on comments sections whereas it used to be easy on message boards. Boards are much more complex and difficult to administer than comments sections.
It appears that only authors can start and moderate threads?
The app isn't like a message board where members can start threads?
If a thread is started in the app, can readers on computers participate in the thread?
Can an author create and manage threads on a computer, or does it all have to be done on an app/
Do terms and conditions for Substack and its apps promise to protect readers and authors from being tracked by Substack, its authors or spammers, etc.?
Are Substack products, including apps, in compliance with Apple's terms of conditions for privacy?
My readers are very sophisticated about identity theft and tracking.
So, I like this idea, but is it only available on a paid basis? My substack is free and I’d hate to paywall something like that for my subscribers…
Nope, writers can choose to make posts in their threads space either free or paid.
Ok, my misunderstanding. Cool, thanks!
I've subscribed to The Novelleist (and have been subscribed to Sinocism) to check out how the new Threads look, but I can't find them in my app. The publications' homepages look like they used to. Any advice?
More details: found a link to The Novelleist's thread in the welcome email. When I click on it, I get to a page that invites me to either "Get the app" or "Open now" in the Substack app. The first link redirects to the app store, the other simply refreshes the page, not leading anywhere.
Hmm weird. The Threads should appear in a second tab at the bottom of the app, not their publication homepages. I'd try force quitting and reopening the app (swipe up to close, not uninstall) and see if that makes it appear?
How do I write another article