Reddit has grown significantly since its founding in 2005 and now reaches over 330 million users per month who spend over 20 minutes per session viewing over 20 billion pages and 1 billion videos each month. The site reflects internet conversations and is organized by subreddits around different interests. Brands can engage communities by following discussions in relevant subreddits, utilizing the upvote/downvote system to understand what content is most popular, and hosting "Ask Me Anything" sessions to directly engage fans.
4. Reddit is on course to
reach 1 billion users
20+
min / session
20B+
pageviews / month
5th
largest site in the US
60%
mobile
1B+
video views
138k+
subreddits
330M+
uniques / month
55%
under 34
26. 6.4X
Lift compared to
Automotive norms per
Millward Brown
3.4X
Lift compared to
Automotive norms per
Millward Brown
Purchase IntentBrand Favorability6k+ comments
23% return
rate
1+ minute avg.
Hi Everyone! My name is Matt Joanou and I work for Reddit.
First off, thank you for having me!
Any Redditors in the audience?
Upvotes for all of you.
Before we jump into things, want to make sure we’re all up to speed on Reddit’s more recent history. Reddit was founded in 2005, which is a long time ago in internet years. Actually about a year after Facebook was founded. In Reddit’s 13 year history, it’s gone through a lot. It was acquired, it spun back private, both founders left and came back. And over the past few years, we started doing some of the things we maybe should’ve done a long time ago.
We launched our mobile app about 2 years ago. Since then it’s become our dominant platform, seeing about 60% of our traffic. We redesigned the desktop experience earlier this year. Our CEO, Steve, described our old site as a “Dystopian Craigslist” - lots of blue links, thumbnails, and not very easy on the eyes. The new site is modern. It’s cleaner, faster, and easier to use. All while keeping the content, conversation, and community at the forefront.
Most people are surprised when they see how big we actually are. We’re a bit of a sleeping giant in the media world. We’re the 5th biggest website in the US. We have over 300 million people visit our site every month (about half of those are in the US). That’s across 130 thousand subreddits. We’re seeing the time on site increase, it’s currently at about 20 minutes per session. We see ourselves as a platform on its way to a billion users.
Ok. Now to the topic at hand. R Fellow Kids.
How many of you know about this subreddit?
The description is amazing “Advertisements and media that totally appeal to the radical youth!” The subreddit has over 400 thousand subscribers and sees about 1.3 million visitors every month.
1.3M UVs and 6M Page Views monthly
There’s a meme that’s really the origin of the term and represents the ethos of the community. It’s a meme of Steve Buscemi from an episode of 30 Rock, where he plays a detective trying to infiltrate a high school. His shirt reads “Music Band”, he’s got a backwards hat and a skateboard, and says “How do you do, fellow kids?”
Now clearly this is tongue-and-cheek, but it gets at the core of the challenge that Marketers face. It’s really hard to connect with the “radical youth” in a way that’s meaningful while still be self-aware as a brand. This isn’t a new problem. Brands have been trying to figure it out for decades. BUT it feels harder than ever with the dawn of the internet and social media. Things are moving faster than ever and the way people communicate is changing rapidly.
It could be a lawyer in Florida, using emojis to relate to his potential clients. Ultimately hoping that this will cause them to hire him for his legal services.
Or it’s a teacher printing out a meme because they think they’re connecting with their students and might get them to actually do their homework. Or it could be the CIA handing out fidget spinners because they’re assumedly trying to connect with the next generation of agents.
According to Sitecore, brands report harvesting an average of eight pieces of data, ranging from more transactional details to behavioral insights and trends. The most common types of customer data that respondents’ brands collect online are: Email address (89%), Name (84%), Telephone number (75%), Physical address (68%).
Combine Who & Where w/ how and why?
Toyota leveraged their latest TV spots, targeted at millennials, to facilitate interesting conversations suited to their target’s specific interest verticals. In partnership with Reddit’s Brand Strategy practice, they developed reactive content based on Redditors’ comments, generating overwhelmingly positive sentiment and brand favorability.
Over 6,000 high-quality comments generated over one month
Toyota’s most upvoted comment in the thread was upvoted 100X more than the average Reddit comment
23% of engaged Redditors returned to the thread to engage a second time
Millward Brown measured major increases in Brand Favorability, Aided Brand Awareness, and key metrics around the Toyota RAV4 Hybrid’s specific features