IMO*, to ELI5*, not all brands need Reddit marketing, CMV*. No idea what I just said? You’ve got a lot to learn about Reddit (and what it can do for you).
The kingdom of acronyms and originator of the “Ask Me Anything” post, Reddit now offers many business-friendly features like advertising while still retaining its old-school forum roots.
Reddit isn’t often first in marketers’ minds, but for the right type of business, it can really pay off. Here’s how to know if Reddit marketing is right for you and examples to get started (that won’t get you roasted).
*IMO =in my opinion, ELI5 = explain like I’m five (years old), CMV = change my view.
Key takeaways
- While Reddit isn’t a fit for all brands, it offers exciting opportunities for businesses looking to build authentic connections with niche communities.
- Reddit’s organic discussions are full of unique audience insights, making it a valuable tool for social listening.
- Engaging in Reddit communities by sharing expertise and being genuinely helpful — rather than explicitly promoting a brand, product or service — builds trust and brand loyalty over time.
Is Reddit a good platform for marketing?
Reddit is… interesting. As a Redditor myself, I take pride in being part of a social platform known for its often humor-driven, niche communities (called subreddits).
Redditors have a reputation as being a bit of a tough crowd, but generally are a collection of real, down-to-earth people (mostly) who don’t shock easily or judge a book by its cover (except on r/TerribleBookCovers, naturally).
That’s another thing about Reddit: there’s a subreddit for everything. Everything. Including things that probably shouldn’t exist, but hey, you do you, friends.
To explain Reddit in a nutshell: It’s a forum-driven platform where people come to discuss the things they’re passionate about and connect with other like-minded people.
But is Reddit where you should market your business? For many brands, the answer is a resounding, “Yes!” for the authentic connections and brand equity you can build.
For other organizations who are a bit more le sérieux—central banks, the World Health Organization, etc—Reddit marketing is probably not your thing.
As with any social network, there are some platform-specific things to be aware of. Let’s get some Reddit lingo out of the way:
- AMAs: “Ask Me Anything” posts are everywhere now but they started on Reddit. Famous people and experts regularly turn to Reddit to share knowledge—including the then-current President of the United States, Barack Obama—plus there’s r/AMA for open discussions with people of all walks of life.
- Novelty accounts: Reddit accounts created for one sole purpose, usually to add colorful commentary to posts, such as u/look_of_disapproval which only comments this oldschool emoji face: ಠ_ಠ.
- Karma: Other Redditors can “upvote” or “downvote” your posts and comments which equates to your post and comment Karma scores. This is a numerical representation of how helpful/funny/probably cool you are. (Upvotes – Downvotes = Total Karma score.)
Source: u/Peak_Design on Reddit
There are also a few other things you should know about Reddit:
- You can advertise on Reddit.
- 90% of Redditors trust Reddit to learn about brands and they’re 27% more likely to purchase if they see an ad on Reddit vs. another platform.
- There are many separate, small Reddit communities (subreddits) where a Redditor starts a new topic (the “OP,” or Original Poster) and others discuss within that post in a threaded comment layout.
- Reddit received over 2.1 billion visits in 2023, making it one of the most popular websites in the world.
- Reddit has a user base of just over 500 million and is expected to keep increasing at its usual ~10% annual growth rate.
- Of those, 91 million are daily active users and people are using Reddit more than ever in 2024.
Source: Statista
Ready to dive into Reddit marketing? Here are 9 tips to get started with this often weird and wacky place.
Tips for Reddit marketing (that Redditors won’t hate)
Lurk and learn
Before you clickity clack and hit Post, take a good look around. The norms on Reddit are a little different than on other social platforms so you’ll want to observe the often unique culture of Reddit before trying to fit in.
Start by joining some subreddits relevant to your industry or business. Start with the subreddit for your city, if there is one and you have a local business. Or r/CreatorsAdvice if you offer anything content creators use, like software or keyboards, microphones, etc. You get the idea.
There are over 100,000 subreddits on Reddit in 2024; there are at least a few relevant to your organization.
Since Reddit has so many unique behaviors not found on more traditional social platforms—in Redditor terms: “rich internet lore”—it’s important to understand basic Reddit culture. (Tip: Check out r/NewToReddit.)
In fact, I’ll go so far as to say you shouldn’t engage in any Reddit marketing until you fully, and I mean fully, understand this post:
Source: r/AskReddit
Use Reddit for social listening
Reddit is a treasure trove of valuable insights from your target audience.
When people are considering a purchase, they turn to Reddit to ask for recommendations. When they have a problem with a product, they turn to Reddit to ask for help.
Reddit posts can tell you what your target audience wants most, why past customers stopped using your product, and what made people buy from you in the first place.
How can you gather all that info across all social media platforms, including Reddit, instantly and automatically? With social listening.
Social listening is the practice of searching for and analyzing brand mentions on social media sites, but doing this manually is inefficient to say the least.
Hootsuite Listening builds the world’s best social listening capabilities right into your Hootsuite dashboard, allowing you to discover content trends, what people are saying about you, and what your competitors are doing—automatically scanning over 2 billion sources every month, including Reddit!
Use the data you gather from social listening to inform and adjust your social media marketing strategy, including how you show up and market your business on Reddit.
Having social listening built into Hootsuite makes everything you need to do on social media faster, easier, and together in one app. To take listening to the next level, higher tier Hootsuite plans come with advanced capabilities like measuring your brand sentiment over time, identifying top influencers, and more. Book a free demo to see these features in action.
While Hootsuite Listening includes Reddit, you can also install the Reddit Hootsuite app to manually search keywords, or expand Hootsuite’s native Streams functionality with the Synapview app to monitor hashtags and competitors across Reddit, Pinterest, Instagram, and YouTube.
Avoid being too promotional
People added the word Reddit to the end of their Google search queries 32 billion times in 2023 because they want “a trusted second opinion before they buy.”
So instead of pushing out promotional content, focus on encouraging real customers to share their experiences. Ask questions, ask for feedback, respond to everyone, and get people talking about your brand and products.
Peak Design does a great job balancing promotion and authenticity by engaging with customers without pushing hard sales.
Source: r/PeakDesign on Reddit
Share your expertise (and reap the rewards)
People come to industry or product-related subreddits to learn something or get advice. The best strategy to support sales on Reddit is to find niche subreddits related to your products or services, hang out there, and genuinely drop in helpful tips where you can. Not to tack on a call to action at the end, but simply because you want to help.
Helping others = builds community.
Community = builds trust.
Trust = builds customer loyalty.
Reddit marketing is a long-term game, not a place to blitz generic content and get quick leads. You have to be here because you want to be here, or because you’re already a Redditor at heart.
If you can a) be genuinely helpful, and b) make a good product, Reddit can definitely be a key resource for building up brand loyalty and sales over time.
As Redditor Perllitte advises, “Pick a niche, dig in, and you’ll find tactics.”
Source: r/marketing on Reddit
Sharing helpful content on Reddit also comes with mega SEO perks. Google updated their algorithm in March and August 2024 to reduce what they describe as “low quality, unoriginal content” in search results by 45%.
What that means in practice is that ranking well on Google is less about keywords and fancy SEO tools and more about having actual experts write useful, original, and actionable content that people want in their lives.
Since that’s exactly what Reddit posts are—advice driven by personal experience—Reddit performance is on turbo in Google search results since the updates, with organic traffic skyrocketing in 2024 to essentially double 2023 levels.
(And with an average visit time of almost 19 minutes!)
Source: r/InterestingAsF*ck on Reddit
Use a personal account (and build Karma)
One of the most effective Reddit marketing strategies is to subtly promote your business from a personal account. This comes back to being a Redditor at heart.
If you enjoy being on Reddit, are up on the lingo, and are genuinely trying to discuss things with others, that’s going to come across from your posts and comments.
It’s not that you can’t be successful using your company name—many brands are, such as dbrand, Mint Mobile, and Nordstrom to name a few—but especially if you aren’t a well-known brand name already, personal may be the way to go.
You can still create a subreddit for your brand, and then use a personal account to interact with others in that subreddit and elsewhere on Reddit.
Redditor u/secretagentdad does that well with their company, Keyword Sheeter. They regularly post in large, relevant subreddits like r/SEO, and contribute to the brand’s subreddit with the same personal account.
Source: r/Sheeter on Reddit
At first glance to other Redditors, this looks less overtly promotional than a brand name jumping in to respond to posts. However, as with most things, the quality of your content matters much more than your name. If you focus on being genuinely helpful, people will respond positively to you, whether you use a personal account or brand name.
… and build community, too
Encourage your employees who are already Redditors to respond to posts in your organization’s subreddit too. This helps build community and shows your subreddit is active.
The biggest secret to building a strong community as a brand on Reddit is to be helpful, engaging, and consistent.
dbrand has such an active community because they answer posts and provide help, but also because they stay consistent to who they are. In their case, it’s often consistently (gently) insulting, which their Reddit audience understands. Customers love getting roasted by dbrand:
Source: r/dbrand on Reddit
Use Reddit ads
Building a community not your thing? You don’t have to run a subreddit. Successful Reddit marketing can be done the old fashioned way: paid advertising.
Current Reddit ad formats include text (promoted posts), image, video, product, carousel, and AMA ads in feeds, as well as conversation ads in comment threads. There are a variety of audience targeting options like other platforms, but there’s one feature that really stands out: you can target ads to run on specific subreddits.
Sell hiking boots? Run a paid ad on r/Hiking. Boom.
Reddit ads fit seamlessly among organic posts. Besides the small “Promoted” text at the top, it’s really difficult to tell them apart. This is especially a win if people start reading your ad and get hooked before they even realize it’s an ad.
Source: r/Notion on Reddit
Reddit ads can also feature large images or videos, which still look like organic posts, but offer a splashier way to capture attention. A bold graphic with a strong headline is your best bet for an image ad.
Source: u/Official_Captions_AI on Reddit
Track your Reddit ROI
Reddit marketing ROI can be tough to measure accurately. Before you can even try, you need to know what your goals are.
What do you want to get out of Reddit marketing? Is it to build a loyal community of brand advocates? Is it to increase leads or sales? Is it to talk to your audience and find out more about them?
Whatever your goals are, keep track of them. You can track progress in a spreadsheet (we have a free social media goals template for that) and pair it with analytics reports to get a picture of how well your current Reddit marketing strategy is performing.
Be open and honest
Reddit is all about discussion. While you should aim to be open and honest across all your platforms, it’s of the utmost importance on Reddit.
Being open and honest is an important building block of any community. By replying to every post and comment in your subreddit—and jumping into relevant discussions elsewhere on Reddit—you demonstrate openness and the personality behind your brand.
That includes how you respond to negative comments or feedback. Insta360 handles that well here by investigating, apologizing, and clarifying next steps.
Check our social media customer service guide for more tips on handling tricky online interactions.
Source: r/Insta360 on Reddit
4 Reddit examples from brands that get it
Mint Mobile’s customer-driven subreddit
Source: r/MintMobile on Reddit
Mint Mobile’s subreddit has over 42,000 members, is very active, and yet is not officially run by the brand. Customers created it themselves and, seeing its impact, Mint Mobile employees regularly contribute new posts and respond to comments.
While many posts center around tech support, customers also share positive news like the free jacket post above which is great brand advocacy.
Steal this strategy:
- See if there are already customer-led subreddits about your brand. Instead of creating your own, partner with them.
- For positive posts with photos or video, ask for permission to repost it to all your social channels as user-generated content.
Semrush’s helpful Reddit home base
Source: r/Semrush on Reddit
Semrush is actively involved in their official subreddit, regularly answering questions from customers and prospects. What makes their subreddit unique is the focus on education. They link detailed how-to guides in the featured section at the top as well as share blog-post style product updates to keep users informed.
Steal this strategy:
- Reddit can be a long-form content channel if you regularly share things like product/feature updates or news. Don’t be afraid to publish longer, informative posts.
Patagonia’s cross-promotional events
Source: r/Surfing on Reddit
Sustainable clothing and outdoor gear manufacturer Patagonia puts their money where their mouth is when it comes to supporting the environment. They regularly post content to educate consumers about environmental issues and outdoor sports.
To promote these films and by extension themselves, Patagonia hosts AMAs (Ask Me Anything threads) with notable people, like this event with director Stacy Peralta.
Steal this strategy:
- In addition to sharing events in your own subreddit, promote it in relevant subreddits, such as r/Surfing since this was a surfing-focused short film.
- Consider hosting an AMA as part of a launch strategy for a new product or event.
Cultivating community with Procreate
Source: r/Procreate on Reddit
iPad art app Procreate goes to great lengths to engage their community of artists on the platform. Besides encouraging Reddit users to post their work, Procreate offers a tagging system (known as “flair” on Reddit) to browse by different types of art and has a unique sidebar feature that shows the most upvoted (a.k.a. “liked”) artworks of the previous month.
Steal this strategy:
- Focus on your customers: What value can you give them in your subreddit? Make your content all about them and watch engagement grow.
Uplevel your Reddit marketing with automated social listening tools in Hootsuite to discover what people are saying about you. Plus, handle scheduling, advertising, and analytics across all your social platforms in one easy-to-use dashboard. Try Hootsuite free today.
