Reddit Best Practices for GEO

Why Reddit Matters for GEO

Reddit - the social news aggregation and discussion platform - is increasingly becoming a source for LLM responses. Both Google and OpenAI have data licensing partnerships with Reddit to access content to train their AI models. As a result, Reddit's presence in Google's search results has increased by 191% (Sistrix, 2024). Based on our own analysis, Reddit is the 2nd most referenced domain (behind Wikipedia) that LLMs cite.

Ensuring that your brand is visible and has a positive sentiment on Reddit is key, but spamming Reddit with keywords to get your brand to rise to the top won't work - in fact it will hurt your brand's reputation. It's crucial to understand and respect the Reddit culture, and to take the time to create meaningful engagement.

Understand Reddit's Culture

The Reddit community is unique, collaborative, supportive, and values honesty. Learn how people talk, what they complain about, and how they interact with brand mentions. Find the most sourced sub-threads using Evertune’s Content Analytics. Before posting, review how people are talking about your brand and product category. 

Here are key aspects of the Reddit culture to keep in mind:

• Authenticity rules: Redditors despise marketing jargon and corporate speak.
• Self-promotion is discouraged: You can't drop links to your site or product without value. Even subtle attempts can get you banned.
• Transparency is valued: If you work at a company, it's better to say so. Just do it in a contextually helpful way.
• Reputation must be earned: Success requires long-term community engagement, not one-off posts or comments. Your reputation on Reddit is based on a points system called "karma." You earn karma when other users upvote your posts and comments, and lose karma when they downvote them. Higher karma users have more influence on AI training data and community discussions.

Why Authenticity Matters

Earning trust on Reddit is fundamentally different from other platforms. Redditors have a finely-tuned radar for detecting corporate manipulation and will quickly downvote or ban accounts that feel artificial or overly promotional. Creating fake buzz around your brand or product - also known as “astroturfing” - can result in account bans, subreddit bans, and serious damage to your brand’s reputation on Reddit. It's especially problematic for AI optimization because if Reddit detects and removes astroturfed content, that manipulated data won't make it into the datasets that train AI models - defeating the entire purpose of your Reddit strategy.

Engagement Strategy

Account Setup:

• Use real, human accounts (not your company name)
  
  • If you do choose to operate official brand accounts, note that it is risky if misused, but effective when done well. Brand accounts are best for AMAs ("Ask Me Anything") or answering direct questions. Keep tone friendly and transparent: "Hey, I work at [Brand Company]. Happy to explain how our product works." 
  • Avoid sudden account activity bursts (Reddit will throttle new accounts)

Community Participation:

• Monitor top subreddits, keywords and sentiment
• Target active conversations that have recent activity and engagement 
• Monitor where people are already talking about your space or product and join those conversations to clarify, help, or thank users
• Build karma gradually through meaningful participation 
• Comment insightfully on relevant threads. Ask and answer questions genuinely, showcasing your expertise (not your product) 
• Mention your product sparingly - only when it's a natural solution to someone's question 
• Make sure you're always linking to genuinely useful content
• Upvote and support organic mentions by happy users
• Be open to asking for feedback and mentions 
• Work on your reputation through consistent engagement

Content Best Practices

Find subreddits talking about your product category or key pain points and provide helpful information. For example, if you're a baby formula company, engage in discussions on product comparisons (“What’s the best organic baby formula?”), guidance (“How to transition my baby to formula”) or troubleshooting (“Why does my baby spit up formula?”). 

When responding or posting about your product, keep in mind that AI LLMs reward content that is trustworthy and accurate:

• Clear S-E-T signals (Structure, Explainability, Trustworthiness) 
• Citations to credible external sources 
• Comparisons over time 
• Respond to reviews with relevant context 
• AMA sessions can be particularly helpful: "We're the team behind [Product]. Ask us anything about how our product works and we'd be happy to explain!"

Who’s Doing It Well?

Let’s look at an example of a brand that’s engaging with Reddit thoughtfully - and has been for years. The mattress company, Purple, created its own subreddit that it monitors regularly and responds to customer and prospective customer questions and feedback. 

What are they doing that works?

• They are contributing regularly (but not excessively)
• They have a long-term presence (5+ years) on Reddit
• They respond with helpful answers to product questions during a key moment of the customer journey 
• Their tone is respectful, clear, and useful

What to Avoid

• Don’t create multiple fake Reddit accounts to upvote your own content, post positive reviews/comments about your product or create fake discussions, otherwise you will be banned quickly
• Don't argue - If someone criticizes your product, respond helpfully or not at all 
• Don't include promotional CTAs, affiliate links, and vague pros/cons

Key Takeaway

Building credibility on Reddit requires genuine participation in discussions, providing value without expecting immediate returns, and understanding that the community's collective wisdom often determines which content gets visibility. 

New Terms Learned 

Astroturfing: Creating fake support or buzz around your brand or product. 

Reddit Karma: Points system where users gain karma from upvotes and lose karma from downvotes, affecting influence in the community.