Most brands still treat Reddit like an afterthought, where someone posts a link once a quarter and calls it done. That’s a costly habit in social media marketing services right now, especially once a competitor works out what’s happening on the platform.
A new study, run by Reddit in partnership with WPP, surveyed more than 13,000 Reddit users about how they shop. What it found should be a wake-up call for social media marketing agencies: the platform doesn’t behave like most social channels, and the gap between how people use it and how brands show up on it is wider than most teams realise.
People Come to Reddit to Investigate, Not to be Sold to
Most social media advertising still runs on the same old logic. Show the ad, build a bit of buzz, and hope it sticks somewhere. Reddit’s data suggests that it’s missing the moment where decisions happen for a lot of buyers, because that moment isn’t during the ad. It’s later, after someone’s gone off and done their own digging.
77% of Redditors said they visited two or more communities before committing to a purchase. That’s not someone skimming a thread and moving on. That’s cross-checking, comparing notes, building confidence the slow way and on their own terms.
A related number backs this up. 63% felt more confident in decisions shaped by Reddit communities than in decisions shaped by other social platforms. Worth taking seriously if you’re trying to work out where your customers’ trust comes from these days.
Here’s the stat that matters most day to day, though. 58% said watching a brand respond directly to a customer’s question in a thread made them trust that brand more. Not a huge follower count. Not a viral post. One real reply, in one real thread, answering one real question, doing more for trust than a lot of paid placements manage.
What Builds Trust on Reddit, And What Doesn’t
What resonates on Reddit often looks very different from traditional social media marketing. Here’s what helps build credibility and what users tend to ignore:
| What builds trust on Reddit | What doesn’t move the needle as much |
| A brand directly answering a customer’s question in the thread | A high follower count on the brand’s account |
| Genuine back-and-forth in relevant communities | One-off promotional posts |
| Showing up where the conversation is already happening | Trying to manufacture buzz from a standing start |
| Letting the community surface honest pros and cons | Polished, sales-forward messaging |
Reddit’s Reach Has Scaled Up, And So Has Its Influence on Search
A lot of brands are missing something here. Reddit pulls in 493 million weekly visitors now, which is not a niche corner of the internet by any stretch. And a growing share of those visitors aren’t even typing reddit.com on purpose. They land there through an AI chatbot link or a Google referral, often without realising it, because AI search tools and Google have started treating Reddit threads as a trustworthy answer in their own right.
The old assumption that Reddit visibility is a nice-to-have doesn’t hold up against that. If your buyers are already being funnelled into subreddit conversations about your category, the real question isn’t whether you should be there. It’s whether staying quiet there is already working against you in ways you can’t easily see.
What the Ad Data Says About Paid Reddit Campaigns
There’s a separate number worth bringing into the next budget conversation. Ads placed inside genuinely relevant communities drove purchase intent up to 16 times higher than keyword-based targeting alone, and users were 30% more likely to engage with ads shown in a relevant subreddit than ads served elsewhere on the platform.
That gap is too big to dismiss. Social media advertising on Reddit seems to run on a different logic than most platforms, one where context carries more weight than broad keyword matching or generic demographic targeting ever could on its own.
Five Things Worth Doing Differently on Reddit
None of this needs a bigger team or a bigger budget. Mostly, it needs a different mindset from the one most channels reward.
- Stop treating Reddit as a broadcast channel: Posting something promotional and walking away misses the entire point of how this platform works. People come here to dig, not to be pitched, and content that reads like a pitch gets called out fast, sometimes within minutes.
- Build a real community response habit: When a thread mentions your product, your category, or a problem you solve, a genuine reply carries real weight. Give this a permanent spot in your social media marketing services workflow rather than leaving it for whenever someone happens to have a spare hour.
- Target by community first, keyword second: If paid Reddit campaigns are on the roadmap, subreddit relevance consistently beats broad keyword matching. Spend time understanding which communities your buyers hang out in before launching anything, the same way you’d want a LinkedIn advertising campaign matched tightly to job titles and industries rather than cast wide and hoped for.
- Let go of trying to control the narrative: Reddit’s value comes from conversations that aren’t brand-controlled, and quietly astroturfing a presence tends to backfire the moment a community notices.
- Fold Reddit into reputation thinking, not just review-site monitoring: With more traffic arriving through AI chatbot referrals, Reddit threads increasingly function as a trust layer that those tools point straight to. A brand with a genuine, responsive presence in the right subreddits is more likely to come across well wherever those AI summaries pull from, which is reason enough to bring reputation management into the same plan as your social strategy instead of running them separately.
Where Reddit Fits Into Your Wider Channel Mix
Reddit isn’t a replacement for the rest of a brand’s social activity. It just deserves a real seat at the table next to it. Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn are built for reach and visual storytelling, and most brands already lean on them for exactly that. Reddit asks for something else. It wants brands to turn up as an actual participant in a conversation, not another voice broadcasting at it from the sidelines.
Not every team has the bandwidth to monitor the right subreddits, reply consistently, and run a paid strategy on top of everything else already on their plate. That’s exactly the kind of gap a good social media marketing agency exists to close, ideally without making the brand’s presence feel like it was handed off to someone else entirely.
Conclusion
Reddit was never going to replace the rest of a brand’s social presence, and it shouldn’t have to. What this research shows is that trust here gets earned the slow way, through honest answers, real participation, and a willingness to let conversations stay a little messy and a little unscripted. Brands that treat that messiness as a feature rather than a risk are the ones likely to come out ahead, especially as more buyers and more AI tools keep turning to Reddit before they turn to a brand’s own marketing.
Techosoft Solutions helps Australian businesses build social media marketing strategies that go beyond posting schedules and follower counts. From platform-specific advertising to ongoing community engagement and brand reputation management, our team focuses on building the kind of presence that earns customer trust. Get in touch with Techosoft Solutions to see how we can help your brand show up where real buying decisions happen.
FAQs
Do brands need a large following on Reddit to benefit from this research?
Not based on the data here. The strongest trust signal was a direct, genuine response in a thread, not follower count or post volume. A smaller, more responsive presence can outperform a large but passive one.
Is Reddit only useful for consumer brands, or does it work for B2B too?
Reddit hosts active communities across a huge range of niches, including professional and industry-specific ones. If your buyers research purchases online at all, a relevant subreddit likely already exists, whether your brand has noticed it yet or not.
What’s the risk of getting a Reddit strategy wrong?
Reddit communities are quick to call out content that feels inauthentic or overly promotional. A clumsy or obviously sales-driven attempt at engagement can do more reputational damage than staying quiet would have.
How is a Reddit strategy different from running ads on Facebook or Instagram?
Facebook and Instagram reward polished creative and broad reach. Reddit rewards relevance and participation. A campaign built for visual platforms usually needs to be rethought for Reddit rather than simply repurposed, since the audience here is actively researching rather than passively scrolling.
Should a small business bother with Reddit, or is this really only for bigger brands?
Smaller businesses can do well here precisely because Reddit rewards genuine engagement over budget size. A founder or small team replying honestly in a relevant thread often comes across better than a large brand’s polished but impersonal response, which levels the playing field more than most paid channels do.
