What is the Fastest Growing Social Platform?

Every marketer should be paying more attention to Reddit. But why?

Reddit’s traffic to its website and ad portal is growing faster than TikTok or any other social media platform.

Let’s dig into why this matters…

Deeper Underground

If you need to better understand a nuanced interest area, start with Reddit (check out this subReddit for people who LOVE… digging holes). A quote from The New York Times (paywall) nails why Reddit is such a unique corner of the internet and so valuable when trying to better understand people:

“It’s one of the last big platforms that feel unmistakably human - messy and rough around the edges, sure, but a place where real people gather to talk about real things, unmediated by algorithms and largely free of mindless engagement bait.”

Test and Learn

Reddit is a perfect place to check whether a narrative resonates because it was built - and sustained - on nuanced interests before they go mainstream. As The Wall Street Journal reports (paywall): “To avoid fan disappointment, developers and film studios are visiting game communities on apps like Discord and Reddit to get feedback on ideas, in addition to conducting traditional focus groups.”

Geddit?

I bet you didn’t know that Reddit has a peer-to-peer site similar to Facebook Marketplace and TikTok Shop. On ‘Geddit’, you can filter by location or specific subReddit. Although it’s currently only for the U.S. market, it will likely appear in other countries soon. Keep an eye out because it will be a great barometer for the products customers are interested in.

Why does this matter for marketers?

Reddit a great source of strategy inspiration and this won’t last forever now that the company has gone public. It will - inevitably - become more mainstream. Savour it while you can.

The plus side of the stock exchange launch is that it is an increasingly mature ad platform…

You may have missed the new ad format called ‘free-form ads’, designed to look like organic posts.

And… Reddit is even making it easier to run those ads with the announcement of generative AI copy suggestions.