Brands are rethinking the traditional social media playbook, trading reach for credibility as they look to crack Reddit.
The shift comes as the 21-year-old platform draws renewed interest from marketers, driven by a mix of user growth, ad demand, and its growing role in shaping how content surfaces in search and AI-generated answers.
Onstage at ADWEEK’S Social Media Week, Reddit’s global head of insights Rob Gage laid out how brands like Netflix, Dove, Nike, and Philadelphia Cream Cheese are finding traction, often by doing less.
“If you post more than three times a week, your brand sentiment falls off a cliff,” Gage said, citing internal research. “Reddit was never built around the people you know. It was built around what people say.”
That distinction is forcing brands to rethink how they show up. Unlike other platforms, Reddit doesn’t reward follower graphs or algorithmic reach.
“It all starts at zero,” Gage said. “It is not about who’s following you. It is about how good your contribution is to the community.”
Credit where it’s due
Philadelphia Cream Cheese offered one example of how brands are adapting to those norms. When a user known as “ChiveLord” went viral for documenting daily attempts to perfect chopped chives, the instinct on other platforms might have been to replicate the trend.
Instead, the brand took a lighter approach, referencing the moment in an ad: “Some heroes chop chives every day until Reddit says they’re perfect. We whip ours into cream cheese.”
“If you were a brand like Philadelphia Cream Cheese, you might have said, ‘I’m going to chop chives too, and I’m going to show how great we are at chopping chives.’ That’s not how it works on Reddit,” Gage said. “Instead, you acknowledge what they did.”
