Reddit Marketing — How to Make Content Niche Audiences Actually Engage With

I spend an embarrassing amount of time on Reddit. As a content strategist for B2B SaaS companies, Reddit marketing should be the last thing on my mind — Redditors have a sixth sense for marketing and a hair-trigger for downvotes.

My Reddit homepage is a mishmash of everything that interests me: Deep dives into project management tools. Heated debates about the latest Severance episode. Spending hours on Reddit every day, I started wondering — how do you reach people like me?

So I dug in. Turns out, the brands that win on Reddit participate. Here’s how to use Reddit for marketing without getting roasted in the comments.

Table of Contents

What is Reddit marketing? Why does Reddit marketing matter? Why Reddit is So Tricky for Marketers Common Reddit Marketing Strategies 3 Reddit Marketing Strategy Tips to Avoid Getting Roasted

What is Reddit marketing?

Reddit marketing means building genuine connections within Reddit's vast network of communities, called subreddits.

Traditional social media tactics don't work here. To succeed, you need to be a real community member first — a brand rep second. Not the other way around.

The platform runs on authentic discussions and shared interests across thousands of specialized communities. A Reddit marketing strategy takes consistency, expertise, and actual value. Most importantly, it demands patience — building trust and recognition within Reddit communities takes time, but creates lasting relationships with your audience.

Why does Reddit marketing matter?

Reddit's reach keeps expanding. The platform now sees over 100 million daily active users, a 39% jump from last year.

That's a lot of people coming to Reddit every day to research products, solve problems, and engage in meaningful discussions.

What makes these numbers particularly interesting is the intent behind Reddit usage. When people come to Reddit, they‘re actively seeking information or solutions. They read product reviews from real users, ask detailed questions about services, and trust the community’s unfiltered opinions more than polished marketing content.

The platform's structure of topic-specific communities creates natural audience segments. Each subreddit represents a group of people united by shared interests, making finding and connecting with your target audience easier. These communities often become the first stop for people researching purchases or seeking recommendations.

This behavior creates unique opportunities for brands who understand how to participate appropriately. While Reddit users may be marketing-averse, they're incredibly receptive to genuine expertise and authentic community participation.

Why Reddit is So Tricky for Marketers

Reddit focuses on community building and online discussion rather than highlighting individual profiles or specific content. Posts and comment threads, called subreddits, move up and down on feeds based on user upvotes and downvotes.

As you might expect, upvotes are like Facebook likes which signal Reddit algorithms to move content up. Downvotes do the opposite by moving less engaging content down.

Posts that engage hundreds of others will get moved up and seen by more users. Meanwhile, content that bores or annoys many users gets moved down where it might not even be seen. This causes users to see a feed that might be more engaging. But, this can also mean that non-promoted branded material that feels like a generic advertisement could get downvoted or marked as spam.

Another thing that makes Reddit challenging is that you can't easily search for legitimate company profiles or official business pages.

Yes. That's kind of scary.

There is a search filter for “Users and Communities,” but you'll primarily see results for the most active subreddits — which could be created by anyone.

This is very different from Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, where you can easily search for people and verify business pages.

If a customer is looking for information on a product and searches for a brand, they might see unofficial community pages that host more specific subreddits about the company. However, almost all of this content is usually created by fans or customers.

Here's an example of what happens when you search McDonald’s on Reddit:

Although you see a number of communities related to McDonald’s, none of them say they're official or run by the restaurant chain.

While they aren’t brand-affiliated, these communities can still be helpful to users and even companies. A prospect searching Reddit to learn more about a specific product might find great customer-posted chatter about the item they're considering.

Gamers, for example, flock to the platform to discuss new launches, pro tips, and issues they might be having while playing a popular video game like Sims 4.

Similarly, users might create a subreddit or community about a restaurant, like Burger King, to talk about the weird or interesting things they've seen at the chain.

Since threads show positive and negative feedback, users might even recognize that positive feedback is more legitimate since the product would be destroyed by user comments if it were bad quality.

Common Reddit Marketing Strategies

Reddit can be a tricky place to navigate simply because it’s so different from other social platforms. Here are five strategies that’ll help you learn how to use Reddit for marketing.

Build a community through authentic participation.

This means consistently engaging in subreddit discussions, answering questions, and sharing expertise without pushing your product. To do this, I recommend finding relevant subreddits where your target audience spends time and then becoming a regular, helpful presence in those communities.

I've watched brands attempt this hundreds of ways on Reddit. The ones that succeed, like Notion, use community ambassadors who prioritize being helpful over being promotional.

Their ambassador, Mr. Wildenfree, regularly participates in productivity and software subreddits.

He offers detailed advice, creates product feedback threads, and acts as a bridge between users and the Notion team.

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His Notion Certified Ambassador status adds credibility, but it's his consistent, helpful presence that makes the brand more approachable.

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Here‘s what makes this strategy work, based on successful patterns I’ve observed:

Long-term commitment matters more than quick wins. Build at least six months of consistent participation to gain real traction. Community trust builds slowly. Focus on solving problems first, promoting second. The most respected brand representatives on Reddit respond with detailed, helpful information — even if it means recommending a competitor‘s product when it’s a better fit. Share insider knowledge generously. Technical team members who regularly participate in relevant subreddits tend to gain more traction when they offer deep expertise about their industry rather than just their product. Document and analyze what works. Each subreddit has its own culture and unwritten rules. Successful brands clearly study and adapt to these community-specific norms.

Host expert AMAs.

Ask Me Anything (AMA) threads are live events where an influencer, executive, or company staff member creates a post introducing themselves and inviting Redditors to ask questions.

Successful AMAs need three core elements: an expert who can share unique insights, genuine, unscripted responses, and dedicated time for meaningful community engagement. Without all three, you risk joining Reddit's graveyard of corporate AMAs that felt more like press releases than conversations.

This type of promotion is best when you have an influencer or interesting person affiliated with your brand who can answer questions quickly and in an engaging way. However, it can be difficult to draw attention to these types of promotions if you don't have an interesting host in mind.

When you do have an interesting host, though, it works extremely well. Film studio Lionsgate, for example, hosted actor Keanu Reeves on r/movies.

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He spent hours responding thoughtfully to questions about everything from fun experiences with his co-stars to his favorite kung-fu training.

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His authentic responses about both personal and professional topics drew over 297K upvotes and 33k comments.

You can also coordinate AMAs with multiple experts. I like the one OpenAI hosted with five team members including their CEO, Chief Product Officer, and Chief Scientist.

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Each expert focused on different aspects of AI development, creating a comprehensive dialogue with the community.

Focus on storytelling opportunities. A software founder might share honest stories about failed features that shaped their product vision. A chef could reveal kitchen disasters that led to signature dishes.

Redditors value transparency over polish. They'll engage more with imperfect but honest responses than with corporate messaging.

Create and nurture branded subreddits.

Creating a branded subreddit is about building a responsive community where users can find help and share experiences. I've seen this work well with tech companies who make their support team accessible through Reddit.

Take OpenPhone's subreddit, for example.

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Their community page is both a knowledge base and support channel, with clear organization and active moderator participation.

What stands out is how they handle challenging situations, like when a user recently posted about service discontinuation.

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OpenPhone's support team responded promptly and personally, acknowledging the inconvenience and offering alternatives.

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Transparency converted a potentially negative experience into a showcase of their customer service values.

Here‘s what I’ve learned about maintaining engagement in a branded subreddit:

Pin critical resources at the top. OpenPhone keeps its help center, tutorials, and status page easily accessible in its sidebar. Create themed discussion threads. Weekly threads like “Feature Request Friday” or “Tech Support Tuesday” encourage regular participation. Enable post flairs. Categories like “Announcement,” “Help,” and “Discussion” make the community more navigable. Highlight community wins. When users share success stories or helpful tips, acknowledge them with Reddit awards or special user flairs. Monitor mentions across Reddit. Users often discuss your brand in other subreddits — engage there too, but always identify yourself as a company representative.

The most important rule? Never delete negative feedback. Instead, address concerns openly and professionally. Your community will respect honesty more than perfection.

Create high-value content.

Sharing insights that help others succeed. I've found the best-performing posts offer genuine learnings rather than thinly veiled promotion.

For example, the founder of the form-building tool, Tally, Marie Martens, does this perfectly on r/SaaS. By detailing Tally's journey to $150K MRR, she provides actionable insights about product development and business strategy.

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SaaS founders want real numbers, honest insights about what worked (and what didn't), and practical principles they can apply to their businesses. Her post delivers on all fronts: transparent metrics, clear strategic decisions like choosing simplicity over feature bloat, and specific values that drove their success.

What's equally important is how she stayed active in the comments, answering detailed questions about pricing decisions and product development choices.

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Ongoing engagement turned a great post into a rich resource of founder insights.

When creating content for any subreddit, I focus on these principles:

Share real experiences, not theory. Your actual journey, complete with mistakes and corrections, is more valuable than generic advice. Include specific numbers and results. Notice how Marie didn't just say they grew—she shared exact user counts and revenue figures. Explain your thought process. Explain why you made certain decisions and what you learned from them. Focus on transferable insights. While your exact situation might be unique, extract principles others can apply to their own challenges. Document your journey along the way. The most valuable posts often come from keeping notes about your challenges and solutions as they happen.

Understand what your target community struggles with and share experiences that address those pain points. Always start by asking: What unique insights can we share that would genuinely help solve problems this community faces?

Use paid ads.

Consider promoting your posts if you want to get your content front and center quickly. Promoted posts stay prioritized higher up in subreddits and target specific user groups. Like other social platforms, these posts display a “promoted” icon, so users know they didn't organically rise to the top.

Promoting your posts allows you to keep them prioritized higher up in subreddits as well as target them to specific groups of users.

Like promoted posts on Facebook and other platforms, there will be an icon on the post that says it‘s promoted. So, although the posts will be higher up, users will still know that it didn’t get to the top of the thread they're reading on its own.

Here's an example of what one of these posts looks like:

Reddit's targeting options are more sophisticated than most marketers realize. Beyond basic demographics and locations, you can target by:

Communities: Select specific subreddits where your audience hangs out Interests: Reach users based on their engagement patterns Device type: Target mobile or desktop users Time of day: Schedule ads when your audience is most active

The platform also offers interest category combinations. I've seen this work particularly well when targeting users who follow both technology and productivity subreddits, or combining gaming with entertainment interests.

My rule of thumb: Use paid promotion to amplify content that‘s already proven to work organically. If a post performs well naturally in one subreddit, it’s worth testing as a promoted post in related communities.

3 Reddit Marketing Strategy Tips to Avoid Getting Roasted

Understand the culture.

Each subreddit operates like its own micro-community with unique unwritten rules, inside jokes, and preferred posting styles. Understanding these nuances is crucial before trying to participate or market within them.

Failing to grasp these nuances can lead to downvoted posts, negative engagement, or even bans.

Reddit has its own language that newcomers need to learn. Common acronyms include:

OP (original poster) AFAIK (as far as I know) TIL (today I learned) CMV (change my view) TLDR (too long, didn't read) AITA (Am I the Asshole)

Beyond these platform-wide terms, individual subreddits often develop their own specific terminology. For example, r/wallstreetbets uses entirely different language than r/marketing.

Using the wrong terminology can make your post feel out of place, reducing credibility and engagement.

Study the top posts from the past month in your target subreddit. Note what gets upvoted, how people format their posts, and which topics generate engagement. Ultimately, adapting to each subreddit's culture is the key to building credibility and engagement on Reddit.

Study subreddit rules.

Subreddit rules are non-negotiable guidelines that determine whether your content stays up or gets removed. Every subreddit has its own specific set of rules listed in the sidebar, and breaking them can lead to deleted posts, temporary suspensions, or even permanent bans.

Some rules are straightforward: r/handbags bans discussion of buying replicas.

Other rules can be more nuanced, like r/science requiring all posts to reference peer-reviewed research, or r/gaming's strict policy on self-promotion.

Many subreddits follow an informal “10:1 rule” — meaning you should contribute ten non-promotional posts for every one promotional post. Breaking these rules not only gets your content removed but can result in permanent bans from the community.

Reading and following each subreddit‘s rules protects your brand’s reputation and shows respect for the community you're trying to reach.

Address controversial topics head-on.

Reddit users have exceptional memory when it comes to public figures' past statements and actions.

Professional wrestler Ronda Rousey learned this the hard way during her AMA, which quickly became a case study in how not to handle controversial topics on Reddit.

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When Rousey launched her AMA to promote a Kickstarter campaign for her comic book, users immediately questioned why someone of her wealth needed crowdfunding.

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They also brought up her extremely controversial tweets.

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Rather than addressing these concerns, she avoided responding to any challenging questions, choosing to answer only safe, promotional topics.

The AMA went horribly wrong for her.

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The top-voted questions — many addressing her controversial past statements — remained conspicuously unanswered, drowning out any positive promotional impact.

For AMAs to succeed, transparency is essential. The community responds better to honest acknowledgment of past controversies than attempts to sidestep difficult questions. When planning an AMA, be prepared to address challenging topics directly—or reconsider whether Reddit is the right platform for your campaign.

Navigating Reddit

The beauty of Reddit marketing is that it rewards what great marketing should prioritize: trust, authenticity, and real connections with your audience. While paid advertising options like sponsoring a post are expanding, organic community engagement remains the most powerful way to build a lasting presence on Reddit.

My advice? Start small. Pick one or two subreddits where your expertise can truly add value. Read the rules, study the culture, and participate genuinely.

The platform may seem daunting at first, but that exclusivity is exactly what makes it a goldmine for authentic engagement and organic reach.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in August 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.