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I'll add a quick note, basically every brand that knows what SEO is (and in today's age it's every company) has figured out the Reddit astroturfing. I've had ba

by kredd 3y ago

I'll add a quick note, basically every brand that knows what SEO is (and in today's age it's every company) has figured out the Reddit astroturfing. I've had bar chats with people in NA, and some of them would talk how they work for marketing departments of random companies. Apparently Reddit is their "free passive advertisement" spot for potential funnel targeting Gen Z + millennials. So searching for reviews on there is basically useless. At the same level as Amazon at this point. There will be some exceptions, but anonymity and very easy vote manipulation ability makes every review questionable at best. That being said, it is still very good for a quick "general question"-esque searches.

LesZedCB 3y ago
yep reddit is now either bots or people so banal they may as well be bots
potatolicious 3y ago
Yeah, Reddit isn't perfect, but for many kinds of subjective research it's still better than the SEO-fest that's the Google SRP. It's more "90% spam" vs. "40% spam". At least there's some signal within the noise, whereas for many topics the Google search is just 3 pages of ChatGPT pablum before you get to 5 more pages of manually-written SEO bait, with a small smattering of actual valuable information.
MostlyStable 3y ago
Stand alone comments or posts on reddit are often not that useful. But if you can find users getting into a discussion about a product or category, that is generally the goldmine. A) It's long enough that it's much less likely to be inorganic, B) Provides enough context for more informed decision, and C) in an ideal world if the parties disagree you get the advantage of adversarial discussion (hopefully still relatively friendly) Admittedly, this is pretty uncommon, but I'm more likely to find it on reddit than anywhere else.
- kredd 3y ago
  That's basically how astroturfing works though. "Marketing companies" have rotation of accounts that they use to create discussions to make it sound real. The easy ones to spot (again, i'm just a messenger here, but been paying more attention since I've been told about it during drunken rants) is when a reply-comment is asking a very simple follow up question regarding a product review, which can be easily Googled, so the OP would respond back with even more positive reviews. It's fun sometimes to spot it and go into account's history, and sometimes it becomes extremely obvious from just the subs they frequent. The other couple fun ones that are easy to spot - someone asks for a recommendation, and a comment is a list of 3+ brands to make it sound "organic". You go into the history of the account, and you can see they always include one specific brand name in every list they suggest with 4-5 months in between posts. Or someone asks for a recommendation (brand themselves), then there's a response from a random person suggesting a brand that is extremely niche, and the OP a few days later comments back saying "i tried this, and this is amazing!". My guess is, most of it is a "long game", as Reddit et al. is extremely lurker-heavy. I could see SEO companies setting up shops and having different tactics to play the game. The other problem is, since every company is doing it, you will get a "great product from Reddit recommendations", as those great companies also have to do it. But it's just a gamble at that point. As much as I'm not a fan of them, I tend to stick with wirecutter / consumerreports as my "starting point" of the research, where it applies. Not the best, but I feel less tricked than going through Reddit.
  - MostlyStable 3y ago
    If they have done such a good job with a back and forth conversation that A) I can't tell it's fake and B) it has useful information then the only thing I have to say is https://xkcd.com/810/ https://xkcd.com/810/ -edit- also my point was about conversations that are significantly longer and more substantive than the ones you describe. That actually get into details, with back and forth.

by kredd 3y ago

LesZedCB 3y ago

yep reddit is now either bots or people so banal they may as well be bots

potatolicious 3y ago

Yeah, Reddit isn't perfect, but for many kinds of subjective research it's still better than the SEO-fest that's the Google SRP. It's more "90% spam" vs. "40% spam". At least there's some signal within the noise, whereas for many topics the Google search is just 3 pages of ChatGPT pablum before you get to 5 more pages of manually-written SEO bait, with a small smattering of actual valuable information.

MostlyStable 3y ago

Stand alone comments or posts on reddit are often not that useful. But if you can find users getting into a discussion about a product or category, that is generally the goldmine. A) It's long enough that it's much less likely to be inorganic, B) Provides enough context for more informed decision, and C) in an ideal world if the parties disagree you get the advantage of adversarial discussion (hopefully still relatively friendly) Admittedly, this is pretty uncommon, but I'm more likely to find it on reddit than anywhere else.

kredd 3y ago
That's basically how astroturfing works though. "Marketing companies" have rotation of accounts that they use to create discussions to make it sound real. The easy ones to spot (again, i'm just a messenger here, but been paying more attention since I've been told about it during drunken rants) is when a reply-comment is asking a very simple follow up question regarding a product review, which can be easily Googled, so the OP would respond back with even more positive reviews. It's fun sometimes to spot it and go into account's history, and sometimes it becomes extremely obvious from just the subs they frequent. The other couple fun ones that are easy to spot - someone asks for a recommendation, and a comment is a list of 3+ brands to make it sound "organic". You go into the history of the account, and you can see they always include one specific brand name in every list they suggest with 4-5 months in between posts. Or someone asks for a recommendation (brand themselves), then there's a response from a random person suggesting a brand that is extremely niche, and the OP a few days later comments back saying "i tried this, and this is amazing!". My guess is, most of it is a "long game", as Reddit et al. is extremely lurker-heavy. I could see SEO companies setting up shops and having different tactics to play the game. The other problem is, since every company is doing it, you will get a "great product from Reddit recommendations", as those great companies also have to do it. But it's just a gamble at that point. As much as I'm not a fan of them, I tend to stick with wirecutter / consumerreports as my "starting point" of the research, where it applies. Not the best, but I feel less tricked than going through Reddit.
- MostlyStable 3y ago
  If they have done such a good job with a back and forth conversation that A) I can't tell it's fake and B) it has useful information then the only thing I have to say is https://xkcd.com/810/ https://xkcd.com/810/ -edit- also my point was about conversations that are significantly longer and more substantive than the ones you describe. That actually get into details, with back and forth.