What to know before you post on Reddit

Part two on Reddit for affiliate publishers

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Hello! I’m back in your inboxes today with more on Reddit for affiliate publishers. Part one came out last month, focusing on what publishers can learn from Reddit’s gains in search, and how they can incorporate those learnings into their owned & operated content strategies. Today, we’re turning our focus to how publishers can organically engage on Reddit to connect with new audiences.

Over the last few years, digital publishers have put a greater emphasis on Reddit in their audience development strategies. The platform has almost 400M weekly active users, and it’s a valuable way to reach new audiences because much of its user base is unduplicated across other social platforms. For example, according to Comscore, 40% of Redditors are not on Instagram, and 59% are not on Pinterest. As the general trend in social media has shifted from reaching as many users as possible to forging deeper connections with a smaller, more engaged base, Reddit presents an opportunity for publishers to bring their brand and content to people with a demonstrated interest in the topics they cover.

People go to Reddit for conversation and community, a combination that lends itself well to product recommendations, a fact the company acknowledged in its Q4 shareholder letter, citing that “40% of internet users find a Reddit recommendation most influential to their decision when making a purchase.” The letter also highlighted the utility of Reddit Answers in surfacing product recommendations. (Launched in December, Reddit Answers is an AI-driven search tool that answers user queries by searching relevant Reddit posts.) Reddit is a particularly enticing platform for anyone who monetizes product reviews, but at the same time, its recommendations feel so trustworthy because they are all authentically user generated.

Reddit Answers in action. I often go to Reddit for running shoe recommendations.

Posting organically on Reddit as a brand is a hard nut to crack. Instead of simply publishing to a centralized feed where your post gets seen by your followers or other users the algorithm thinks might like it, you have to find a subReddit that aligns with your content. Once you find a relevant community, you have to read the guidelines, and, to be safe, reach out to the moderators to make sure they’re okay with a brand posting. If not, you’ll likely get banned from that subReddit. It’s quite the manual lift, and even if you follow all the rules, you’ll still probably get called out by at least one Redditor for posting “as a brand.” That’s par for the course, and I wouldn’t worry about it unless you’re routinely getting called out—if so, you’re probably not reading the room well. Of all the social platforms, it requires the highest degree of emotional intelligence.

Posting on Reddit as a brand requires you to read the room, or become a meme.

Because of the lift and nuances, you should clearly define from the outset how posting to Reddit will help you achieve your goals. Reddit is a good place for brand and community building; it’s not a platform for primarily driving clicks. Most subReddits prohibit the direct posting of affiliate links, and though many do allow you to post links to your site or another platform, like YouTube, it should be clear how that link creates value for the subReddit community. Redditors are hot house orchids! It’s important to maintain their trust and make them feel like you’re helping, not spamming, them. How to be proactive, but not pushy, in the eye of your brand’s orchids is the art.

Now, let’s take a look at how two major publishers in the product review space post on Reddit. Note that the analyses below are based on my own observations, so I’m deducing what each of their goals are.

The Wirecutter

Primary goal: Introduce the brand to new audiences

Grade: B

If there’s one thing the Wirecutter gets right, it’s brand building. Its Reddit strategy reads very “throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks,” but it all boils down to a top-of-funnel marketing goal of brand awareness. Its most successful post, in my opinion, is an AMA hosted by its gift guide writers that served as a gift giving hotline. Users mostly asked for advice about what to give specific people in their lives, and the writers linked directly to products in their responses but didn’t add affiliate links. Their detailed responses feel authentic, show off the brand’s market expertise, and maintain Redditors’ trust by not including any affiliate links (the writers also included very few links back to the Wirecutter’s website).

One of the trickier parts of posting to Reddit is finding communities where the users will welcome you as a brand. The Wirecutter has failed a few times at that. One of its sleep writers recently did an AMA in the mattress subReddit, a pretty controversial topic for a product review site to engage in, IMO. (Even my husband/this newsletter’s editor, a civilian to affiliate commerce, has a personal anecdote here—a story for another day.) Unsurprisingly, Redditors immediately questioned the brand’s independence in reviewing mattresses and took control of the conversation, forcing the writer to reinforce her position as the expert. The AMA reads very chaotic, after the fact.

Often, the more niche the subReddit, the more engagement you’ll get, but with a smaller audience. Mattresses aren’t as niche as say, pens, and I like how the Wirecutter linked to an article in r/pens about Ralph Nader’s pens. (Lol.) It got overall positive engagement from Redditors, with one user even asking for a follow-up to the original article. The article isn’t a core Wirecutter-style article that overtly recommends products to buy, which probably helped earn the trust of that subReddit. Its investigative nature helps position the brand as a journalistic authority, all while introducing it to new users.

Consumer Reports

Primary goal: Deepen engagement with target audiences

Grade: A

Consumer Reports’ Reddit strategy appears to be driven by a mission of building a deeper connection with target audiences, with an overarching goal of bringing those users to CR.com (and hopefully getting them to buy a subscription). It hosts a lot of product-adjacent AMAs that emphasize its consumer advocacy angle, a smart entry point on a platform where gaining user trust is paramount. That angle also helps it come across as more “man of the people” than “expert,” setting it up to have authentic conversations with users. This positioning is a key difference between CR and the Wirecutter. One isn’t necessarily better than the other—the Wirecutter’s expert tone helps with its brand marketing goal, while CR’s helps with its goal of building relationships with users.

I also noticed that almost all of its Reddit posts include links back to CR.com, and many of its AMAs revolve around a specific story, like this one about pet food safety. AMAs are a useful social marketing tool for stories that might get ignored on more mainstream platforms, like Instagram and Facebook. Reddit is a great place for publishers to bring content directly to passionate audiences who they know will find it valuable, like pet owners.

Overall, I think the Wirecutter and Consumer Reports are prioritizing the right goals with their Reddit strategies. Both brand building and deepening engagement with target audiences should be a higher priority for large affiliate-driven publishers as search traffic becomes more volatile and independent creators compete for influence. As a publisher, you want target users to seek out your recommendations when they need to buy something, and participating in Reddit communities can help foster that brand association. Reddit is also a powerful tool for community building, and I’ve seen a few instances of niche publishers/independent creators forming their own subReddits to bring audiences from various platforms into one place—see, for example, That Fit Friend’s subReddit. It’s an interesting concept that allows you to set the rules, drive traffic to more monetizable channels, and better understand your audience.

That’s all I’ve got for you today. If you’ve seen any other examples of affiliate publishers using Reddit, let’s talk about it!