Since its start in 2005, Reddit has become a very popular website. Currently, it’s the third most-visited website in the US.
But what is Reddit? Is it a social media platform? A discussion board? A forum?
Well, it’s a bit of everything!
Reddit is a place where people from different backgrounds and life experiences congregate and share their thoughts and opinions.
It is increasingly becoming the de facto source for reliable information, with 90% of users reporting that they trust Reddit as a source to learn about new products and brands.
Why?
Well, Reddit has earned somewhat of a reputation for being more real—especially in comparison to TikTok and Instagram, which many believe to be full of undisclosed ads or inauthentic promotions.
Additionally, users on those platforms can filter their comments, potentially limiting discussion about a product. But on Reddit, conversations about products, and any issues with them, happen often—and openly. In fact, 85% of Redditors believe users post things that are honest and truthful.
Due to its increased popularity, and the increased desire for authenticity, it’s no surprise that Google began prioritizing Reddit after a few core updates rolled out that focused on rewarding genuinely helpful content.
Countless memes show the nearly universal experience of adding “Reddit” to the end of a search to get real answers.
3 out of 4 shoppers who use Reddit say that they can make faster purchases based on insight from fellow Reddit users’ experiences.
And it makes sense; people are more likely to trust recommendations from real people… even if those real people are strangers on the internet. So, when you want to know what the best hiking boot is, sometimes the answer is a two-year-old Reddit thread.
But, what does all this have to do with your business?
What Can Utilizing Reddit Accomplish?
Reddit offers immense value for a small business when it comes to connecting with—and learning from—your client base and audience.
Whether it’s insight gained directly (by users talking about your company specifically) or indirectly (by users talking about your industry as a whole), using Reddit can help you:
- Spread brand awareness
- Expand your reach
- Tap into undiscovered audiences
- Understand your clients (and market to them effectively!)
- Make impactful changes based on what you learn
There are a few different ways that small business owners can use Reddit, but in this post, we’ll focus on the more organic (see: unpaid/free) ways.
But first, the basics…
If you’re well-versed in Reddit, click here to skip past the basics!
Reddit Basics
While Reddit is relatively straightforward, some of the concepts and nuances of using it can come with a bit of a learning curve. So, here’s a quick list of key terms to know.
- Subreddit: Individual communities dedicated to a specific topic or area, each with their own rules and guidelines.
- Communities: Another term for subreddits.
- Moderators/Mods: A fellow Redditor who helps run a particular subreddit. They’re in charge of enforcing rules and keeping the subreddit in order.
- Posts: Text or media posted to a subreddit.
- Threads: Comments, as a whole, on a post.
- OP: Original poster.
- DM/PM: Direct message or private message.
- Spam: Irrelevant or annoying posts/comments that are posted repeatedly. For example commenting “Check out my website!!!!!!!!” on every new post on r/SEO.
- Lurking: Browsing and reading posts and comments without actively participating or engaging.
- Upvote: A way to show approval or agreement with a post or comment—typically shown as an up arrow.
- Downvote: A way to show disapproval or disagreement with a post or comment—typically shown as a down arrow.
- Karma: A number reflective of the amount of upvotes or downvotes your posts and comments get.
- Reddiquette: An informal set of guidelines for proper Reddit etiquette (hence the name).
Reddit Rules
Whether you’re posting or commenting, it’s important to adhere to both Reddit’s rules and any specific subreddit rules.
Subreddit rules can apply to content posted, such as relegating certain types of posts to specific days, or user behavior, such as no self-promotion.
Don’t worry—chances are, after spending some time on your preferred subreddits, you’ll get to know the rules. Plus, you can easily find the rules listed on the sidebar section on desktop, or by clicking “See More” on mobile.
Honestly, a lot of it is basic behavior—be kind, don’t be antagonistic, avoid being spammy, etc. As long as you practice good Reddiquette, you’re good to go!
Voting and Karma
Posts and comments on Reddit can be voted on with upvotes (yay 😀 👍) or downvotes (boo 🙁 👎).
These votes can have a profound impact—in fact, one comment from EA holds the Guinness World Record for the most downvoted comment in Reddit history, with negative 668,000 karma.
Yikes.
Outside of record-breaking achievements, votes impact two things: visibility and karma.
When content is upvoted, it increases the visibility of that content within the thread, subreddit, and on Reddit as a whole. When content is downvoted, it decreases the visibility of that content in the same way. This means that heavily downvoted comments can be buried (hidden).
Now, karma is a reflection of the amount of upvotes or downvotes your content gets. Every user will have post karma and comment karma.
While karma isn’t the most crucial factor on Reddit, it is still important. Some subreddits require a minimum amount of karma to post or comment, so your karma level can affect your ability to participate in those communities.
Navigating Reddit’s Search Function
When it comes to searching for something on Reddit, you can either use Reddit’s search function, or search “inquiry+Reddit” on Google.
If you’re using Reddit’s search feature, you have a few different options when viewing results. After hitting enter on your search, you can narrow your results by clicking certain tabs. The main ones you’ll want to focus on are:
- Posts: Will show you different posts, from any subreddits, that mention whatever you search.
- Communities: Will show you different communities (AKA subreddits) related to your search.
- Comments: Will show you comments on any post from any subreddit that mentions whatever you search.
Using this function can help you discover subreddits you may not have known existed, helping you reach and connect with different segments of your audience.
What Subreddits Should You Be On?
Users post on subreddits, and those posts can be commented on, shared across different social media channels, or cross-posted (shared) into other subreddits.
As of right now, Reddit has more than 138,000 active subreddits.
There’s seriously a subreddit for everything—sometimes, even one topic will have multiple subreddits.
Most subreddits are about general interests or areas—for example, r/SkincareAddiction, r/crossfit, and r/TheBear.
However, some brands create their own subreddits.
A great example is Nordstrom; they launched their subreddit, r/Nordstrom1901, in 2014 as a place for discussion about anything and everything Nordstrom.
Similarly, there are customer-created subreddits, like r/amazonprime, that aren’t affiliated with the company in any way, but exist to provide assistance, air grievances, etc.
So…which ones should you be on?
Well, that’s up to you and your goals! When it comes to being a small business owner, there are three main groups of subreddits you could benefit from being on.
Subreddits for Small Business Owners
The first group has to do with small business ownership in general, and includes subreddits such as:
Basically, any subreddits relating to the business-side of your business. These will be great for gaining insight, keeping up on industry news, getting help, or even camaraderie amongst your fellow small business owners.
Industry-Related Subreddits
The second group has to do with your industry or area of expertise. So, for example, say your industry is flooring. Going to Reddit, searching “flooring,” and hitting the communities tab pulls up:
…Just to name a few.
By doing this, you can discover different subreddits that your audience is on, and even find some that are just for you and your fellow industry professionals.
It also helps to check out semi-related subreddits. I suggest starting with your niche, and then broadening into related areas. And Reddit makes it super easy!
When browsing subreddits on mobile, you’ll find a “Related Communities” section that shows communities it knows to be similar—think of it as a “users also search” feature.
Additionally, some subreddits have moderator-designated related subreddits, that appear in their sidebar on desktop, or in their “About” section on mobile.
Local Subreddits
The third group is local subreddits. For businesses with brick-and-mortar locations, these are invaluable in competitor research and gauging your communities’ thoughts on your business.
Depending on your location, you may have a few different options to choose from.
For example, Buffalo has r/Buffalo, but also r/upstate_new_york (even though we’re technically western New York).
To start, you can take a look at what your local community has to say about your business/business type. As seen in the screenshot below, I’ve searched “plumber” in r/Buffalo and there are quite a few different threads.
You’ll likely find similar results—threads asking for recommendations, favorites, or places to avoid. If you have competitors in the same area, don’t forget to look them up as well, and see what people are saying.
Now that you have everything you need to find subreddits, it’s time to put them to use!
Using Reddit for Your Business
There are two main ways you can use Reddit to your advantage.
The first is using it passively, or, in Reddit terms, “lurking.” This means browsing and reading posts/comments without engaging beyond an upvote or downvote.
The other way is active engagement—AKA actively posting, commenting, and engaging with other users.
Both come with unique benefits, solidifying Reddit as a powerful tool.
Passive Engagement
If you want a way to use Reddit without commenting or posting, you’re in luck. Even just browsing pertinent subreddits can bring a wealth of information, ideas, and insights that you may have missed out on otherwise. While lurking doesn’t bring the same benefits as engaging, it does allow you to gain a deeper understanding of your audience—which you can use to guide future moves.
There are a few ways you can go about this: learning about your audience’s likes and dislikes, seeing what people are saying about your competitors, and good old-fashioned social listening.
Again, this is information gained by just sitting and scrolling on your phone or computer. It’s stuff you can do while you’re waiting at the dentist, or while you eat your lunch. No commenting, messaging, or posting required.
Gather Feedback
Reddit can help you get to know your audience in a way that you might not have otherwise. Since many people feel more comfortable expressing themselves online, Reddit can give you a look into more of their personal opinions and experiences—for example, financial constraints. Many users will candidly comment their personal hesitations, such as “This isn’t worth me spending $10 a month anymore.” or “If they offered a smaller set, I’d buy it.”
As a business owner, you’re not having direct conversations like these with your potential, or even current, customers. And while methods such as feedback forms and surveys can get this information, those take time, money, and resources—plus, some customers may feel awkward answering candidly.
So, popping into related subreddits and reading some threads is a great way to gauge your audience. The feedback you gather will primarily fall into two categories: complaints and praise.
Complaints
Think of your audience—what are their day-to-day complaints? How do their complaints and problems impact your business?
These considerations, and more, can be explored by reading relevant posts and comments on Reddit (really). From there, you can use this information to inform your next steps, or to create content that directly speaks to those pain points.
So, a customer is complaining about their experience, and warning others about the company. That in itself is good insight, but in this case, a person from the company even replied—but more on that later.
For another example, let’s say you’re a dermatologist. In looking at a few different skincare-related subreddits, you notice that people constantly complain about being pushed to buy a multitude of products at the end of their dermatology appointments. So, what can you do with this? Well, you could:
- Offer samples of products so clients can try before they buy.
- Ask the manufacturer for coupons to give to clients.
- Have a list of online pharmacies, such as GoodRX, for less-costly prescriptions.
- Keep a list of less-expensive alternatives or “dupes” for items.
- Write a blog about your favorite drugstore skincare products.
In addition to outright complaints, Reddit is also a great space for people to vent their not-quite-complaints—things that may not warrant reaching out to the company or complaining publicly, but are too big to just ignore. And sometimes people will even go to Reddit to check if anyone else has encountered their same issue in order to find potential solutions.
All of this can help you identify issues your customers face that might not even be on your radar. And whether this leads to changes in your products, or more education about your product, using this information can make your audience feel seen, heard, and acknowledged.
Praise
If nothing else, Redditors are vocal about their thoughts. So, while this can often mean complaining, or venting about negative experiences, it can also mean praising businesses or products.
What makes people support a brand can be incredibly specific, and for some, they’ll stick with a brand or company even if it means paying more or waiting longer.
To get more insight on what your audience values, try searching questions such as “What brand won you over?” or “What brand are you loyal to?” on Reddit as a whole, and read through some of the recent popular threads. The reasons people give for their loyalty can range from personal (and touching!) anecdotes, to “It’s just better than the rest.”
Competitor Research
Reddit is incredibly helpful when it comes to keeping tabs on your competitors. The best way to do so is by taking a look at industry subreddits and searching your competitors names.
For example, if you’re an online aquarium accessories store, head to r/Aquariums and search your competitor’s names. What do they have that you don’t? What makes customers choose them instead of you? How have they won your audience, and how can you win them back?
As you search, pay attention to any posts asking for opinions on a specific product, brand, or service. These types of posts (and their comments) can be very telling and often include comments detailing why someone chose a specific company/product over another. The reasons given can be anything from prices, a negative experience, or sometimes, it boils down to “They have a great rewards program.”
The insider knowledge gained can not only help you identify new competitors, but identify what it is that makes your competitors the preferred choice. From there, you can use that information to help you structure sales, adjust pricing, or add more to a specific offering.
Whatever the outcome, it’s definitely worth it to search for—and utilize—this information.
Social Listening
Being a small business owner is hard, and it comes with no shortage of things that need your full attention. So when you’re deeply focused on your business, it’s easy to feel disconnected from your audience. After all, you’re focusing on the big picture!
And while this is fairly normal, being in tune with your audience is crucial. That’s where social listening comes in.
Social listening refers to the real-time monitoring of conversations on social media to gather audience opinions, feedback, and discussions. It’s sort of like eavesdropping, but in a mutually beneficial way.
It can help you understand your audience’s behavior, identify opportunities, and inform your decisions.
A great example of this is Watcher and The Try Guys.
Watcher Entertainment is a digital media company that found success on YouTube back in 2020. But in April of 2024, Watcher announced their departure from YouTube to their own paid streaming service. To their surprise, this announcement resulted in widespread backlash. Why?
Well, let’s rewind to a few months before the launch when Watcher was teasing this big announcement. In response to all of these teaser posts, there were countless comments on their subreddit saying “I hope it isn’t a streaming service,” with many different reasons given for why.
So, they ignored fans’ concerns, launched their streaming service anyway, and it went…very poorly. So much so, that the moderators of their subreddit created and pinned a “reactions megathread” as a result of the sheer volume of complaints. All that to say, this was a huge fail, and lost Watcher many, many loyal subscribers.
Now a month later, The Try Guys, another (very similar) digital media company, announced their own streaming service. Despite some fan overlap, the Try Guys’ announcement was received more positively.
Why?
Well, the Try Guys saw the mistakes Watcher made and made it a point to clearly address key concerns raised by fans, both in their business approach and in their announcement. Plus, one of their members is a frequent lurker on their subreddit, and openly talks about reading audience feedback—and taking it seriously.
Now, I’m not saying you should base your business entirely on what people on Reddit are saying. But by using Reddit as a social listening tool, you’ll have access to more real-time insights and community feedback.
Note: It’s important to remember that people sometimes use Reddit as a place to vent their frustrations unabashedly, so one negative comment doesn’t mean you have to scrap everything and start over!
Active Engagement
The other way to use Reddit to your advantage is by actively engaging via commenting and posting. This method offers different benefits than lurking—namely providing opportunities to directly connect with your audience, and spreading awareness of your company.
Commenting
If you want to be more involved, even just commenting on Reddit can help your business… if it’s the right type of comment of course.
Self-Promotion
Promotional commenting is exactly as it sounds.
While there are certainly opportunities for this, it’s important to remember that Reddit (and Redditors) can be very critical of spam, and anything seen as spam.
As such, it’s really only of benefit in specific instances, for example, the weekly “Promote Your Business” thread on r/smallbusiness. Or, if your product/service really is a perfect fit for their needs.
And if you’re a local business, you may have opportunities to self-promote within local community subreddits or threads.
So, while these opportunities might not be as frequent, they’re still a great way to get your business out there!
Help and Insight
Everyone is tired of being sneakily sold to, so, if you’re not spending money outright on ads, your best bet is to just be kind and helpful with your Reddit presence.
But how do you balance meaningful time spent without using self-promotion?
Well, it’s all about how you say things. For the most part, that will look like commenting on threads where your expertise will come in handy, with genuine answers and advice. Take it from a fellow Redditor:
“I get a few clients a month from [commenting on Reddit]. I build websites for small businesses, and I like to comment on people’s posts asking for help about their websites and SEO on this sub and others. I tell them what’s all wrong with their site, why it’s wrong, and everything they need to do to fix it…. Just being helpful. People read it and some of them reach out to me to ask what I’d do for their sites or just want me to make it because they like the way I do things and don’t have time to do it themselves. I just see it as good karma comin’ back from the universe.”
To see this philosophy in action, take a look at this example.
A poster in r/Tenant posted a question about security deposit charges, and a PA attorney replied.
Now, what makes this comment better than just “In my experience, it’s XYZ.” or “I offer free consults at my firm, give me a call?”
By all accounts, those should/would be fine—after all, it’s not like you’re saying, “I have a paywalled newsletter that goes over this!” or anything. But neither of those options really hit the mark the way this comment does. Let’s break it down:
- Lead with expertise: The first thing the user does is clearly state his experience, showing the OP why they should pay attention to this advice.
- Providing additional information: This is a specific situation, and rather than saying “there are too many variables here,” the attorney states why there isn’t a definitive answer—and provides an example for extra clarity.
- Address question/concerns: Without the full information, the commentator can’t answer the OP’s question exactly—but he still provides an answer based on similar cases he’s seen.
- Offer help (on-site): The commenter extends an invitation to DM him for more help. This is key—his help isn’t in his newsletter, on his Instagram, or via a scheduled call. His help is right here on Reddit, showing a willingness to help, and help fast.
- Reaffirm expertise: And, just for good measure, the commenter further shows his expertise on this specific issue. This also reaffirms his willingness and ability to help.
So, if clear direction helps you (like it does me), the above breakdown can serve as a good guideline for commenting.
If you want a guideline on what not to do, check out this thread, where a customer posted about a negative experience with a company. The owner’s defensive response not only alienated the customer but also discouraged past, present, and future customers from doing business with them.
Tip: Just like in real life, a little kindness goes a long way. Swapping out a “Contact me today,” for a “Best of luck! If you need more help, feel free to send me a DM,” can do wonders.
Posting
Posting on Reddit is the “final boss” of using it, so to speak. It’s definitely the most involved—you’re making the post, then reading and replying to comments.
Just like commenting, it’s important to keep in mind the general nature of Reddit. As someone who has had a Reddit account for far, far too long, I have seen many businesses use Reddit—and to be honest, I’ve seen it go both ways.
As I’ve said, Reddit can be fickle, and some people feel comfortable being mean or rude behind the shield of their screen. Or sometimes posts don’t get any attention at all—I’ve seen posts that are years old with no comments.
It’s about reading the room (or, in this case, the subreddit) and making sure that whatever you’re doing, you’re providing value, and you feel comfortable doing it.
Post Ideas
Using my [redacted] years of experience with Reddit, I can say that your best course of action when posting on Reddit is to be genuine and focus on connecting with people.
What should you be posting? Well, as I’ve said, it’s important to make sure you’re adhering to rules. Other than that, the world is your oyster!
There are so many types of posts you can make. For example:
- Announcements: Posting on your local subreddit to announce an event you’re hosting.
- Getting Input for Business Decisions: Asking for feedback on variety pack options for your candy company.
- Behind the Scenes: Posting a timelapse video of you decorating a tiered cake.
- Share Advice/Tips: Posting advice for doing DIY projects solo, and providing tips or tools that would help.
- Showing Your Work: Showing a picture of a client’s driveway before your company power washed it and after.
- Connecting With Your Community: Posting in r/smallbusiness to connect with fellow small business owners.
- Promotion: Posting photos of a piece of furniture you’ve refinished, and linking to your Instagram.
Even making a post sharing some exciting news can lead to an outpour of support, tips, and well-deserved kudos.
Now, let’s talk about AMAs (“Ask Me Anything”). AMAs are essentially a Q&A session between the poster and any commenters, and they come up a lot when searching about what to post on Reddit.
Here’s my two cents: they aren’t worth it. There’s a lot that goes into them, and a lot that can go wrong—like the infamous Woody Harrelson AMA.
So, in my opinion, your time is better spent using any of the methods above.
Final Thoughts
Overall, Reddit is a really, really, great tool for small business owners. There are countless ways to use it in any setting, making it even more accessible than other options. So, as you go to start your Reddit journey, I’ll leave you with the most important piece of advice….
Be careful not to get sucked in. Just like TikTok or Instagram, what starts as a quick browse can turn into 30+ minutes (ask me how I know).
Other than that, enjoy!
