Have you Reddit yet? Reddit is a cross between a social network and a forum. And provides an open area where users can discuss pretty much anything.
With over 73 million daily active users, Reddit social listening provides insights into the communities brands love.
Talkwalker has now strengthened our Reddit partnership. So it’s time we dug deeper into Reddit, to reveal what you can learn from it.
Talkwalker's expanded Reddit partnership
Since July 1st, Talkwalker now gives you broader access to Reddit data, through the new Reddit Data API. This can help unlock real-time, in-depth insights from Reddit's rich communities and public conversations.
Choose to use it as a separate data source, or integrated with our world leading social media listening. Either way, you can now uncover more unique consumer insights and knowledge.
What is Reddit?
One of the most interesting parts of Reddit is its use of communities. Whatever your interest, hobby, or niche, there’s a community for you. Over 100,000 of them.
If you like dogs, frogs, or clogs, there’s an established fanbase that you can chat to about your interests.
Communities are also varied enough to engage people for business and pleasure. I use it to connect with the social listening and marketing communities, for development. But I’m also active in several groups related to my favorite hobbies.
You can also post on your own profile to build your following or community. Plus, there are other standard social media features, such as chat and trending topics.
One unusual element of Reddit is how it is moderated. The platform uses a team of volunteers to mod the various communities. They’re free to run the community as they want, as long as they follow Reddit’s Content Policy and Code of Conduct.
This helps communities to develop in different ways, providing a more open and customized experience for users.
Reddit Engagement
When users see a post or comment, they have several options to engage:
- Upvote/Downvote. Much like the traditional social media 'like', Reddit users can upvote or downvote a post or comment. This creates a score that shows what people like or dislike the most. The most upvoted comments often appear at the top of threads.
- Comment. Users can add their comments or responses, to continue the conversation.
- Awards. Users can also give awards to the very best content, purchased through real-world currency.
Users also have a Karma score. These ‘fake internet points’ help identify who are the biggest contributors to their community. The more you post, the more upvotes, and the higher your Karma.
What is Reddit social listening?
Social listening is all about analyzing and understanding the conversations consumers have on social media platforms. Then using that data to create insights and drive genuine business results.
The more you know about consumers, the more you can adapt your business to meet their needs/expectations. Which leads to more sales.
Reddit is particularly good for social listening due to its communities. Find the community most relevant to your brand, and you’ll have a pre-established group of relevant consumers.
Compare this to platforms like X or Twitter. Users will chat about anything that’s engaging them in the moment. In contrast, Reddit communities provide a pre-filtered, relevant cluster of conversations for analysis.
To learn more about social listening in general, check out our What is Social Listening guide to learn more.
What is social listening on Reddit used for?
The great thing about Reddit social listening is that it can support any of your social listening use cases. We’ve covered some of the benefits in our Why is Social Listening Important blog, but here’s how Reddit helps.
Crisis management
Reddit communities are highly engaged in the details of their chosen topic. If something is becoming a crisis, Reddite will be talking about it.
This is useful for both identifying a crisis and for understanding how your audience is reacting to it. Reddit conversations will identify what your fans think about the situation, enabling you to shape your response effectively.
A spike in mentions alongside a drop in sentiment usually shows that a crisis is happening. Talkwalker Consumer Intelligence Platform.
Brand reputation
Brand reputation isn’t just about managing crises, but an ongoing operation to keep people connected with your brand.
With a community for everyone, you can dive into conversations to find the brands and products consumers love. For example, BMW could listen to r/BMW (with over 430,000 members) or any of the related niche communities like r/BmwTech or r/BMWX3. These conversations can quickly identify exactly what people think of the BMW brand. And uncover where BMW could improve.
Competitor analysis
If BMW could track these communities, what would stop BMW’s competitors from doing the same?
Nothing.
Any car brand can listen to the BMW communities or any other car brand communities. This will help them find areas where competitors outperform. Or, better still, reveal where their brand is outperforming competitors.
Campaign optimization
To connect with consumers, your brand needs to talk like they do. You need to speak the same language.
Reddit monitoring doesn’t just look at what people are talking about, but how people are talking. It’ll identify key phrases, buzzwords, slang, technical terms, or anything else your target audience uses to discuss you.
Incorporate that into your corporate style, and you’ll have content that resonates more than ever. Helping to get even more results from your marketing strategy.
A word cloud highlighting the main Reddit conversations around dogs. Although broad now, filtering the data will help reveal the most discussed topics for the various niches of the community. Talkwalker Consumer Intelligence Platform.
Influencer identification
In every community, there will be stronger voices leading the way. Not necessarily Mods, these are people who regularly engage the community and shape what people think.
Listening to Reddit helps you find these community leaders, to connect with for future campaigns. You can also build relationships here to help share your key messages within your community.
Search engine optimization
Following more recent search updates, it seems Reddit is now appearing more frequently in search results. You could boost your SEO performance by understanding how Reddit conversations appear in industry keyword searches. Encouraging brand-related conversations on Reddit could also help boost your presence in search results.
What is the best social listening tool for Reddit?
I may be biased, but Talkwalker provides all your social listening needs for Reddit and beyond. Now part of Hootsuite, we’re bringing a new world of social media performance to users, with comprehensive data. Plus the latest in AI-powered listening features and capabilities.
Talkwalker now has full access to the Reddit Firehose through their official API. This includes a range of metrics to analyze conversations on Reddit.
- Engagement metrics - Find the most engaging posts, by comparing key metrics like the number of comments, upvotes, and downvotes
- Karma - Help find the most active (and potentially influential) voices by comparing Karma scores
- Subreddit subscribers - Identify the busiest communities by comparing subscriber numbers
Another key benefit is that Talkwalker’s Reddit social listening doesn’t run in isolation. You can combine it with a wide range of data sources, such as blogs, X/Twitter, Instagram, news, etc. This helps you gather a more comprehensive understanding of your consumers within one platform view.
To learn more about Social Listening, and what it can do for you, click below.
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