Reddit Explained: An Introduction to the Front Page of the Internet

Reddit is a social news aggregation, content rating, and discussion website. That’s a fancy way of saying it’s a giant online forum where people can anonymously share and discuss all sorts of things.

Reddit’s user base is massive: it has over 50 million daily active users, 1 billion+ unique monthly visitors, and is ranked the 9th most popular social media platform in the US (with 25% of all US adults owning an account).

And that’s no exaggeration. Reddit does have a community for anything and everything you can think about. The popular saying, “there’s a subreddit for everything” is by no means an overstatement.

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How Reddit works

Reddit users can post anything from links and text posts to images and videos in a forum of their choosing. Other users can then upvote it (which means they like it) or downvote it (which means they don’t).

Posts are organized by subject matter into boards created by users called subreddits or communities, which are moderated by administrators. Subreddits begin with /r/ followed by the forum name.

As an example, check out the social media marketing subreddit: r/SocialMediaMarketing

The more upvotes a post has, the closer it appears to the top of its subreddit. And if it gets enough upvotes, it could end up on the front page of Reddit‌ — ‌ aptly, Reddit’s tagline is “the front page of the internet.”

As you can already tell, there’s a lot of lingo to pick up to get the most out of Reddit — so, at the end of this post, there’s a glossary of terms that haven’t been explained so far.

Reddit quick facts

What are the benefits of using Reddit?

Reddit’s primary benefit as a social media platform is that it offers something for everyone, no matter how obscure your interests are. With the vast array of subreddits available, you’ll no doubt find one with like-minded people and that aligns with your brand. Whether you’re into gaming, anime, or knitting, there’s a subreddit for you.

Beyond that, it goes without saying that Reddit’s massive user base means you can reach and engage a large audience with your content.

The discussion-focused nature of the platform means you can answer questions and get real-time feedback from real people, and that makes it an excellent platform for testing ideas.

How to use Reddit for social media marketing

Here are a few tips on how to use Reddit for social media marketing:

Find relevant subreddits: The first step is finding relevant subreddits for your business. You can do this by searching for keywords related to your industry.
Participate in discussions: Once you’ve found relevant subreddits, start participating in discussions. They’re a great way to get to know your audience and build relationships.
Share your content: Don’t hesitate to share content on Reddit. Just make sure it’s relevant to the subreddit and it’s high quality.
Promote your brand: You can also promote your brand on Reddit by creating AMA (Ask Me Anything) sessions, running contests, and giving away prizes. Also, consider Reddit Ads. What’s more, you can create an official subreddit for your brand, and this is quite common, too. Brands like Everlane, Zappos, and League of Legends have official subreddits.

For more on incorporating Reddit into your marketing, check out the following posts:

Glossary of Reddit terms

OP (Original Poster): The person who created the original post that started a thread.
AMA (Ask Me Anything): A type of post where a user invites other users to ask them questions about a topic. AMAs are a great way to learn more about a specific topic or to get to know a user better.
Ban: A ban is a punishment that prevents a user from participating in a subreddit.
Flair: Flair is a short piece of text that can be added to a post or comment. Flair is often used to indicate the topic of a post or comment or to identify the user who posted it.
Karma: Karma is a measure of a user’s reputation on Reddit. It’s calculated based on the number of upvotes and downvotes a user’s posts and comments receive.

Reddit karma explained

Karma farmer: A karma farmer is a user who posts low-quality content in order to get more upvotes. Trust us — you don’t want to be seen as a karma farmer.
Mod: A mod, or moderator, is a user who is responsible for keeping a subreddit organized and safe. Mods have the power to remove posts and comments that violate the subreddit’s rules.
Modmail: Modmail is a private messaging system that allows mods to communicate with each other.
OC (Original Content): OC stands for “Original Content.” It’s used to indicate that a post or comment was created by the user who posted it.
Report: The report button is used to report a post or comment that violates the subreddit’s rules.
Shadowban: A shadowban is a punishment that prevents a user from seeing their own posts and comments. Other users can still see the posts and comments, but the user who posted them cannot.
TLDR (Too Long, Didn’t Read): TLDR stands for “too long, didn’t read.” It’s a short summary of a post or comment that is intended to help users who do not want to read the entire thing.
Troll: A troll is a user who posts inflammatory or disruptive content in order to provoke a reaction from other users.

Wrapping up

No doubt, Reddit is a powerful tool for social media marketing. Hopefully, this post has shed some light on what it is and how you can leverage it to market your business, reach and engage with a wider audience, and promote your brand.

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