Your Brand Has a Reddit Problem

Consumer habits are shifting at pace.

Already it is becoming second nature to pick up your phone and have a friendly conversation with your AI chatbot of choice, be it ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini. We are beginning to trust (critical word in all this) these platforms to quickly retrieve information we can rely upon. 

OK, but where does Reddit come into this?

Reddit is now bigger than TikTok in the UK and is fast becoming the ONLY place consumers trust to find authentic, real reviews and recommendations. 

The frontier LLM’s, in their quest for finding the truth amongst the noise, have figured this out. Reddit is consistently in the top 3 platforms cited by LLMs along with Wikipedia and Linkedin. 

The role this platform plays in the modern marketing funnel cannot be overstated. So this week I'm unpicking it with Rob Fawkes, our friendly Reddit expert.

Hey, I’m Rob and Reddit is my thing.

I was talking to a friend of mine who’s a researcher at a top London university. She was involved in a project that was looking at health misinformation on TikTok, and was running focus groups with Gen Z participants to understand their relationship with the platform. Something interesting was coming out. The participants were all saying versions of the same thing. 

‘I never buy anything directly from TikTok anymore. If I see a product that looks good, I go to Reddit to see if it’s legit.’ 

Fascinating, I thought, and I have to admit, I got excited, because I’ve known the value of real people talking in online communities for years. Perhaps now, Reddit was bringing that powerful consideration layer to a scale we’d not seen before. 

Were we seeing the birth of a new social funnel? 

Broadcast Platform -—> Conversation platform-—> Purchase? 

I decided to investigate further. First, in my own micro way, I’d been considering upgrading my kitchen pans, and of course as you all know, that meant that my feed was full of ads from businesses who had my data, and were now vying for them to be selected. 

It was HexClad that was doing the best job on me. A ‘revolutionary’ new coating that’s both non stick AND robust enough to use metal implements on. Three Michelin star chefs like Gordon Ramsey and Grant Achatz were there promoting them as the ‘only pan’ they used in their kitchens. They were expensive I tell you. But I didn’t mind if they were going to last. ‘I’ll just quickly check Reddit’...

‘What Hell is this?’. In less than 5 minutes, HexClad’s reputation was in tatters for this potential customer. Hundreds of real customers were sharing their experience. Poor performance, coating coming off, awful customer service. Yikes! My search continues - hit me up if you have a pan you swear by! 

It’s a small example, but powerful. Like the participants in the research project, it was the views of real people on Reddit that swayed my purchase decision. And those marketing dollars pumping my feed with ads had been wasted. 

Reddit’s unique position in 2026

Let’s dive deeper into Reddit, and how, in our AI powered world, it might be the platform that needs the most attention from brands. Reddit has experienced explosive growth in the last couple of years. In the UK, it’s now bigger than TikTok, and occupies 4th place in the most visited social media platforms. 

People are wise to review sites being gamed, and influencers in paid partnerships to promote products. 

So Reddit is fast becoming the ONLY place consumers trust to find authentic, real reviews and recommendations. That’s one side of the story, but there’s another side:

LLMs Love Reddit

Reddit is powering AI search. The platform is consistently in the top 3 platforms cited by LLMs along with Wikipedia and Linkedin. There’s a theme there isn’t there? The places where real humans share their real thoughts. Well, maybe on Linkedin it’s their real thoughts about how their dog’s kidney operation taught them about B2B marketing, but you get my point. 

LLMs are citing Reddit because it’s a rich seam of authentic human experience. Most content is questions and answer format, so it maps perfectly to those chat window queries.

So, what does it mean for your brand?

Well to use my HexClad example again. It means that when I ask ChatGPT or Claude what the best kitchen pans are within my budget, it sure as hell isn’t going to answer HexClad. That’s a problem for them to solve. But what happens once they solve their product problem and the pans start to live up to the performance? Now they’re going to be fighting a swathe of information about how poor their pans are, even if they’re not.

They need a Reddit strategy and engagement plan. Here’s how you can start thinking about yours…

IMPORTANT

Reddit is not your average social media platform. DO NOT under any circumstances jump in and start posting your content from TikTok or Instagram. You will get rinsed. Reddit is a community platform, if you’re going to join in, you need to do it right. Follow these steps to avoid a disaster. 

1 - Listen First

Every marketer, and I mean EVERY marketer, should at least set up a Reddit Pro account and start tracking your keywords. It’s free, and even the most basic insights are a good starting point. Here’s the summary of top discussions on ‘Snacks’ from Reddit pro. 

Listening first is essential to learn about the unique culture of Reddit as it relates to your brand, start identifying pain and passion points, and start laying a foundation for you to actually engage. 

2- Moderator (Mod) Relationship Building

Every community on Reddit (called a Subreddit, or ‘Sub’) has a moderator (Mod). Some have a handful. These are volunteers who give up their time to manage and moderate the space in line with the community’s needs. The first step for you engaging as a brand is to get those Mods on side. Reach out to them privately, invite them onto a call, offer them something genuinely helpful like an inside track on your latest product, or an offer of time and effort to deal with common support questions and correct misinformation. Some will say no, but most in my experience are all too happy to have the help if you agree on the guidelines and rules of engagement. Remember, this is a place people come to for real experiences, they don’t want it to be sanitised by a brand’s legal team. 

3- Engagement and Activation

Next you can start doing the fun stuff! With the Mods on board, you can start planning exciting activations, content, and events with relevant communities on Reddit. This usually involves you creating an official brand ‘user’, clearly identifiable, which allows you to participate in the Subreddit. For great examples of brand user accounts on reddit - check the famous u/Keith_From_Sonos or the recently announced u/Arsenal. 

Most brands start with an AMA (Ask Me Anything). This is a simple Q&A format with a brand insider, or partner and always goes down well on Reddit. It’s also relatively low lift. 

We are starting to see more and more exciting activations on Reddit. I personally loved Skoda’s collaboration with r/cartalkuk, where Redditors designed a custom Skoda Octavia which they actually made available for purchase. Also worth a look is Tesco’s recent activation in line with their wider ‘Need Anything From Tesco?’ campaign. Rather than repurpose their broadcast creative, their Reddit ads featured an employee asking for feedback about how Tesco could genuinely improve. Redditors in their thousands suggested ideas, from food waste initiatives, to small changes to self checkout. 

4 - Advertise

This is a marketing and advertising newsletter after all, I haven’t forgotten about ads! Reddit gives you the opportunity to run your ads directly into 100k+ Subreddits. Reddit pro has some pretty decent suggestion features that will surface relevant communities for your brand. As with everything Reddit, spend the time to understand the unique culture first. A well designed Reddit ad can convert better than any other platform, but a bad one can get you a kicking. 

Increasingly brands need a Reddit strategy and engagement plan and that’s what we help brands with at Standing on Giants.

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