Reading The Room: Using Reddit as a PR Professional

By Jackson Allen

In the public relations field, understanding a brand’s audience is vital for driving success. Knowing what stakeholders are discussing, getting accurate sentiment around the brand and identifying trends provides PR professionals with valuable insight that will inform strategy decisions. Different social platforms have different strengths and weaknesses for this, and not all can be approached in the same way.

Enter Reddit — an often-neglected, but critical social media platform that no PR professional should ignore. Reddit differs from many other social media platforms due to its structure; instead of an algorithmic feed being the primary focus, Reddit users can join communities (subreddits) that are focused on specific topics.

This structure means that as a PR professional, Reddit can be a fantastic tool for monitoring conversations and determining audience sentiment. Users choose which communities to join; these can range from highly niche topics to more general discussions. Users themselves will oftentimes be very experienced in the topic, effectively serving as opinion leaders and experts in certain subjects. Oftentimes, highly active users will drive conversations around a subject and have an outsized influence.

If a brand is fortunate enough to have a dedicated subreddit, they are sitting on a gold mine of unfiltered, authentic conversation of their brand. Specific trends and immediate responses can be measured. Even if a brand does not have a presence on Reddit, general discussion on an industry can establish trends and overall sentiment.

This being said, Reddit isn’t a cure-all solution to sentiment analysis. Due to each subreddit being somewhat insular, conversations might risk falling into echo-chambers. Each community will have its own norms and inherent biases, and community-led moderation might selectively approve or remove posts that don’t conform to those norms. Don’t fall prey to audience capture, and make sure that conversation monitoring takes place across a variety of sources.

Outreach to audiences on Reddit can be challenging as well. As a whole, the platform is community-dominated, and self-promotion is generally frowned upon. If a brand wants to communicate on the platform, they need to thoroughly understand the norms of their communities and the style and tone of communication within their audience on the platform. Overly product-centric or promotional posting won’t work.

However, there are some upsides. If brands listen and understand their community, they can present a truly authentic, transparent brand communication strategy. Doing this won’t reach millions of users, and instead has a much more narrow reach; but doing so will build immense trust within these niche communities.