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Reddit is ready for advertisers, but are advertisers ready for Reddit?
- brink 9y agoWhy pay for ads when you can pay for vote manipulation and viral marketing through organic posts? The cost / user engagement ratio has to be much better, right?
- raverbashing 9y agoadd to it Astroturfing and other forms of opinion manipulation
- losteric 9y ago"viral" advertising, astroturfing, and automated propaganda is hard to do correctly, but it's immune to adblockers.
- pavel_lishin 9y ago> Effective "viral" advertising and automated propaganda isn't cheap It might have a better return on investment than ads.
- ivarv 9y agoThis is by far the best way to stretch your marketing dollar on reddit, but (aside from AMAs) seems difficult for reddit themselves to monetize.
- pen2l 9y agoReddit as a monolith is pretty good at catching that. Sure it'll miss one or two every now and then, but I don't see it being inundated by organic marketing anytime soon. Also, as I understand it, they have been working on catching this stuff behind the scenes and they seem to be doing okay.
- aaron-lebo 9y agoReddit has an incentive to ignore and deny astroturfing. Go to a subreddit, look at account activity, and it is obvious they don't have it under control, at all. But Reddit was built on fake activity, so what is new.
- BoiledCabbage 9y ago> but I don't see it being inundated by organic marketing anytime soon. Because it already is
- pc86 9y agoSerious question, how is Reddit/Advance Publications making money off of AMAs? Are the mods of that sub Reddit employees?
- foepys 9y agoIt's very obvious that advertisers discovered reddit for viral marketing some time ago. In the last few years the number of highly upvoted posts on /r/all that include logos and company names increased dramatically. It's common to find top posts titled along the lines of "My SO and I recreated our first date at <fastfood joint>" or "The store where I work wanted to burn these clothes but I saved them: <link to image with cloths from a specific designer>". Sometimes top comments were obviously made by advertisers where someone asks for a better alternative of a product depicted in the post and another one answers only 1 minute later with high praise for another product. I don't believe that every mention of a product is directly advertising but I noticed a steep increase of users mentioning products directly by name and model number over the time.
- TAForObvReasons 9y agoIncidentally there's a subreddit for that: https://www.reddit.com/r/HailCorporate/ https://www.reddit.com/r/HailCorporate/
- djstein 9y ago> yes
- QAPereo 9y agoIf advertisers are edgy about something as locked down as YouTube, they’re going to be positively terrified of Reddit.
- AviationAtom 9y ago^ This I'm wondering if I'll be able to pick my nose and dig in my ass in the future without offending someone...
- zitterbewegung 9y agoAdvertisers haven’t been ready for reddit for awhile. Who wants their content associated with hate groups ? Trolls ? Adult content ? Moderators who are mistreated by staff. Staff that modifies other peoples comments ? And once they are ready maybe reddit won’t be what people want anymore . Also, the fact that social media advertisers can do the ads cheaper . Why pay for something you can do for much less? I guess reddit has a PR agency trying to push them so that advertisers will take the bait.
- Mindwipe 9y ago> Who wants their content associated with hate groups ? Trolls ? Adult content ? Moderators who are mistreated by staff. Staff that modifies other peoples comments ? That's like the typical advertising experience with a print newspaper. (This is somewhat satirical, I'm not suggesting that it's a sustainable long term situation.)
- Alex3917 9y ago> Those concerns range from worries that ads will appear on controversial “subreddits,” or topic-based message forums, to fears of campaigns being flayed alive by Redditors on anti-advertising subreddits like HailCorporate. Let's be honest, the problem is that the vast majority of marketers are really dumb and terrible at their jobs — they only want to do things that have already been "proven to work", even though by far the highest ROI goes to those who go first. That's not to say there isn't a lot of fucked up stuff happening on Reddit, but that isn't the real issue here.
- gk1 9y agoHow many marketers do you know? I'm glad to see you edited "99% of marketers" to "vast majority of marketers," but that still reeks of a generalization based on personal opinion and not fact.
- Alex3917 9y ago> How many marketers do you know? I've talked with hundreds or thousands. But the underlying idea comes from Seth Godin, who I'm sure has talked with at least an order of magnitude more. He has lots of posts on this theme, e.g.: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2012/07/the-importance-of-going-first.html http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2012/07/the-importan... It's trivially easy to test the idea, just going on Bumble Networking (most people are marketers) and offer some new product or service that is obviously a no brainer. It doesn't matter if the thing you're selling doesn't actually exist, as long as it would be clearly beneficial. And just keep track of how much interest you actually get, versus people who just want to "make an instagram" or whatever.
- gk1 9y agoI don't see what first-mover advantage has to do with Reddit as a marketing channel. Plenty of companies are already advertising there, and there are plenty of reasons why others aren't doing the same besides being "really dumb and terrible at their jobs.
- wcarron 9y ago> take the most critical, bullying group of individuals on the internet and throw them into one community; that is Reddit,” said Tuff. Hah! This guy must not use the web often. Also, for a guy who eventually hopes to sell ads on the Reddit platform, he's not doing a great job of putting lipstick on the pig.
- seibelj 9y agoI would say HN is far more critical and bullying than reddit, but then again we aren’t trying to lure advertisers
- pjc50 9y agoHN is more critical but less bullying. It rarely tolerates open crude abuse, but has a huge blind spot around "intellectual" bullying such as ""scientific"" racism.
- wanderingjew 9y agoHN has a problem with the libertarian hellscape ideology of laws being an impediment to wealth. I would argue this oppressive ideology is far more violent than the dross that's skimmed off Reddit. Additionally, HN is far, far less intelligent than its users would have you believe, but that circles back to the edgelord libertarianism again.
- thescribe 9y agoOk so I get that you disagree but how is it violence?
- wanderingjew 9y agoOppression is violence [1]. The willful disregard of laws enacted by a democratically elected legislature (from Uber's disregard of Taxi Medallions, airbnb's disregard of occupancy laws, to 2008-era banking scandals) of the upper class (successful entrepreneurs) is oppression against the lower classes. Usually, this is taken care of through the courts, wherein the judicial system punishes people for crimes -- again, an act of violence. However, in the absence of punishment or a judiciary aligned with the interests of oppressors, the oppressed are morally justified in enacting punishment and responding to violence in kind. [1] Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 1967.
- ben_jones 9y agoI don't think mainstream advertising that appeals to the general public will ever be successful on Reddit. Niche advertising, such as recruiting and product placement in subs like /r/sysadmin, or fanduel in /r/nfl, will have mild success - but not enough to make Reddit profitable. Ironically I think imgur will have more success then Reddit in the long run.
- jlarocco 9y ago>I don't think mainstream advertising that appeals to the general public will ever be successful on Reddit. Mainstream advertising doesn't appeal to the general public. People tolerate it because they don't know they can turn it off. If web browsers shipped with ad-blocking turned on by default then most people would never turn it off.
- NOSHSHNACKERS 9y agoreddit has some good local pages - like cities and lots of the games /.s are ok
- vita17 9y agoThis is the end of Reddit. They can’t monetize the web version of their site because their users are sophisticated enough to use ad blockers. If they load up their mobile app with ads, people will just use a 3rd party Reddit app. So they’ll have to ban 3rd party apps which will betray all the users who got into Reddit because it was an open platform.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- pavel_lishin 9y ago> This is the end of Reddit. People have been proclaiming the end of Reddit since before Digg's downfall.
- EGreg 9y agoAnd that was the end of Digg.
- adtac 9y agoSelling upvotes without marking posts as 'promoted' is an option if they badly need a way to sustain. But I'm pretty sure most of the userbase (including me) would leave if this was made public.
- austenallred 9y agoI spend a lot of money advertising on Reddit. It does great. I’m extremely happy.
- 9y ago
- post_break 9y agoAs a moderator for a large branded subreddit, get ready for user revolt.
- faizmokhtar 9y agoIt's much better for advertisers to astroturf on reddit.
- preinheimer 9y agoI tried advertising on Reddit earlier this year. I picked a few subreddits, whipped out my credit card, picked a few key phrases, and figured I was ready to go. The advertising UI left a lot to be desired. I was hoping to run multiple versions of the same ad to test CTR, no dice. I could set up multiple ads, wait for them each to be approved, then manually make changes through molasses, possibly with additional approvals after each one. I've used Google Ads, Bing, and some of those "curated" networks before. All of them felt like they wanted to help me succeed (so I'd give them more money). Using the Reddit system felt like a fight I was losing the whole time. (at the time they were segregating advertisers into the like 10K+ spenders, and others. we were in the others category)
- TorKlingberg 9y agoThis feels like an impossible game. Reddit's advertising UI will never have as many features as Google's. Just compare how many engineers each company has.
- preinheimer 9y agoAbsolutely google can throw more people at the problem. I'd settle for: - Let me run multiple versions of an ad, run more of the one that has the best CTR. - Once you've got my money, and have seen a few of my ads, never require approval again unless I've been bad. - Label all graphs clearly. - Give me an estimate of how many ads will show at various bids.
- tomjen3 9y agoOnce you've got my money, and have seen a few of my ads, never require approval again unless I've been bad. That will never fly, for the sole reason that reddit is small enough and young enough that they could be run over by somebody willing to drop 10 grand. Googles spam filter is probably the best.
- pavel_lishin 9y ago> The advertising UI left a lot to be desired. Every bit of UI, except the two main ones[1], leave a lot to be desired. Their moderation tools are still atrocious, despite promising for years to improve things. [1] The list of submissions for any particular subreddit, and the subreddits therein. As far as I'm concerned, they absolutely nailed it, and should be wary of messing with a good thing.
- jnordwick 9y ago"... take the most critical, bullying group of individuals on the internet and throw them into one community; that is Reddit,” said Tuff. Lol.
- Sir_Cmpwn 9y agoI've been saying for a couple of years now that Reddit is on a clear downward spiral. Do you believe me yet? The right approach is federation with small, user-operated instances that all talk to each other GNUSocial/Mastodon style. That's the only way to make sustainable social networks that work in the interests of their users. Capitalism-driven social networks do not work.
- roel_v 9y agoSo... usenet? Plus, there is not a single website that has better ui than the better newsreaders.
- LambdaComplex 9y ago> I've been saying for a couple of years now that Reddit is on a clear downward spiral. Do you believe me yet? People have been saying that for years, and yet Reddit is still here. (With that said, I do agree with the rest of your comment)
- Sir_Cmpwn 9y agoDigg's still here, too.
- marktangotango 9y agoThe right approach is federation with small, user-operated instances that all talk to each other GNUSocial/Mastodon style. That's the only way to make sustainable social networks that work in the interests of their users. It's not yet known if this model is viable, or sustainable. I certainly hope so, but time will tell.
- Sir_Cmpwn 9y agoI think the sustainability of this approach is a tautology. The network cannot die by design, anyone can always stand up new instances.
- 9y ago
- jsonne 9y agoThe 500lb gorilla in the room that no one is talking about when it comes to Reddit ads is this. Go to Reddit right now and hit the "All" button and just see how much hardcore pornography pops up immediately. I'm not making some sort of moral judgement here at all, but that can and does scare off tons of big brands.
- nhebb 9y agoI don't think NSFW content is shown by default - it needs to be enabled in your account preferences.
- atwebb 9y agoIt is absolutely shown by default for /r/all, however the default ("popular") view and default subs for a login exclude NSFW.
- dsr_ 9y agoI just opened up an incognito window and hit /r/all. In the first two pages, I saw nothing NSFW except a joke about a hotel survey which mentions a hooker that would certainly pass on network television.
- dimillian 9y agoI'm a huge fan of Reddit, it's basically where I got my info about everything in my life. It's like an up to date, curated version of the mess that some news site are. Plus conversations is highly interesting most of the time. Of course, you have to follow the good one, and read what you want to read.
- alvil 9y ago... And are users ready for ads?
- toxican 9y agoThe site already has ads. Sidebar ads, banner ads, ads that look like regular submissions to the site. Not to mention the more natural advertising that /r/hailcorporate likes to freak out about a lot.
- jasonkostempski 9y agoAny brand that only sells things that work as advertised and isn't backed by a tone-deaf marketing department should be able to hold up against any "brand-safety concerns". If they could also accept that no one wants to be tracked and that they should trust the people they're working with to report semi-accurate impression numbers instead of trying to use user machines as arbiters, maybe they could pull off some in-line advertising. While I've never seen a unicorn, I can't prove they don't exist. Good luck Reddit.
- gsylvie 9y agoI don't mind the promoted Triplebyte ad I see at the top of my reddit landing page. I'm subscribed to r/git and r/programming; I suspect it's coming from my r/programming subscription. My ad-blocker is enabled for reddit, but the Triplebyte promoted ad still gets through. I guess it's not really an ad but a promoted topic. It even has the upvote/downvote buttons. It's been there for probably the last month.
- compumike 9y ago(I work at Triplebyte.) Thanks, that's great to hear! It works for us too -- we can easily measure that we've created a lot of great career opportunities for engineers who came to us via the r/programming promoted post.
- makecheck 9y agoReddit tries way too hard to funnel people into their app, which I assume gives them more options for uncontrollable ad spam. Dark patterns that constantly advertise apps really need to go. On mobile I prefer the desktop Reddit site due to high link density and the fact that, frankly, browsers are BETTER because of trivial pinch/zoom/scroll, opening in new tabs, etc. Instead, Every Single Time I visit Reddit I have to deal with a stupid loading animation, then a massive message covering half my phone screen giving me only two options (App or Mobile Site), just so the page will load to the point where I can use the Request Desktop Site command. The experience sucks now, and if they make it worse I will simply stop using Reddit instead of hopping on board.
- zbentley 9y ago> To ensure those whitelisted subreddits stay safe, Reddit monitors the posts published to them using language analysis technology. If it finds posts that violate its quality standards, it turns off ads for that subreddit. That's surprisingly honorable. I worry that, if Reddit is faced with more financial struggles in the future, this would be among the first things to change. Imagine if, instead of programmatically terminating advertisements and having a human check the content for moderation, they programmatically removed the content instead of the ads.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]