Reddit is a social media website that allows people to anonymously manage, subscribe, and share website links, images, and text snippets inside of topic specific forums. Reddit has 234 million monthly unique users. Because of the anonymity of Reddit, the conversations there are extremely polarized.
Example of the Interface
Below is an example of a subreddit. The page is split into two primary columns. The left column has posts, and the right information and ads. Posts have votes to the left of them, individuals can choose to vote posts up or down, this results in a natural democracy of top posts.
Reddit's Key Attributes
- Anonymity is Encouraged
- All content is 100% public
- Public posting of links, images, videos, or text is available
- Reddit has a forum-like commenting system controlled by voting
- Voting changes comment position
Anonymity
The illusion of being anonymous makes users on this social channel fast to shut down anything they perceive as marketing, especially if the original poster (OP) is not candid that their post is in fact marketing. When users comment that a post feeling like marketing or sales jargon, they get reward points (Karma), so anything disingenuous goes unscathed.
Behaviors
Reddit operates just like a forum, except comments are easier and weighed by votes. People can uptick or downtick other users comments. So peoples popular opinion is often surfaced with votes on a comment other people agree with.
Reddit is a tricky format because people who use Reddit typically read the comments before following the posted link.
Marketers Take-aways
If there’s one thing a marketer should know about Reddit, it’s that honesty is rewarded. It’s hard to gang up on a person if they are being honest, but it’s easy to gang up on someone if their posts are perceived as devious. I.E. just looking for free links and traffic.
If you land a post that rises to the top, they typically do well for 24 hours.
Posts are archived after a certain period of time, at this point, voting and commenting are disabled.
Posts on Reddit do get indexed in search engines, so one popular post will continue to net value over time on specific keywords.
Don't be afraid to confront negative comments with threaded comments that include questions to learn more.
By Randy Apuzzo
Randy has had a penchant for computer programming from an early age and started applying his skills to build business software in 2004. Randy's stack of skills range from programming, system architecture, business know-how, to typographic design; which lends to a truly customer-centric and business effective software design. He leads the Zesty.io team as CEO.