How Brands Succeed on Reddit

Social platforms are key marketing channels for ecommerce sellers. Among those channels is Reddit, which is chock-full of reviews that attract shoppers.

I addressed last month the benefits of Reddit to online sellers, describing five of my favorite ways to engage with members of the platform.

In this post, I’ll profile a few brands that use Reddit successfully, spreading awareness and driving traffic to their sites.

Terms to Know

• Mods. Short for moderators, these are volunteers who manage the subreddits.

• Thread. A specific discussion on Reddit. When you publish a post in a subreddit, you are creating a thread.

• Upvote. Akin to “liking” a post on Facebook or Instagram, users upvote a comment or post when they like it. This increases the post’s visibility.

• Downvote. The opposite of an upvote, downvotes reduce a post’s visibility.

• OP. Stands for “Original Poster.” The term refers to the person who first posted a thread.

• AMA. An acronym for “Ask Me Anything.” It is a popular subreddit for interactive interviews. The sessions are live and last an hour. Redditors ask the questions, and the host responds in real-time.

• Flair. Akin to a category, a flair tag can be added to a thread for users to filter based on their preferences.

Brands Finding Success with Subreddits

Microsoft’s primary subreddit provides support to its customers and prospects. Questions address software updates, new product launches, and various features. Plus, the subreddit helps Microsoft users connect.

We know this because we see that the moderators have pinned “Microsoft: Official Support Thread” at the top of the community board. We also see Microsoft mods pinning notices of special events.

The customer service shows Redditors that Microsoft is listening to them and wants to solve their problems. Microsoft also has a popular subreddit community for Xbox 360.

Microsoft’s primary subreddit provides support to its customers and prospects.

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Adobe Photoshop’s subreddit is organized into user-friendly categories — “flair” in Reddit-speak — all aimed at helping users of Photoshop learn more and request help.

Adobe also uses the popular subreddit to solicit customer feedback, asking, “What would you improve in Photoshop?”

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Spotify’s subreddit creates engagement by encouraging members to share their playlists. In 2014, Spotify asked Redditors 30 questions regarding songs and how we attach feelings to them. It garnered more than 10,000 submissions. Spotify then created a playlist based on the submissions! This campaign led to Spotify winning Reddit’s “Community Brand of the Year 2014” award.

Spotify’s subreddit creates engagement by encouraging members to share their playlists.

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Tushy, a direct-to-consumer bidet attachment company, has seen much success for years by hosting its own subreddit, which includes a link to a page on Tushy’s site customized for Redditors.

In November of 2020, Tushy debuted a sponsored post where it agreed to make a limited edition bidet that changed the “Bum Wash” label to “A** Blast” on the condition that the ad was upvoted 10,000 times. The challenge was met, and Tushy has said it will follow through with its promise.

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CeraVe, a skincare provider, is an excellent example of becoming popular without even trying! It’s the most mentioned brand on the r/SkincareAddiction subreddit, which has 1.4 million members. Tom Allison, CeraVe co-founder, told Modern Retail that “CeraVe has not put any paid support behind Reddit at this time,” noting that the brand drives awareness via word-of-mouth.

CeraVe is the most-mentioned brand on the r/SkincareAddiction subreddit.

Who’s Talking?

CeraVe lets users do the talking on Reddit. Are users discussing your company? Scour the threads and engage with people conversing about your products. If there are enough, it could be a sign to create your own subreddit.