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Reddit is rolling out a suite of organic social strategy tools today as the discussion platform prepares for its initial public offering (IPO), ADWEEK can exclusively report.
This is the first time the company has offered free tools for businesses, a move that aims to generate more organic activity from brands, potentially turning them into paying advertisers.
The product, Reddit Pro, includes social listening tools to understand where members of Reddit’s communities are talking about a brand or its category, as well as tools for brands to analyze activity and create posts.
“Reddit Pro has native social listening,” Reddit chief marketing and consumer experience officer Roxy Young told ADWEEK. “Right now, if you want to get any insights around Reddit, you have to do that all on your own [through] just being active on Reddit … using another third party tool.”
The social listening tool distinguishes the suite from other platforms’ organic tools around posting and analytics, which are table stakes for social media managers, said Kendall Dickieson, an independent social strategist.
Reddit can be seen as a bit of a maverick despite its two-decade history, and brands haven’t felt the platform’s members have been the most receptive to marketing messages. It only submitted initial filings to go public in February of this year. The company posted revenue of $804 million in 2023, a 21% increase from the previous year, according to filings, but a drop in the bucket compared to Meta’s nearly $135 billion in revenue in 2023. Plus, the company generated net losses of $90 million.
Still, the company, which earns the majority of its revenue from advertising, says it is in the “early stages of monetizing” its business, according to Reddit’s S-1. Reddit Pro can act as a flywheel to turn more brands into advertisers: more than 200 brands, like Taco Bell, Wendy’s, the NFL and The Wall Street Journal, participated in its test phase.
Turning insights into action
Unilever-owned skincare brand Kate Somerville was looking for ways to rejuvenate the 20-year-old brand when it turned to Reddit to try and join in on conversations with customers, said director of brand activation Jaclyn Sepulveda. The brand joined the Reddit Pro test phase in October 2023, having never used Reddit before, either as an advertiser or organically.
Using insights from Reddit Pro, Kate Somerville launched a paid Ask Me Anything activation where users could pose questions about skincare to the brand’s education manager.