Reddit Marketing Strategy: Most Brands Don’t Have One But Should Before They Fail

The Human Side of MarTech · Episode 54 · Guest: Jonny Waite, Co-Founder, RECHO

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A solid Reddit marketing strategy is now table stakes for brand visibility — but most marketers still treat it like a minefield they’d rather avoid. That gap is exactly what this episode is designed to close.

Jonny Waite is the co-founder of RECHO, one of the only full-service White Hat Reddit agencies in the US. He’s been in digital for 17 years — agency side, holding companies, Fortune 50 clients — and he’s built Reddit programs for some of the biggest brands in the world.

In this episode of The Human Side of MarTech, Jonny demystifies a platform that most marketers either fear or ignore — covering paid vs. organic Reddit strategy, how to engage without getting banned, and why the brands that start now will be very difficult to catch by 2027.

If you’re a brand marketer, agency leader, or trying to figure out where Reddit fits in your media mix, this one is worth your full attention.

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Episode Chapters

• 00:00 — Intro: Most marketers use Reddit personally but not professionally
• 01:00 — Welcome + Jonny’s Background
• 03:03 — Reddit 101: What It Actually Is
• 05:46 — Why People Trust Reddit
• 08:07 — Who Are the Lurkers?
• 09:34 — Reddit & AI Validation
• 11:37 — Paid vs. Organic Strategy
• 13:00 — How Reddit Ads Work
• 18:40 — Reddit for B2B
• 19:32 — Why Reddit Resurged
• 20:17 — Owned vs. Community Subreddits
• 25:07 — Reddit Ranking vs. Google Ranking
• 27:04 — The Nike Example
• 31:06 — AI Tools & Reddit
• 32:42 — Getting Started This Week
• 37:23 — Why Brands Quit Too Early
• 40:19 — Measuring Success
• 42:34 — Jonny’s Final Take
• 46:15 — The ChatGPT + Google Data Deals
• 47:04 — Where to Find Jonny

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10 Reddit Marketing Strategy Takeaways

1. Reddit Is Mainstream Now — And Most Brands Are Behind

Reddit has been around for nearly 20 years but exploded recently thanks to data licensing deals with Google and OpenAI. It’s no longer a niche platform for tech enthusiasts.

Half a billion weekly active users. 42% Gen Z. 40% Millennials. Most brands haven’t figured it out yet — which is the opportunity. Brands need to establish a Reddit marketing strategy.

2. People Go to Reddit to Validate AI Answers

62% of people who try to fact-check AI responses go to Reddit. That stat alone should change how brands think about the platform.

It’s not just a social channel — it’s where trust is built or broken in the AI era.

3. AI Slop Is Driving People Back to Human Conversation

The flood of AI-generated content has made people distrust polished brand content. Reddit’s anonymity and self-governance make it feel real. Brands that show up authentically benefit from that halo. Brands need a Reddit marketing strategy.

4. Paid and Organic Reddit Marketing Strategy Are Two Completely Different Things

Reddit ads are still cheap — spend is up 3x year over year but represents only about 2% of overall media mix. It’s a strong test channel.

Organic is where the real long-term value lives — but it’s nuanced, time-intensive, and easy to get wrong.

5. Most Brands Get Banned Because They Skip Relationship Building

The number one mistake: jumping into a subreddit only when your brand is mentioned. Reddit communities see right through it.

You need to be a consistent, helpful presence before you ever mention your product.

6. Reach Out to Moderators Before You Post

Moderators govern each subreddit independently. Being transparent about who you are and what you want to contribute goes a long way. Many will let brands engage if approached respectfully and honestly.

7. Start Small — 3 to 5 Subreddits Maximum

Pick smaller, less mission-critical subreddits first. If you make a mistake and get banned, it won’t tank your strategy.

Use it as a learning environment before going after the big communities.

8. Social Listening Is Your First Move

Before posting anything, onboard Reddit into your social listening platform. Understand how your brand, your competitors, and your category are being discussed.

That data tells you where to show up and what to say.

9. Build Authentically — The Benefits Follow

Don’t try to game Reddit like Google SEO. Brands that focus on genuine helpfulness naturally accumulate AI citations, Google visibility, and qualified referral traffic.

Trying to gamify it generally backfires.

10. The Window Is Closing

Jonny’s prediction: brands that invest seriously in Reddit now will have an 18-month head start on competitors by end of 2027.

That head start compounds — both in Reddit reputation and in AI training data. It will be very hard to catch up.

Your MarTech Stack Is Failing Quietly — Here’s How Enterprise Teams Fix It

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The Full Story

Why Reddit Is Having Its Moment

Reddit has been around for nearly 20 years, but it exploded in the last few years for one primary reason: data licensing deals with Google and OpenAI.

Reddit started showing up in nearly every Google search. Then ChatGPT launched and started citing Reddit constantly. People weren’t seeking out Reddit — they were discovering it through the tools they already used.

Couple that with a broader cultural shift. AI-generated content is everywhere. Influencer trust is eroding. People want to read how real humans think through a decision — not just get a confident answer from a machine. Reddit’s anonymous, self-governed communities fill that void.

The result: half a billion weekly active users. 42% Gen Z. 40% Millennials. And 62% of people who try to fact-check AI answers go to Reddit to do it.

Paid vs. Organic: Two Completely Different Conversations

Jonny was clear on this from the start. Reddit advertising and organic Reddit strategy are not the same thing, and confusing them is where most brands stumble.

On the paid side, Reddit is still relatively cheap — media spend is up 3x year over year, but Reddit only represents about 2% of overall media mix. Reddit’s Max Campaigns give brands a down-funnel conversion option for the first time, and targeting options include interest groups, keywords, community targeting, and CRM uploads.

It’s not replacing Meta or Google anytime soon, but it can be a strong 10-15% of a media mix for the right brand. Organic is where the long-term value lives — and where most brands get it wrong.

The Mistakes Brands Make

The most common mistake: brands lurk silently and then jump into a conversation the moment their name is mentioned. Reddit communities spot this immediately. The response is usually swift and brutal.

“You need to be a consistent, helpful presence before you ever mention your product,” Jonny said. “Brands do it once and wonder why it didn’t work. It didn’t work because it’s a community that wants to engage — and you’ve never been part of it.”

Other common pitfalls: posting without reading subreddit rules, trying to game the platform like Google SEO, and expecting results without giving the community time to warm to you.

How to Actually Build a Reddit Marketing Strategy This Week

Jonny laid out a clear starting point for brands with zero Reddit presence:

1. Use ChatGPT to identify 5 relevant subreddits for your brand
2. Set up social listening and onboard Reddit as a monitored channel
3. Observe before posting — understand the tone, rules, and what moderators allow
4. Reach out to moderators before you engage
5. Start a branded profile (“BrandName Official” or “Name at BrandName”)
6. Pick 3-5 subreddits, including smaller ones where mistakes won’t be catastrophic
7. Start commenting on existing threads before creating your own posts
8. Resist promoting your product until you’ve built credibility

The goal isn’t to rank or game anything. It’s to show up like that seasoned sales associate who knows the product, knows the category, and can talk about 50 adjacent topics without forcing a pitch.

Why Reddit Marketing Strategy Now Means AI Visibility Later

Here’s the part most marketers haven’t connected yet. Reddit isn’t just a social platform — it’s one of the primary sources AI models use to generate answers.

Your brand’s presence (or absence) on Reddit directly influences how AI tools like ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews talk about your category. Brands building a genuine Reddit footprint now are accumulating citations in AI training data. That compounds.

“It’s not just Reddit,” Jonny said. “It’s your data being used in AI training. The window is open. It won’t be forever.”

How to Measure It

On the ads side: ROAS, CPA, standard conversion metrics. Reddit’s attribution is improving and Max Campaigns make it more directly measurable than ever.

On the organic side: impression share, AI citation tracking via tools like Profound, Peak AI, and Athena, and Google referral traffic from Reddit threads. The metrics are less tidy — but the signals are real.

The Closing Question

Every episode of The Human Side of MarTech ends the same way: “What do you know now that you wish you could have told yourself on day one?”

Listen to the episode to hear Jonny’s answer.

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Episode Clips

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Frequently Asked Questions

Full Transcript

Sean (00:01.484)
Most marketers use Reddit personally and have no idea how to think about it professionally. This episode is built to close that gap in three moves.

Jonny Waite (RECHO) (00:20.369)
good.

Sean (00:30.488)
How people actually behave on Reddit, how that translates into how a brand should show up, and why all of it is quietly shaping how AI tools like ChatGPT and Google AI answers show up for our audiences. We’ll close with something practical. Listeners can act on this week. And this is gonna be a fun one because I don’t know squat about Reddit. So Johnny’s gonna teach us all something at the same time. Johnny, welcome to the show. How are you?

Jonny Waite (RECHO) (00:59.534)
Thanks for having me. I’m doing great. How are you?

Sean (01:01.91)
well, thanks. I’m excited to have you. I genuinely have no idea how to use Reddit. I try, I get frustrated. So I wanted to have you on so I could learn. but I have to imagine a lot of people feel the same way, especially I don’t know if it’s generational. Is it generational? Is it just

Jonny Waite (RECHO) (01:16.196)
No, it’s not generational. It’s just it’s it’s been a platform that’s existed for a long time and now it’s becoming mainstream and everybody’s flocking to it to try to figure it out.

Sean (01:25.783)
I I say generational ’cause my kid knows how to use it. He’s like, I’ll just go to Reddit and he gets all kinds of tips and I’m like, I can’t even find what I’m looking for. before we jump in, just give us quick background on on you and what and your and your and your agency.

Jonny Waite (RECHO) (01:39.108)
Sure. well, I’m one of the co-founders of the agency. I’ve been in digital about 17 years, mostly agency side, and I’ve been at holding co agencies, private agencies, and in that time built and run a number of SEO practices, paid search, Amazon, omnichannel, for Fortune 50 companies down to well-funded startups and pretty much every vertical imaginable. and then Recco co-founded this, and you know, we’re one of maybe two.

full service White Hat Reddit agencies in the US. So full service being both paid and organic. there’s fair amount of advertisers or agencies running advertising for clients on Reddit. most won’t touch organic because it’s difficult nuanced, which is hopefully I can demystify some of that today. and then White Hat probably being one of the largest delineators, everything we do is according to Reddit’s code of conduct, guardrails, et cetera, so that we don’t introduce more risk risk to the brands that work with us.

and we can help them grow. So yeah, we proudly service some some of the biggest brands in the world and we’re mostly servicing mid market and enterprise. But yeah, excited to be here and and talk through it today.

Sean (02:49.922)
Yeah, we’ll get into that because people tell me I gotta be on Reddit, but then they’re like, but be careful. So we’ll we’ll get into some so so for someone like me who doesn’t really get it, doesn’t get Reddit, how would you explain Reddit to me?

Jonny Waite (RECHO) (02:54.103)
Yep, what?

Jonny Waite (RECHO) (03:03.651)
Sure. Reddit’s pretty simple at the base root, but but get can get overly complex with the the nuance of the rules and all these different things. So at its base like functionality, it’s it’s more or less like a forum, right? Think like old school chatrooms and AOL, and there’s different topics and different communities based on a given topic. and essentially all Reddit is is users.

That have anonymous profiles. So everybody’s anonymous on the platform. and then subreddits, which are communities. And there’s 144,000 of these communities. can be big topics, can be very niche topics, can be funny topics, etc. and each community is moderated, so has a supervisor essentially, by profiles of people that

volunteer to do that. So you know, the original moderator is the person who started the subreddit, and then you can have multiple moderators that work with them. you know, and it’s a tiered system. The the the person who started it has the the most authority over the subreddit, etc. And then users engage in those topics with each other and discuss various things. And that can be, you know, serious stuff like geopolitics or world news.

That can be as odd as I found this on the beach, or there’s one for onions or cat memes or you know, everything under the sun. And really, it’s quite simple in the sense of use you join Reddit, you have a profile, you pick the communities that of things you’re interested in, and then you either start to read about those topics or you start to engage with other people on those topics. And that’s about it. yeah, I mean, it’s it’s pretty simple at like if you just

peel away all the different mis mystery behind it. It’s it’s a pretty simple platform.

Sean (04:57.27)
Yep. two references to onions there. Onions as a subreddit and peeling things away. And it was funny because just yesterday my son was in my office and he had my phone. He was looking at something, and I got an alert pop up and it was like sub it was a Reddit, like the onion. And he’s like, You followed the onion? I’m like, Max, the onion’s been around since the internet started. Like I was reading that in like nineteen ninety I don’t know, seven. so he’s like, Really? It’s been around that long? And he’s you know, he’s 17. okay.

Jonny Waite (RECHO) (05:03.127)
There you go.

Jonny Waite (RECHO) (05:17.998)
Yes.

Sean (05:26.926)
Well, so what makes people trust it? ‘Cause I read it and you you know, you said it’s anonymous, right? And and I I always struggle with things like Yelp because I don’t know who these people are and they’re their interests the same as mine, their perspective, their education. so what makes people trust what they read on Reddit?

Jonny Waite (RECHO) (05:31.416)
Mm-hmm.

Jonny Waite (RECHO) (05:46.115)
I think there’s a few reasons. There’s a few data points that point to the why. yeah, Reddit’s been around for 18 years now, seven, nine, nineteen years, something like that. I’m I’m close. but it’s really taken off in the last few years for a few reasons. Some of that is just technology companies, Google, OpenAI partnering for data collaborations. But what that means in in the real world.

Is, you know, I don’t know, five years ago, you started to Google something and Reddit would pop up like almost every time. Then ChatGPT became a thing, and then other LLMs started popping up, and Reddit starts to be heavily sorted cited and show up all the time. So you have that, just general discoverability. It doesn’t mean people are like, I’ve heard about Reddit, I should go on there. They’re just discovering Reddit through search engines and and LLMs. The other half of it I think has to do

with AI on the other side. So the world of AI slop, layer on a bit of the brain rock conversation in social media with the advent of influencer marketing and things like that. So, you know, there’s starting to become a pretty heavy distrust in influencers. Now I’m not I’m not, you know, I’m not degrading the whole practice of influencer marketing, but you know, there there’s no necessarily, you know, like

level of trust behind an influencer. Like, do they have the credentials to be telling me about this product? And they’re giving it to me in 15 to 30 seconds. Is that really enough time to like make an educated decision? On the AI side, you know, brands are fighting for visibility in a brand new world. So you know, they’re fighting to, I’m not I wouldn’t even say gamify their website. They’re just trying to optimize it. but for AI visibility. So now you have

this world of AI slop. So to keep up, you’re fighting a war of attrition with your content. You’re probably using AI to generate content to get then get picked up by AI. And there’s this endless loop of can I trust AI to give me a real answer? Or is it just giving me a confident answer? Right. And I think as people played around with it, they realize like, you know, Chow GPT or Claude or Gemini will give you a very, very confident answer, but it’s not necessarily the best or the right one.

Jonny Waite (RECHO) (08:07.77)
so in that discourse, people are turning to Reddit to try to figure out the thought pattern. So it’s not necessarily that they’re going to Reddit to find the right answer. Sometimes they are. They’re looking to look at the build of the conversation to get to the end result. So, like, how do people’s mental model get to this recommendation that they’re making? And you start, you can see that pretty granularly in Reddit. So I think it’s a combination of those, just discoverability.

Sean (08:14.966)
Mm.

Jonny Waite (RECHO) (08:37.444)
People not knowing what like a safe place for information on the internet is, and then kind of putting it now starting to put it back on themselves of like, I can use AI as a tool, it’ll give me a useful answer. Like if I’m like, is this store open? Okay, that’s like there’s no shadow of turning with that answer. But I’m trying to get like information on a product, right? If the dot com shows up, it’s gonna bring me to the website and it’s just the brand’s gonna do what the brand does on its own website. If I go to Reddit, I might get some very

real answers on, you know, this is a great product, but it’s a little pricey for what it is. Or this product is great, but don’t use it in the rain. Or, you know, this this this product maybe is not shown as the best, but it’s great for mountain hiking in Oregon. You know, really, really, really granular conversations that point to the authenticity of the platform and let people kind of decide what’s true or not for themselves.

Sean (09:25.432)
Yeah.

Sean (09:34.575)
So so in essence, if you’re using if it you’re a user and you’re using ChatGPT or or one of the other agents to search and you get a response or result and you see it came from Reddit, you should click, you could or you should click into that and sort of go backwards, kind of see how it got to that answer, right? Read the trail, because the audit trail is there, right? And so that helps you build confidence because you really don’t know.

if anything’s real on the internet, right? And this is an opportunity for a user to sort of validate it.

Jonny Waite (RECHO) (10:05.187)
Yeah. I mean people gamify reviews all the time. H reviews are very hard to trust, right? And so that used to be kind of the metric of like, does this product have good reviews? Do you go through reviews? If it does, then you probably buy that thing if the price is right. now it’s a little bit different. Yeah.

Sean (10:21.004)
Yeah, totally. Because a certain type of person leaves reviews, especially, you know, most people will leave bad reviews. or they’re or they’re just habitual reviewers. But you don’t know who they are. You don’t know they like are they the same age? Are they male or female? Do they like maybe they don’t even like the kind of food that they’re reviewing and they were trying it out and they get a bad still no. okay, so what are what are lurkers?

Jonny Waite (RECHO) (10:26.779)
Yeah.

Jonny Waite (RECHO) (10:42.491)
So lurkers are people that are not engaging but are absorbing. So you know, that could be somebody that has a profile and doesn’t want to engage, but just wants to absorb and be there for the discussion. I would say a majority of lur lurkers at this point, and it it is directly tied to the fact that, you know, it’s Reddit’s a top-sided source and Google and AI, are people that are never signed in.

People that don’t have an account, it’s an open platform. It’s actually majority of people on Reddit are not logged in. It’s 51%. so yeah, you it’s people that are coming from other platforms or which is I would guess is the majority of lurkers at this point. And then the other half is just people that join subreddit communities, have been on it for a while, they don’t post anything, they really don’t comment, they just kind of like absorb information through the topics they’re interested in, learn things or make decisions and then leave.

Sean (11:37.871)
Okay. All right. So now that we have a little background on the user behavior, let’s talk about brand strategy and how brands should think about using the platform. That I obviously it has to be genuine, right? Because you can’t if if you fake it, you’re gonna get called out on it, right? So what are some of the things a brand should think about when entering Reddit? Is it a platform you just paid for your ads? Are you engaging in conversation? Like how do you build trust across the platform if you’re a brand?

Jonny Waite (RECHO) (11:42.33)
Mm-hmm.

Jonny Waite (RECHO) (12:05.893)
Sure. I think the ads and organic is two different conversations. So ads is, you know, there’s a huge audience. You know, Brett’s half a billion weekly active users. pretty good spread across, you know, age groups. It’s like forty-two percent Gen Z leans heavier towards older Gen Z. It’s forty percent-ish millennials and then fifteen percent fifty plus.

It’s inexpensive still as an ad platform, which happens with every app platform when it launches. There’s not heavy competition yet. So the auction price is is cheap. and then the matter you know, maturation of the platform is really what matters. So Reddit.

this year in the last like i think nine months released its first campaign type that can really look at down funnel events they call it max campaigns so that people can take the google performance max and make the the connection and i i think it’s a good test platform or a good replacement for a minor channel that’s my subjective opinion on it it’s not gonna be a meta and google replacement at least not right now

But it’s certainly growing. Reddit’s investing heavily, especially post-IPO, into the platform. And aggregate media spend in Reddit went up 3x from last year to this year. Probably will again. Now it’s still only 2% of overall media mix. so it’s very small. But that that accelerated kind of growth metric is an important one.

And I always tell people it’s worth test because sometimes it unlocks an audience you’re not able to and it can be a bet your best performing channel. Now there’s limits to it. Does it scale to like 30, 50 percent of your ad spend? I would guess not. but could make up, you know, a test budget or 10, 15, 20 percent of your media mix and be really effective. and you’re not just paying more for the same results like you would with Google and Meta. The organic side is a totally different animal, which is you know.

Jonny Waite (RECHO) (14:04.227)
Not to not to plug my agency, but why I said there’s very few that will do both paid and organic. organic, and this is not to scare people away from it, but it it it’s you know, it’s a it’s a platform to be understood and to be fostered. you know, it’s a good and a bad thing for brands that it’s anonymous and self-governed. you know, people cover themselves under an anonymity so they can, you know, hammer away keyboard heroes because nobody knows who they are. you also have moderators that

You don’t know who they are with varying interests and motivations and things. And some just don’t want a brand in there and some are okay with it, but ver with very strict rules, and that needs to be understood. So I would say the the first three things a brand should really consider when when you know deciding to get on Reddit is one, is my audience there. I think generally speaking, most of the brands, if not all, or to give it some objectivity.

vast majority, like above 90%, have a very sizable audience on row. Meaning their consumers are on there, their potential consumers are on there. you know, and that that it’s usually in the millions, if not tens of the millions, for every brand that we we audit. chew is do I have an existing presence or do my does my competition have an existing presence? Is that good or bad? Is there anything to do with that? Right. Like I think the cardinal sense of brands is

They don’t want to engage in the community of Reddit, which is kind of baseline you need to. And they just want to jump in and correct something that somebody said about their brand. And as you could imagine, you know, for for a platform that’s self-sustained, a brand jumps in one time when their brand is mentioned, and the whole, you know, group is like, look, here they are, we’ve never seen them before, you know, and they get blasted and they wonder why it didn’t work. It’s like, cause it’s it’s a community that that wants to engage. So

You know, if you’re just going in there with like a a PR plug, that’s gonna backfire very quickly. And then I I think third is like just a firm understanding of what your your tool set is, like and and how to utilize it, right? So to put it simply, if you’re a brand or any other person, you have your profiles and you can start your own subreddit. So how do you utilize that? How do you kind of, you know, structure that engagement? What’s the right way to engage with people? What’s

Jonny Waite (RECHO) (16:27.855)
What’s authentic, what’s inauthentic, what’s the tone of, you know, I think the difficulty of Reddit for a lot of brands is that each subreddit community is kind of like its own platform because they have their own rule sets, their own governors, and their own tone. So you have to individually kind of understand each one in order to to understand how to succeed on each one. So yeah, I would say those are the three things. Like really understand that the, you know, if your audience is on there, understand what your brand or your competitor sentiment is overall and then

understand kind of like this tool set to work with and then come up with a plan with you know for how to work with that.

Sean (17:03.512)
So on the on the paid side, just real quick there, I want to talk more about the organic. it’s programmatic, just like everything else these days. and are brands buying, are they target when they when they target, are they targeting channels, subreddits, or are they just targeting user profiles like or all of the above? Like how how how do you buy ads on Reddit?

Jonny Waite (RECHO) (17:24.141)
Yeah, so generally speaking, y there’s interest groups, which is like, you know, what is gonna give you a large audience. there’s keyword targeting and there’s communities. There’s some other layer, but that’s but it’s generally there. You can you can upload your CRM list, you can do an exclusion list, things like that. If you have that existing from like meta or email campaigns where you wanna do, you know, you wanna match to, you know, prospects or current customers and things like that.

Generally speaking, the power of Reddit’s gonna gonna lie in contextual targeting, community targeting, like understanding where your buyers are, understanding the type of content that reson that’s resonating with them. And then depending on your KBI, you know, most folks are looking for a return, which is great, you know. So you you you do you know the type of asset that’ll resonate in that subreddit. A lot of times it’s gonna be like static imagery or carousel, what you would experience in Meta. Sometimes it’ll be contextual.

So Reddit has a an ad type called freeform ad, which essentially looks like an organic post and pretty in some instances is, and then you promote that post. you know, but that’s gonna be more top mid-funnel. So it really depends on goals. And then they have things like TikTok with like subreddit takeovers and home page takeovers that are obviously much larger spends.

Sean (18:40.526)
Okay. And is is it a good platform for B2B as well? You said consumers before, but

Jonny Waite (RECHO) (18:44.26)
Yeah, so B2B is really interesting. So B2B tends to be a smaller audience, but a higher commercial intent. So generally speaking, yes. the only time I would say it’s hard for B2B is when the the category is like wildly niche. Like if it’s just so granular that like finding an audience that A is there consistently and then B

looking to purchase something, not just talking about it as like more of a prefessorial exercise or something like that is harder. But generally speaking, yeah, there’s there’s a big audience. we get that a lot in like the developer world and things. You had a lot of a lot of folks you know, exit it exit us from stack overflow over to to Reddit and things like that. So yeah, general speaking yes.

Sean (19:32.888)
Did you you said a few years ago Reddit really had a kind of a resurgence. Was that due to the belief that cookies were gonna go away and this was a great contextual way to find customers? Is that where it came from?

Jonny Waite (RECHO) (19:44.46)
No, I really think it had has to do with the license agreement with Google and OpenAI. I really think it has to do with the scale the scale of of discoverability on Reddit. And then you couple that with it being kind of the right time for people how people want to absorb information. It’s kind of this perfect store.

Sean (20:01.25)
Yeah, it’s I mean it’s good training for people because everyone questions is AI just because it came from AI doesn’t mean it’s real. So this is a good way to validate it.

Jonny Waite (RECHO) (20:06.957)
So sixty two percent of people that that try to validate are are validating AI answers go to Reddit. It’s a huge number ’cause they’re just like, where else do you go?

Sean (20:17.772)
Yeah, otherwise people just take it as as fact, right? on on the organic side of your brand, how should you treat sort of your own subreddit differently than you know if you’re engaging in a conversation that’s not your subreddit?

Jonny Waite (RECHO) (20:31.577)
Yeah, so on your own subreddit, you want to foster community. So you do treat it kind of similar or very similarly to the other subreddit you’re engaging with. Like you, you know, nobody’s generally speaking, people aren’t on Reddit to go join branded subreddits, right? but you can create a community if you create a basis of like authenticity, thought leadership, you know, more real.

communication with your customer base or or consumer base and things like that. Now, if you oversee your own subreddit, you make the rules so you can promote your brand a little bit more. You can use it as an avenue for that, but it doesn’t matter much if nobody’s there. So I would say like building and fostering community first is important so that if you do promote a little bit or you know announce things that there’s actually an audience to do that towards. When you’re posting or commenting outwardly,

you have to be a lot more careful. You’re you know, the the moderators set the rules, so you have to play nicely with them. And I always say the more transparent you are, the better off you are, right? Don’t try to just fly under the radar and hope for the best. so a lot of times, like when we’re we’re managing brand accounts, we’ll actually reach out to the moderator and just tell them transparently, Hey, I’m Johnny, you know, I run Reddit for Nike as an example.

you know, I’ve been on the platform for 10 plus years. Yes, we’re a brand. Yes, we, you know, have have a whole team of PR and things, but we understand Reddit, you know, we understand your rule sets. This is why we’re here. This is what we’d like to post and engage with. we’re not here to just like hard promote our products and things like that. Would you allow us to engage? And you know, a lot of times moderators will consider it because you’re being

forthcoming. so I I think understanding that like the outward subreddits are not for hard promotion. the moderators are trying to commit you know protect their community from crap, from AI slop, from brands just trying to push and hawk a product. so you have to be very careful in your approach of engaging there. But you know if done correctly and you’re providing objective objective help based on the context of what people like to discuss.

Jonny Waite (RECHO) (22:55.811)
It can it can yield a really good result as far as credibility.

Sean (22:59.512)
So so as an agency, you’re going in and you’re engaging in conversation. You’re not just putting up ads, you’re actually representing

Jonny Waite (RECHO) (23:05.955)
Yeah, organic Yeah. Yeah. That’s a majority of the work we do because it’s more nuanced. requires a lot more, you know, creativity and strategy.

Sean (23:15.042)
How how important is it? Like if you’re a brand and you have your own subreddit, but you’re also engaging, or let’s say you’re not engaging, you just have your own subreddit, is that gonna help you get s cited on the like chat GPTs of the world? Or does chat GPT put more weight into the non-branded subreddits?

Jonny Waite (RECHO) (23:32.409)
Yeah, it’s it’s all the trigger points are unknown, but I I would say very blatantly, the more you have visibility into those subreddits, that is gonna be more of what builds AI citations. Now there’s nothing from precluding AI from or Google from picking up your branded subreddit for certain certain topics, but I would say like the equity of your profile and footprint and followers is gonna matter as far as like

why Google or Chat GPT would choose an answer from your brand subreddit versus a non-brand. There’s just you don’t have the objectivity of it until you have a natural conversation flow from other users happening within that subreddit.

Sean (24:17.474)
What’s the best way? I mean, this is a very broad question, but if you’re a brand and you want to engage in conversation, obviously it’s hard to do I mean, I think the reason the the value of an agency is consistency, right? I think you wanna be consistent. And if you’re trying to do it yourself, it’s probably a lot to take on unless you have a dedicated person. at least f I would say fifty percent of the time. Is that a fair and it yeah?

Jonny Waite (RECHO) (24:38.328)
Yeah, I think there’s a creative aspect to it too, just understanding, you know, most of most of our staff is is been on Reddit like seven to fifteen years and a lot of them are moderators. They understand not just how to interact, they moderate themselves. So they know what they like and what they don’t like and they interact with other mobs and things like that. I think there’s there’s an aspect of taste and creativity as l along with strategy and consistency that play a big part.

Sean (25:07.842)
Makes sense. How does a brand think about do they think about ranking on Reddit the same way they think about ranking on Google?

Jonny Waite (RECHO) (25:15.054)
Not really. you there are a lot of benefits in Reddit of building authentically. I think the primary focus should be building authentically, and then the myriad of benefits follow, right? Trying to gamify it generally backfires. So that is posting about what you know, commenting without forcing something, right? So if somebody’s talking about a given subject and it’s adjacent, right? I always say, like, what’s an easy way to think about how your brand interacts with people?

So if you had a brick and mortar store and somebody walked into your store and you had a sales associate that’s been there for 20 years, they would be able to talk about your products, they’d be able to talk about the history of the company. They’d also be able to probably talk about 50 other adjacent topics closely related just from their experience. And that’s kind of what the persona that we’re bringing to Reddit from the brands is like you’re talking about this, we know about this. It’s not directly one-to-one with the product we sell. So we’re not going to force.

our product into that conversation. We’re gonna just talk about what you’re talking about and offer some either advice or information or factually correct. And that that is generally the the benefit of brands engaging in these conversations because there does need to be a benefit. You know, you have all these subjective conversations happening about a given topic. Who’s an authority? If you have a brand, right, and these people are all anonymous for a brand you have to have your brand name the profile. So you’re already kind of letting everybody know who you are.

And then hopefully the brand has a reason for existing. They have a real value proposition. They have an RD department. They have, you know, experts in whatever product or field they’re in. and years and years of building and research and trial and error that back up the answer they’re giving. And that’s kind of that’s kind of the posture and positioning you want to take.

Sean (27:04.472)
So if you’re a brand engaging in conversation, I’m gonna use the Nike example that you started with. and I say you, the agency, is representing Nike, you’re gonna go into a a subreddit about maybe marathons and and running, and you’re engaging, someone’s asking about like, I don’t know, what what are good shoes to wear on a marathon on the California coast up Route One? Right.

Jonny Waite (RECHO) (27:28.432)
Yeah.

Sean (27:29.97)
You’re going to engage in that conversation as Nike, representative of Nike, and you’re going to try and engage in an authentic conversation around why Nike believes the best shoes are shoes that have this, this, and this, as opposed to a Nike shoe in particular. Or you might say like a Nike, like this shoe.

Jonny Waite (RECHO) (27:48.333)
like this shoe and to be objective you may give other options as well but it’s really what you said in the in the former part of of your statement what what makes like material build design what what makes up the best running shoe for this type of scenario right so and what I would I always charge brands with especially when they’re starting off is like it even naturally makes sense to talk about your product because you have a perfect product for this but resist the urge.

until you’ve built some credibility.

Sean (28:19.586)
Yeah, I could I could see the the the the challenge there. So I mean how do you as an agency representing a brand, like you made the comment earlier about you know, the the brand has all this institutional knowledge about the product in the space. How do you translate that? Cause you’re not Nike. I you’re representing Nike, but you don’t have all that institutional knowledge. So how do you how do you make sure that finds its way in real time into that conversation?

Jonny Waite (RECHO) (28:38.862)
No.

Jonny Waite (RECHO) (28:44.516)
Yeah, we use some bit of technology, but we it’s a lot of close collaboration with the team internally. So some a lot of times we’re like, yes, we’ll work with like content p folks or social media folks. Sometimes we have to work with certain subject matter matter experts internally as well. so what we do is we, you know, we kind of get the engine moving by aggregating the data from the subreddits and the data from the client.

And we really lean on internal data that’s not available like publicly available because you we don’t wanna like I’m not an expert in everything Nike, so I don’t but I don’t want to utilize AI’s open database to say like how would you answer this? Because it might get factually correct information, but not through the the positioning of Nike. but we do that to kind of get the factual correctness of the statement started, then add in some humanization from our side, and then

go through kind of like a manual tweaking aspect from the client side, right? So we kind of like it’s kind of like a three step process of like we’re not going to become experts, especially when we’re dealing with like financial or you know medical institutions. Like they’re the they have a whole compliant department. So we we use, you know, we implement a database to get us there of like this is a closed database from the client. So it’s going to be their information.

We don’t know exactly how they would frame it, but we have the information from them. We’re gonna creatively write it based on being experts in Reddit and understanding how people discuss these types of topics in Reddit and then put it back to the brand to like red line and update according to what they’re allowed to say or not allowed to say.

Sean (30:24.172)
Yeah, I mean, and you’re probably better at not, you know, dipping into the urge to go heavy on the brand because you’re not the brand, right? That makes a lot of sense. and and you’re having a dialogue, right? So you don’t want to throw up all over the screen. You wanna you wanna give like you wanna have a conversation back and forth. You don’t want to just give all the information at once.

Jonny Waite (RECHO) (30:29.924)
Right. Yeah. Yeah.

Jonny Waite (RECHO) (30:42.756)
Right. Yeah. It’s it’s a lot of yeah, because you’re building conversation continuously, right? so you wanna you know, you you wanna be on the money with what what people are talking about and then resist the urge to get into other topics because A, nobody asks for it, and B, save it for another time because you need to building community takes time. So you need other topics to discuss down the line. Yeah.

Sean (31:06.018)
Yeah, yeah. So for better or worse, has AI crept into this marketplace yet? And are in terms of like tools?

Jonny Waite (RECHO) (31:13.544)
for sure, but Reddit is very aggressive in kind of like a you know how the data can be collected being able to automate back into the platform. So it has what I would say is, you know, we can you there’s API, you know, there’s there’s access to the API for the free API, which research and then commercial API, which is usually reserved for for like the Googles and

Spots of the world and things like that. and then there’s somewhere in the middle of like sleuthing the data, doing social listening, brand monitoring. There’s a myriad of tools, and you know, we use that, and then we use AI tracking to understand what’s cited more from Reddit and things like that. And it gives you the directional data. Some people use it for gamification, which I don’t think is smart. because you know, you’re not just fighting Reddit, you’re fighting the moderators and the users that are actively looking for people trying to gamify and and

create slop and throw it on the platform. but you know directional data will tell you what will resonate, right? And then you use that and then you’re still providing it’s all through the lens of objective objective helpfulness. So as long as you’re keeping that intact when you’re engaging as a brand, the data’s just telling you where there’s more intent and audience for what you want to talk about and things like that. And as long as the natural conversation exists, like there’s no no reason that that would

you from engaging with that.

Sean (32:42.99)
Okay. So if a brand, whether B2B or B2C, has zero presence on Reddit today and wanted to get started this week, not this quarter, not next quarter, but like this week, like what what’s a good step-by-step way to start building? Cause you don’t want to just dive in and do everything, it sounds like you want to build up a reputation, right?

Jonny Waite (RECHO) (33:02.423)
Yeah. I I think there’s a few things. you know, look at what you think relevant subreddits are. and you can, you know, OpenAI, like ChatGPT, has been training on this data for a few years. So ChatGPT specifically is actually a pretty good like getting start resource to like what subreddits would be appropriate for my brand because it’s, you know, it has a licensing agreement. you start off with a very short list, right? Maybe look at like five subreddits.

Is the context there? Is there buying intent in some of these conversations? You also, I think it’s important to look at the action from moderators. Like if you see the moderators are just pulling down posts left or right, that might be a little too aggressive for you. you know, it takes 30 seconds to start profile. You know, start a profile, it’s branded. You can be brand official, you can have a name appended to a brand. So it can be like Johnny at Nike, or it can be Nike, or it can be Nike Official. I always recommend.

You know, if you’re gonna start to engage, reach out to the moderator first. so you don’t accidentally get banned from a community that you want to engage with. you know, state your case, like read the rules, really understand it. you know, and then start to look and and take a hard look at what conversations you can actually provide real value to. I would start there before getting into the whole build your own subreddit and then figure that out. Like figure out what people will engage with you about.

And and make sure that you understand what the rules and kind of like standard is for each of the subreddits. And I always say, yeah, pick three to five, just so you can kind of get your feet wet. I always also say, you know, pay maybe pick smaller ones that are not as mission critical to your brand. So if you do make a mistake and get banned from that subreddit, it’s not it’s not overly critical to to what you’re trying to do. and then you’ll start to get an understanding of how people will engage with you and not, right? Both on

you know, commenting on an existing thread or making a post of your own, you know, what’s gonna resonate. So I I think a lot of it is stopping and listening before you do anything. You know, dipping your toe in gently. And then, you know, if you’re a brand that has social mis listening employed and things like that, I would also lean heavily into that. Like onboard Reddit, you know, under your social listening platform, understand how your brand’s being mentioned, understand how competitors are mentioned, understand how your category’s being mentioned. And I think that’ll give you some like better

Jonny Waite (RECHO) (35:23.655)
bulk data sets to kind of like directionally point you where you want to

Sean (35:28.512)
Is there a almost like an influencer type behavior? And if you’re like, for example, if you’re a moderator, you have your own subreddits, and a brand comes to you like Nike, and they wanna start commenting in your subreddit.

Is do some of these moderators cut deals with the brands to get like a commission on sales driven? Is is like the affiliate model something that’s built into this yet?

Jonny Waite (RECHO) (35:59.803)
No, in there’s a very strict moderator code of conduct. So it’s you can kind of kill your credibility as a moderator if you’re just doing all these sort of like backdoor handshake deals. So the answer is no, there’s not like official channels to like really monitor monetize the moderator status.

you know, brands can engage in a subreddit and do an AMA and they can pay for it and things like that. But it’s really not this like this model where you know, moderators are kind of like, let’s do co-branding and then we’ll give you X amount of money or kind of do this thing. You generally see some like I would say more innocent type of interactions with moderators and brands where, you know,

There was a gaming company that worked with a moderator for kind of like a make a wish type setup. And they were, you know, gave a pre-release of a a big video game that was coming out to to to to a child that was terminal. Right. So like more like things like that than it is, hey, we do this or you allow us to post in this community and we’ll give you X amount. It’s really, really not like that. And Reddit’s pretty strict. And the moderator community has existed for a that’s that’s the old guard.

outside of the people at Reddit Inc. that that are really trying to like protect the platform.

Sean (37:23.352)
Yep, that’s the authenticity piece, right? So, what’s the most common reason brands give up too early?

Jonny Waite (RECHO) (37:31.428)
I think it it really is the the nuance and the things that can happen along the way that are just kind of different than another social platform, right? If you’re if you’re starting if you’re a brand and you’re, you know, starting to post on Facebook, you’re starting to post on TikTok, generally speaking the worst that’s gonna happen, especially in the beginning, is like nobody sees it and it doesn’t do anything and then you try, try again.

On Reddit, you your first post can get banned, right? Like you can get kicked out of a community from just the first time you post. And that that scares people, right? Like what what we’re just gonna get started and then all of sudden, you know, we’re that it not understanding that like you can communicate with the moderator, you can make an appeal, you know, you didn’t pay attention to what any of the context was, or that scenario I gave of like brands doing social listening and then they just jump in when their brand’s mentioned and never engaging elsewhere.

so I think there’s just some nuance to Reddit. And I think there’s also you know, there’s also some

Misconceptions about who the audience is on Reddit, right? So it you it did used to be this, I wouldn’t say this for anybody, I’m overgeneralizing, but like, you know, people think of it as like, isn’t this basement dwellers and cryptocurrency and all these types of things? And that exists on there, and that certainly was prevalent, like gamers and things like that. but you know, the metrics of how it’s evolved since 2023 till now pay it’s a completely different landscape. So you’re not

just interacting with these Reddit purists that want to like, no, like get the brands out. You’re interacting with I would say mostly people now that are not Reddit purists, a lot of which aren’t even logged in. They’re these quote unquote lurkers, people that are not signed in, coming from other platforms that ha are used to other social media. So an ad doesn’t really seem that odd to them or a brand placement like they’re used to it.

Jonny Waite (RECHO) (39:33.98)
You know, so it it’s kind of like understanding that, like who’s the audience? And then, you know, if there’s something that happens on Reddit, what do you do? It’s not usually you join Reddit, do something wrong, and it’s a quil kill switch under whole brand. But there are things that happen, you know, brand gets started, they’re one of you know, one of their profiles trips the AI automated AI spam filter from Reddit and the count gets suspended. And what do you do about that? Or

they’re engaging in a subreddit and the moderator bans them from that community. Why did that happen? Right. it’s definitely more to maneuver than I think most social platforms, but if maneuvered the right way has a a pretty large benefit as far as like, you know, audience size, credibility, all those types of things.

Sean (40:19.438)
How do you if you’re a brand, how do you measure success?

Jonny Waite (RECHO) (40:24.017)
Well, on the ads, depends what type of ad you’re running. So if you’re you’re looking to test it as a a conversion channel, ROAS, CPA, like whatever your baseline is, run a three-month test at a reasonable spend. you know, if it’s other KPIs, you can run other ads, but I would say generally speaking, that’s what people are looking to test out. on the organic side, you know, in the beginning it’s really impression share, competitive moat, AI citations, and Google exposure.

Long term it does become qualified converting referral traffic, qualified converting inferred traffic from AI and Google, you know, using Reddit as a conduit. So I think it’s really looking at like, you know, I I always charge people to just compare it to other social channels. Like if you’re really putting an effort and building it, like what is your organic TikTok or organic Instagram yield as far as exposure? you know, AI citation rate.

If you have a GEO program or AI strategy program, you know, what’s the build of AI citations grown week over week and month over month versus other efforts that whether that be like SEO or PR or YouTube or some some other tactic? and then same same is true, you know, Google results. So it really start with exposure and credibility first, and then long term can be more of like qualified referral traffic and things like that.

Sean (41:49.881)
Do do the agents like ChatGPT offer any kind of reporting or data to say your brand showed up or was citated citation this many times?

Jonny Waite (RECHO) (41:59.747)
No, it’s it’s similar to how Google works. Like Google, you have Google Search Console and you get the query data, but you’re not tracking the keywords you’re concerned with. You have to use a third party like SEMrush or AHREFs or one Bright Edge Conductor. Now there’s a flurry of tools for AI visibility. Profound is the one that everybody knows. There’s other ones like Peak AI, Athena, you know, et cetera.

Sean (42:23.182)
Okay. I’m sure I’m sure we can find some of those on Blurbs at trustblurbs dot com. anything I missed? Anything that’s really important that a a brand that’s thinking about Reddit? aside from hiring an agency to help them do it right?

Jonny Waite (RECHO) (42:26.556)
Yeah.

Jonny Waite (RECHO) (42:34.545)
No.

Jonny Waite (RECHO) (42:38.598)
Yeah, so I I would say whether you hire an agency, whether you hire us, I I just think based on the scale, size, and influence, it’s worth starting to dig into. I very rarely run into brands that haven’t had a discussion internally about Reddit, but there’s apprehension, and I think understandably so. I would say it’s important for your brand to be on Reddit, from a Reddit perspective, from a Google perspective, from an AI perspective.

I my this is a guess. I also run an a Reddit agency, so take it with a grain of salt. My guess is that brands that really do this well will hit the end of 2027 and you’re gonna have competitors look at that and say, Well how did where how did they get there? Like what did they do and how do we catch up? I think it’s gonna be hard to catch up. and it’s not just Reddit, like I would I would I would consider other channels as well within that ecosystem, but Reddit’s certainly one of the most important ones.

and as we you know look at you know building visibility in the AI first world, right? There’s all kinds of estimates of will people use agents to do all their shopping and discoverability? Will people even go to websites anymore? I don’t know. I think that probably will be the case at some point, or you know, there’ll be mass adoption of using an agent for for individual like tasks with the on the internet, which is already starting to happen. but that doesn’t, you know.

Reddit is one of those platforms that I think would be well insulated in that type of world. but even for now, like AI visibility is hard. the world of GEO has kind of put the SEO world on its head because it’s not just SEO now, it’s PR, social media, all these other things. and also, you know, community and authenticity is becoming, you know, you know, table stakes, like you have to have it. So

You know, there are different ways to do it, but Reddit, you know, where else do you have half a billion people contributing content of their own volition, self-governed anonymously anywhere else? And like, yes, could another competitor do something similar? Sure, but how long would that take? So that’s kind of my plug. So like whether you hire us or hire somebody else, I would say start to figure out or hire internally, you know, but I would say that I I think it’s I think it’s just part of your media plan and media.

Sean (44:37.955)
Yeah.

Sean (44:45.752)
Yeah.

Jonny Waite (RECHO) (44:59.388)
strategy.

Sean (45:00.268)
Yeah, just just to click on the one thing you said there for the audience. When you say it’s going to be difficult to catch up, that’s for two reasons, right? One is because you would you would have built a reputation on Reddit already. That’s a year, year and a half ahead of your competitors. And that’s hard to can’t make up time. And also within the agents themselves, you have that year and a half head start on the data collection. So you’re just going to be more well-known to the agent and they’re going to cite you more than competitor. That’s fair.

Jonny Waite (RECHO) (45:24.474)
Right. Yeah, right. And it’s it’s your data being used in their training, right? Like the the the spike up and down of who cites Reddit the most and who’s dropping. You know, there’s a big piece of news a couple weeks ago about the citation rate in Chat GPT for Reddit going way down, right? And that happened actually right before I started my agency as well. And I was like, you know. but the amount that is cited isn’t less, and the amount that people Google Reddit plus term isn’t less, and the people forcing

you know, the the the source in Chat GPT for Reddit is not less, right? So we haven’t seen a marked difference in people actually coming to Reddit from those sources. It’s just this game of data licensing and citation rate and everything. And it’s like, what are you foc are you building a brand or are you focused on you’re not going to switch your your media strategy every month based on the hand ring news of the week. Right. So yeah. So I I would say it’s just important overall.

Sean (46:15.512)
You you mentioned real quick, you mentioned a an agreement that ChatGPT has with Reddit, or right? Yeah. do the other do perplexity, Claude, Anthropic, Google.

Jonny Waite (RECHO) (46:27.92)
No, it’s just it’s just open AI and just Google right now. Yep.

Sean (46:30.894)
Okay. Okay. That’s the one to focus on. So if you’re gonna do the research to see if you come up, go to go to those two.

Jonny Waite (RECHO) (46:36.668)
Well, yeah, they still Reddit’s still top sided source if not the top sided source in the other LMs. They follow suit. So yeah.

Sean (46:41.622)
Okay. Yeah. All right. w we’re wrapped there. Where can where can people find you?

Jonny Waite (RECHO) (46:47.496)
Sure, you can reach out to me on LinkedIn, Johnny Waite. you can find our website, reco.co that’s dot C O. we have a contact form on our website if you wanna reach out. you know, either LinkedIn, you can DM me or reach out via our website, but be happy to to take your call.

Sean (47:04.194)
Any subreddit?

Jonny Waite (RECHO) (47:06.382)
No, no, no. We don’t we don’t dog food it in. We don’t dog foot it in.

Sean (47:07.18)
No. Fair enough. You don’t want to give away your secrets either, I get it. Okay. all right, we’ll wrap it there. I appreciate your time, Johnny. This has been a lot of I mean, genuinely learned a lot. I’m gonna go spend some time on Reddit today. I’ll be a lurker for a little bit and learn. And then then I’ll dive in on a smaller subreddit that’s relevant to to my businesses and see what comes of it. So I appreciate that, man. Maybe we’ll get big enough and we’ll hire you someday. All right, thanks, Johnny.

Jonny Waite (RECHO) (47:30.692)
Awesome. Well appreciate it, Sean.

Perfect. All right. Thanks, Sean.

Sean (47:36.984)
Take care, man. All right. Bye.

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The Human Side of MarTech is part of The MarTech Matrix podcast, hosted by Sean Simon. New episodes every Thursday on TheMarTechMatrix.com and YouTube.

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