09/03/2017 Tech Time – Reddit
Reddit is one of the largest online communities, with over 234 million unique users and 8 billion monthly pageviews. As a platform, Reddit would rank 7th behind Twitter (313M monthly active users) and Snapchat (303M monthly active users) in size.
But what is Reddit?
Reddit is the front page of the internet, it’s a large online community of users who submit content such as test posts, or web links, that are aggregated together and then voted on by its users (over 25 million votes are cast per day). As a result, the best content rises to the top and reach more people. That hilarious new meme or Game of Thrones fan theory that everyone is talking about usually starts on Reddit.
Reddit is broken up into a collection of subreddits. A subreddit is a subsection that is dedicated to specific topic (e.g. Movies, or cute animals) and can be created by anyone. A subreddit is created is when the discussion around a single topic becomes so large that it merits it’s own community open to people of all interest levels.
Once a subreddit is created, anyone can then subscribe to it. Subscribing to subreddits allows you to curate the content that matters most to you. You can subscribe to as many or as few subreddits as you prefer.
We frequently see subreddits created for movie franchises, television series, and video games. Some of the most active Reddit communities include AMC’s The Walking Dead (309K subscribers), Game Of Thrones (819K subscribers), Disney’s Star Wars (570K subscribers), and Riot’s League of Legends (699K subscribers).
2016 was the year that fan theories became virtually synonymous with Reddit as series like Westworld, Stranger Things, and Mr. Robot gained mainstream attention. With every new GoT (Game of Thrones) teaser, fans from all over are then sent into a frenzy trying to analyze every detail about the upcoming season of the show.
The best theories, voted on by the fans, rise to the top of the subreddit. If a thread is so popular, there is a possibility it could end up on Reddit’s front page for the world to see when they first arrive to the website.
Reddit’s co-founder Alexis Ohanian has said that “The future of content is no longer just ‘make it, lean back, and hope people like it. But rather ‘make it and engage with that community that loves what you’re doing.”
Westworld’s co-creator Jonathan Nolan has openly said that he browses Reddit between episodes to see what fans are saying and investigate himself whether or not audiences are picking up on the clues they’re leaving behind.
“The creators no longer have to appeal to the lowest common denominator, they can make stuff for the diehard fans, who will then decode and open the rest of our eyes up to it, and we all get to be a part of it, in real time. I think that’s exciting.” – Alexis Ohanian
We view Reddit as an important asset when examining the current landscape of a title we’re researching. As marketers, it is beneficial to see and hear from those closest to a property/brand as it enables us to create campaigns that specifically target a property’s core audience by getting insights directly from them. We’re able to have findings that we wouldn’t be able to learn anywhere else.
Reddit is a valuable asset for both creators and advertisers as it allows us to engage directly with our communities in way that isn’t possible on Facebook or Twitter. If the conversation isn’t happening on Reddit, it isn’t happening.