Joe Amditis: One, go. So hello,
everyone and welcome to today's
webinar on Reddit fundamentals.
You're going to learn today how
read it works and how to improve
the visibility of your content
on the social media platform.
Reddit is a place where content
can flourish engagement can
drive traffic and stories can
dominate online conversations
can be discovered. Our leader
today our instructor, our
fearless leader, is Mina Mina,
do you want to save me a little
embarrassment and pronounce your
last name for me?
Meena Thiruvengadam: Sure. It's
Meena Thiruvengadam,
Joe Amditis: Thiruvengadam.
Okay,
Meena Thiruvengadam: well, there
you go. You
Joe Amditis: just needed to hear
it out loud. So yeah, so those
of you if you joining late, go
ahead. I'm going to have you
muted. It looks like Sarah's
audio is not working. But we'll
get we'll get her off off the
air. We'll get her working out.
We'll do that. If you have
questions. You can use the chat
to let me know that you have a
question or if you'd rather just
type it into the chat. You can
do that. And I'll let me know at
a natural pause that oh, we have
a question if she's while she's
screen sharing Some of the basic
things are going to cover like I
said, How right it works, how to
work with Reddit best practices
for editorial teams and then the
art and science of the AMA or
the Ask me anything. With that,
I will turn it over to our
instructor Mina, and we'll go
take it from there.
Meena Thiruvengadam: Alright,
well, thanks for joining me
today, everybody. I'm excited to
get started and talking with you
about Reddit. I am just going to
share this screen with you.
Here.
Give me one second. I will get
you guys.
Joe Amditis: We can see your
screen. You got it? Yeah, I can
see your screen. It's a PDF,
right?
Meena Thiruvengadam: Nope, it's
actually
Joe Amditis: I'm looking at a
PDF. Yeah.
Meena Thiruvengadam: Well, then,
let me get you on the right
track. Here.
Joe Amditis: There I see your
desktop. There you go.
Meena Thiruvengadam: And it's
still loading. Why is there we
go? Okay, there we go. Now we
actually should see it. Perfect.
So we're going to talk through
Reddit fundamentals here today.
And you guys still seeing the
loading button?
Joe Amditis: Yeah. There we go.
Unknown: All right.
All right.
Meena Thiruvengadam: So to get
this started, I'm going to tell
you a little bit about myself. I
am u dash Mina, San Diego. And
what that is, is my Reddit user
name. What are your usernames?
And why are you guys on Reddit?
I know Kyle, you said that
you're pretty active. But you
don't post there. Is that mean
that you lurk in conversations
quite a bit?
Joe Amditis: Yes, he says he's a
total lurker and I just think
it's funny that one of the
primary rules of Reddit is you
never share your username with
other people.
Meena Thiruvengadam: Well, you
know, I mean, okay, so I think
that what we've found here is
we've found our Reddit super
user, Joe. So that's good to
know. You have to keep me
honest. Well, I am Mina, San
Diego because I've always loved
Carmen San Diego meant that my
username, and kind of wanted to
start introducing everybody to
the vernacular of Reddit. And
let's talk a little bit also
about how Reddit fits into the
larger scheme of things as a
publisher. All right, there you
go. Just joining the bandwagon.
Sharon is sharing his username
there. Now read it is it's not
like most social platforms that
you're used to. It's not about
connecting with the people. For
example, as Joe said, sharing
your username is a phone call.
It's not about connecting with
Joe because I know women I like
them. It's about connecting with
people who have similar
interests. So it's connecting
around that content and that
interest versus the person. Now
Reddit is actually kind of a
behemoth. There are 100,000
different communities. And these
are all known as subreddits.
Reddit has now 430 million
monthly active users, and about
199 million posts with 32
billion uploads. So what you can
see here is Reddit might be kind
of considered an outlier
platform for most publishers and
most journals. But it's actually
a pretty rich space where
there's a lot of conversations
happening where there are a lot
of people going, and a lot of
opportunities to connect with
new audiences. All right, now
read it in terms of traffic to
websites. It's not a Facebook,
it's not even a Twitter. It's
not even a Pinterest or
LinkedIn, it's actually much
further down the line in terms
of social views being driven
back to a site. So that's
something that you should always
keep in mind. If you're going on
to Reddit as a publisher and
saying, I'm looking to build
huge scale. That's something
that's going to be very
difficult for you to do. Now
that said, you might have a
story that, you know, spikes and
gets a lot of Reddit traffic one
day, you might wonder what
happened, then it's probably
that someone has posted that
into one of those communities.
And you do have those outliers.
But this data is from parsley
currents, which monitors traffic
from a lot of different
platforms to all of the clients
that it provides data services
for. And what you can see is
that average daily views
referred by Reddit is actually
pretty low at around 94,000. So
you can see that that's just
above Instagram on this chart,
but this chart, you should
basically look at Instagram and
like shop as one. One particular
entity because like shop is also
driving traffic to Instagram.
And you can also see that
there's still over 1000 articles
every single day that are making
their way through Reddit, so
there's definitely a place to
find an audience and find
traction for your content
though. It's not going to be the
same numbers as a Facebook or
Twitter or even a Pinterest. at
this particular point in time,
and that's something that I'm
not expecting to change anytime
it's something that's been
pretty consistent. Reddit is
usually going to be on the
bottom of your refers, but it's
still an additional source of
traffic and also for a lot of
people a great wealth of story
ideas, and an opportunity to
engage to show off expertise
that a lot of cool things that
can be done with Reddit. So it's
not just a pure traffic play.
All right. Now, some of you guys
might know this. So feel free to
chime in if you've got any
thoughts, or if you want me to
kind of speed through this
section as we're getting going.
Now ready builds itself as the
front page of the Internet, and
I kind of think that is the
front page of the internet. What
about you, Joe? When you say the
same?
Joe Amditis: I would Yeah,
certainly in a slower way than
Twitter.
Meena Thiruvengadam: Yeah, yeah.
I'd say it's definitely not so
much the breaking news last
thing to happen, but really a
broader look at conversations.
What's gaining traction The
platform now some people do
refer to Reddit as a social
network. I think that's kind of
squishy, because it's not about
connecting with other people.
You know, it's just said, I'm
not supposed to be, you know,
giving my username out and
saying connected me. And if you
go and you try and search for
user on Reddit, you'll see that
that's actually one of the
poorest features of the
platform. And that's because
it's about connecting with
people around an interest, more
so than connecting with a
specific person. So in one way,
it's actually a great way to
kind of get out of that bubble
that you might be in, you might
think of your audience say, as
just local news consumers, that
maybe you've got an industry in
your town that's of interest to
everyone in the world. Rather,
it is one way to bring that
local story to people who might
be outside what you thought of
as your core audience, but are
still an audience for you.
Reddit is definitely a content
and conversation platform. I
would say it's less about you
than it is what you have to
contribute to the community. If
you're on something like
Instagram, It's very much
influencers, look at what I'm
doing, look at where I'm at,
things like that. But with
Reddit, it's much less about
that it's more about the content
that you have to share the
perspective that you have to
share by up and downloading
something, and overall
contribution to the community.
And if you look at the type of
Reddit that's developed, you
really see this. So it's much
different than most of the
platforms that you're probably
used to working. Right. And feel
free to chime in at any time if
you guys have questions.
Alright, so this is the Reddit
front page itself. Now this is
what users who are not logged
into Reddit are going to see
there's a few different ways
that you can sort this you can
sort this by what's hot right
now. It's getting warm voting
activity, what's new, what's
trending, you can look
regionally if you're a local
publisher, you might want to
take a look at what's happening
in your state. First, this could
be a good way to find a story
idea, right? Also good way to
gauge what might the audience
interest in the storyline be.
And as an editor, I found it's
really helpful to guide how much
you're putting into various
stories. I mean, you might think
that story is the biggest deal
in the world. But if you don't
see anyone about it, on Reddit
talking about it, maybe it's not
you need to check your
assumptions there. So can really
be good and a lot of different
ways. If you look over here, on
the side of the screen, you'll
see today's topic, growing
communities, this is actually
really great, because you'll be
able to see is the community
that's growing, that I might be
able to be a part of, that I
might be able to find really
values, my content and insights
that I'm sharing through my
journalism. So it's really a
good way to just keep tabs on
how the Reddit ecosystem itself
is evolving. And then at the top
here, you see what are kind of
trending storylines, and I think
this is probably from a couple
of days ago. So you can see get
a good idea of what's up there.
What's happening if you want to
kind of quickly check in on what
you might have missed after
vacation, this can be a great
place to get it. And then this
is you know, Reddit post itself
looks pretty similar to a
Facebook post except there's a
few different things. You'll see
up here top, every Reddit post
shows which community it was
posted in. And these communities
are known as subreddits. They're
organized around all different
types of interests. For example,
I'm in a travel community, I'm
in one called churning, which is
all about credit card points and
things like that. There's a lot
of different ways that you can
get into this our dash news is
definitely community, our dish
politics is a community etc.
Underneath the community, you're
going to see the username of the
person who posted it. Now for
brands like Washington Post if
the posting from their branded
account, that's what you'll see
there. Otherwise, you'll see the
person's name. You get the title
of the post itself. You get the
image related to a post read and
get video things like that. You
can also see upvotes and
comments from the This is really
important because these are one.
These are both ways for your
audiences to engage with you.
And they're either able to have
a conversation with you to
comment, or they're able to
state an opinion about posts
that you're putting through
their upvote or downvote. Since
so this entire package is really
what constitutes a Reddit.
Alright, I think Joe's on the
chat, and he's got some great
plugins and third party apps
subreddit enhancement suite. And
the Apollo app. I think Joe is a
major editor here.
All right.
Joe Amditis: It's just the the
UX kind of sucks. It looks
really bubbly. And personally, I
hate that. And there's Yeah, so
there's a couple of different
ones for people who don't like
the big bright giant stuff and
like more basic and text, text
based interface.
Meena Thiruvengadam: Yeah,
definitely. And that's one thing
that a lot of people they're
reluctant about Reddit because
the interface isn't exactly
great. You can't find other
people on it. And then there
seems to be like its own little
language that people are
speaking on Reddit. I mean, the
first time someone started to me
like gold or karma is like what
are you talking about? Which
brings me to this, there's some
key terms that you want to know
when you're getting started on
Reddit. As we talked about
earlier, a redditor is simply a
Reddit user, I gave you my
username. Now Joe gave you his
subreddits are identified by our
dash. And those are various
communities that are formed
around specific topics, subjects
or interests. Ama, as you guys
know, it's asked me anything,
it's a really popular q&a format
pioneered by Reddit. Even Bill
Gates has done one. And for a
lot of news organizations, ama's
are gold because you're able to
show off your expertise. And
you're able to drive traffic to
big projects, special projects,
archive content, and things like
that over time. So it's both
engagement and traffic, which is
a really great use of your time.
And reporters tend to love it
because reporters are experts
about things and they like being
able to show off that expertise.
So This can be a really good
way, particularly for reporters
who might be covering more
obscure topics. At Bloomberg, we
had a lot of people who would
want to do Facebook Live or
things like that. But it was
just you know, if you're going
to do a Facebook Live about
ETFs, there's not that much.
That's really, frankly exciting
visual about it. But something
like an AMA, if you look deeply
on Reddit, you'll find that
community that truly loves ETFs
and really wants to nerd out on
that with that super young, deep
dive reporter that you've got.
So that can be one way if you're
working within an organization
and people are trying to get
social traction with topics that
might not quite fine natural
homes on the platforms, right,
it can really be helpful their
karma. Karma is kind of a weird
one to get your head around.
It's basically a numerical
representation of the value
river contributes to the site.
You accrue karma when you
participate on Reddit. So
something like uploading,
downloading, posting all of
those things will bring new
karma to your active
participant. So if you look at
my account You'll see that I
have no karma because I like
you, Kyle pretty much a lurker
at least from the personal
accounts. Now uploading and
downloading a post vote score
basically determines its
position on the Reddit front
page on home feed on community
feeds, and things like that
people tend to upload things
that they support and things
should be doing better download
things that they might not that
they think maybe you're doing to
God, you got anything to add to
that one?
Joe Amditis: Um, yeah, there's
this the Reddit gold especially.
Did you talk about that? I
blanked? I
Unknown: have not that.
Joe Amditis: It goes. Yeah. But
so for instance, that karma
stuff is it's such a funny that
it's a meaningless number, that
almost no one ever sees your
total karma count, which is on
your user profile. Very rarely,
you very rarely go to other
people's profiles unless you
feel like arguing with them and
you want to dig through their
post history to see if they said
anything that could discredit
their arguments, but it doesn't
accumulate over the course of
your accounts lifetime and you
can see it rack up or go down.
And it's just a simple thing
that gives you that dopamine
feeling when you post something
and you see a lot, a lot of
numbers come in, you get that
nice little Ooh, people like
what I posted. It's equivalent
to likes.
Meena Thiruvengadam: Yeah,
exactly.
All right. And then gold, Joe is
red and gold, something that
you've used a lot.
Joe Amditis: Ranko is something
that I think is probably one of
the most brilliant micro
transactions for a platform. It
literally encourages users to
pay Reddit to give an award to
another user for submitting
Good, good quality content,
which they may or may not have
created to read it. So read it
both gets the traffic and the
viewership and the good content.
And then it convinces other
users to pay Reddit money to
give a little digital sticker to
other users. And then of course,
you get additional access and
features. So it's effectively a
premium account for like a month
or so. Yeah, it's just a very
There's there's very few things
out there like that that have
been implemented at that level,
or scale that have been that
effective. And it's a huge
driver of revenue to Reddit and
Conde Nast. And they have a
little display on the homepage
showing how much server time
your gold gold purchases have
bought each day. And so just a
really unique or innovative use
of extort you know, sucking
money out of users and driving
it to to the platform.
Meena Thiruvengadam: Yeah, and
it's definitely different than
memberships. I think it gives
you a different feeling of
buying
Unknown: all right.
Meena Thiruvengadam: And if you
guys have any questions on any
of the terminology that pops up
definitely feel free to ask
read, it also has a partnership
site with a pretty good
dictionary that goes you know,
even far beyond these, these
terms that we've defined. All
right. Now, one thing that I
think has been surprisingly easy
about Reddit has been finding
your communities it's really
easy to find your communities if
you go and you did down into
subreddits that are trending and
growing and things like that.
And it's also interesting to
take a look at what communities
are growing. I think that one
reason so many more news outlets
are looking at Reddit is top 50
News communities on Reddit,
we're up 17% year over year,
sports communities grew 34%
foods up 35% parents and
communities huge 87% increase
their gaming entertainment
beauty and these are kind of the
sweet spots in terms of what
communities are growing on
Reddit besaid you've got that
top area on the front page,
you've got another that's just
dedicated to digging into
several that you might be
interested in. And those are all
worth taking a look at because
those communities where the
growth is are places where
you're going to find
opportunities to be involved in
the conversation and also find
new audiences. Alright, news on
Reddit I know you've seen that
news has been a very growing
part of Reddit and a lot of news
outlets have been paying
attention to Reddit. But for a
lot of people, it's been
difficult to figure out exactly
how you want to approach the
platform, how much resources to
put in. Because Reddit is a lot
different than, say, a Twitter
or Facebook for a long time, the
rule on Reddit was you never
post your own stuff. You never
would post an article that
you've written or something from
your organization or anything
like that. And that's something
that the Reddit community
definitely didn't react well to
and read it. So in partnership
teams would encourage people not
to do that because it would tend
to alienate other people on
Reddit. That's something that's
changed quite a bit. Nowadays.
The latest from Reddit is to be
active in those communities that
are relevant to you, but to do
it in an authentic way. For
example, if I was the Center for
Cooperative Media and I wanted
to get active on Reddit, what I
would do is I would identify the
natural predator within my ranks
and that here would be job say,
okay, Joe, we want people on
Reddit to pay attention to what
we're doing, what communities do
we want to be involved with?
What communities are you
involved with, that we should be
having conversations with? Is
there anything that might
actually be worth posting those
types of things, people who tend
to authentically use Reddit are
really able to find that line
where it's not self promotion,
but it's giving someone in the
Reddit universe access to
information that they might
actually find helpful. So for
example, on Twitter, I might
say, hey, look, here's this
great story that I wrote about
whatever. But on Reddit, it
might be you guys are planning a
trip to Alaska. Here's a story
that you've got to read.
Typically, you want to do this
as authentically as possible.
The best outlets are ones who
actually have redditors on
staff, and they're just people
who see opportunities to match
their work with the communities
that they're involved in, but
they're not all about
themselves. And it's definitely
a very different type of mindset
going into publishing on Reddit.
Alright, so read its top
stories. 2019 Robert Mueller
hearings, Trump impeachment,
Hong Kong protests climate
change, you can see there are a
lot of big stories here, a lot
of global stories here. And a
lot of politics stories. The top
Reddit community for me is
actually isn't our news. It's
our politics. That's where most
of the stories are going into.
And that's where they're seeing
most of their engagement and
activity around those stories.
publishers are actually reacting
in a few different ways to read
it. Some people just aren't
paying attention to this scale
of audience growth is your
focus. Reddit is often not going
to be the most time effective
way for you to achieve that. But
some publishers are actually
really going all in You see,
you've got al.com washington
post there too, that have really
gone deep on Reddit with al.com.
They're looking to build
community around Alabama and
they really take their red
profile seriously is a
reflection of themselves in a
community that they want to
cultivate their Washington Post
democracy dies in darkness
Washington Post is probably one
of the most applauded Reddit
accounts on out there. It was
one that started with a whole
bunch of ama's. On they have a
ton of reporters who are really
active on Reddit, so it was
really easy for them to go out
and share their perspective. In
this particular platform,
they've got people like David
farenthold, who's all who's been
covering Trump for quite some
time now known for his notebooks
has a lot of answers. And you
see that that kind of it merges
well with a storyline that was
popular on Reddit and it shares
expertise that only the
Washington Post has. And they've
also done a lot with humor and
with means one thing that
they've done really well and you
can actually see this even when
they're smooth is they've
basically gone in there and
their actual letters, they
communicate with people on the
platform and the way that
redditors authentically
communicate Not in the way that
they would feel they need to for
Washington Post. So if you take
a look closely, you'll see, this
account has a lot more humor a
lot more fun, a lot more means
than you might expect if you're
a regular reader of the most.
Now you can see the LA Times
here has been on Reddit for
quite some time looking at that
date, I would say they probably
had a deeper editor in their
midst at some point in time,
probably someone who started the
account went on and it laid
there untouched for a while. And
this is what happens with a lot
of publishers as they see how
much time and effort it takes.
And they don't want to or
someone who is a proponent of
the platform leaves and it just
kind of dies on the vine. But
profile pages are only one way
to gain traction on Reddit and
they're actually limited and
what they can do for a brand.
More broadly, there's a couple
of different ways that you can
get traction on Reddit. One of
the best ways is to participate
in a relevant community. Like we
said earlier, finding specific
users on Reddit is a challenge.
So one of the best things that
you can do is even if you decide
to create a profile page is to
make it easier for Reddit
audiences to find you. And one
way to do that is for you to
participate in conversations
that are relevant to your work
and to your interests. By
tapping into established
subreddits you're able to reach
new audiences and convert new
audiences to create those
profile pages should you choose
to do that or to come to your
site to consume your content
maybe to subscribe to your
newsletters etc. It can
definitely be top of funnel even
if you don't have a profile page
and decide that you're not able
to commit a significant time or
amount of time or resources to
be endeavor growing your Reddit
audience because growing a
audience to a profile page be
very slow, very time consuming
process that requires patience.
Now the Washington Post actually
operates when the most
successful profiles on Reddit
like I said it launched a series
of a and as embraces humor. But
the other thing it does is it
also inserted itself into
conversations about its work.
It's pretty easy to go in, you
can do a domain search and see
what content from your URLs are
being discussed in various
subreddit. So if you do decide
to create a profile page, that's
a great way to seed your initial
growth, to go in there and say,
Oh, wait, you're reading our
story here. Maybe there's
something behind the scenes
something that ended up on the
editing floor. Is there
something else I can give you
about that that's a great way to
build your profile if you do
decide to create a profile page.
Now a few years ago read it
really was pushing publishers to
create this profile pages they
envisioned space in which
publishers would launch pages
build followings and have direct
relationships with their
audiences. But things like not
being able to search for
specific user makes it
incredibly difficult to be able
to do that. So it's something
that I think even read it will
admit, you know, it's it's hit
or miss one, whether it's actual
worth it for you to really
create and maintain a profile
page. And that's one reason that
you see a lot of publishers just
simply have it. A lot of
publishers look to read it as a
source of additional traffic.
And the best way to do that is
to participate in a relevant,
established community that's
larger than your profile pages
unless you've been on there and
you've really been at it, like
the washington post is invested
a lot of time and a lot of
effort into it. But you can see
that you know, its audience on
Reddit is smaller than it is on
other platforms. And I think
that makes it easy for a lot of
people to say, you know what, we
don't want to do this profile.
We don't want to have this
persona. We're already in too
many places. And there are other
ways around it. Neither of these
approaches is right or wrong.
It's just a question of, what
are your goals? Are you looking
to build community? Are you
looking to build audience? Are
you looking to spark
conversations around your
content, you're looking to drive
traffic as you look at those
goals. You can compare them with
the amount of effort that you
would need to put into them the
resources that you've got in the
newsroom and figure out which I
approach might be better for
you. All right. Now the AMA.
Joe, have you done an AMA?
Joe Amditis: I haven't done one
myself. I'm not that interesting
of a human. But I do know a
little bit about the process.
Yeah, please the most of the
official ones. Go ahead.
Meena Thiruvengadam: Okay. Well,
I'm gonna find a reason to do an
AMA with you one of these days.
Okay, so an AMA is basically an
Ask me anything. And this is
where somebody goes out there.
And I say, hey, ask me anything.
I'll answer your questions. news
organizations are perfect for
this because they have a depth
of knowledge that very few
people have. I mean, I know
reporters, you know, obscure
things about the most obscure
topics, and they are true
experts in that field. And let
it is an easy place to highlight
that expertise. And the example
on your screen here is something
that al.com did a few months
ago, they had one of their
political columnist. And so
questions about Alabama
politics. You can see here that
the ask is pretty broad. What do
you want to know? I'll answer
your questions. You tell people
around what time you'll be back
to answer their questions. And
then they'll leave those
questions for you knowing that
you'll come back and answer
them. Now, the aim is great
because it gives you a chance to
share your unique expertise. It
also gives you an opportunity to
link to content on your site,
you've probably got some almost
like Bible like primers about
certain topics. And this is a
great way to drive traffic to
them. I think some people will
do ama's and they won't include
those links. And it's really a
missed opportunity. Because
while someone's out here, and
there may be leaving their
question for you, they can go
and they can read their content,
your content, which is obviously
relevant to them, because why
would they come and ask you
anything about Alabama politics
if they didn't actually care
about things like how does the
Alabama Democratic Party
actually work? So it's also a
good opportunity to get that
traffic back to your site.
Another thing that smart
redditors will do is they'll
include links to the next
terminal social profiles like we
said it is about connecting
around a particular common
interest and not about a
specific user. So if you want to
have people connect with you if
your actual goal was to build
your journalist followings or
build your brand's followings,
it's totally acceptable to put
in those links to other places
where you can follow people.
Now, this you can see is
actually being done in our
Alabama. So one thing that's
really good is using ama's to
tap into those larger
communities. Now al.com is
obviously going to have a
smaller profile than something
like Alabama because the volume
of people interest in Alabama
probably goes far beyond the
al.com coverage area. So by
partnering with Alabama, they're
able to tap into this huge new
audience and hopefully build
their own audience. Typically,
when you're putting together an
AMA and Joe, if you've used any
different kind of procedures,
definitely let me know if you're
very active in a community and
you're familiar with a
moderator, you could talk to
that moderator and say, hey, I
want to do an AMA. Another
approach is to talk to let its
partnerships team. And I've done
this before we had a situation
of Bloomberg, where it's like,
we want to do an AMA on student
loans. What's the best community
that you can do this in Reddit
is totally open to help in
publishers of all sizes and
stripes, figure out what
communities are really active,
where might this really fit in?
Well, and actually making those
introductions to moderators, who
can help you set up those Reddit
ama's. And I find those are
actually the best ones. When you
get strong buy in from Reddit
got a strong buy in from the
moderator. You've got a lot of
people really talking up your
event and helping to spread its
reach. And that can be hugely
helpful. Also, there, you know,
hundred thousand different
communities on Reddit, I can
spend a lot of time on there and
I'm still not going to know it
as much as Reddit who also will
have access to different data
points than I as a public user
would have. Now there's
something you down Here proof
that I want you to pay attention
here. This is something that
everybody does when they do an
AMA, some people will do like a
picture with their dog a picture
with their sign, whatever. It's
just meant to show that you're
really there. And then it's
really you doing it? You know, I
think a lot of people, it's
like, oh, if it's a celebrity,
would that just be their PR
person? Know, the shows that
that person is actually there
doing? So that's kind of
interesting. Anybody have any
questions as we're going through
this? I don't see anything in
the chat. All right. Feel free
to chime in at any time and stop
me if you do have question.
Okay, so opportunities for
publishers. I think some of the
most savvy journalists the last
several years have known that
Reddit is a fountain of story
ideas and a way to keep track of
internet culture and other
storylines like nothing else. If
you start to see you know, a few
years ago, a lot of those
interesting super weird kind of
internet stories that Business
Insider were right was writing
stories that they would find on
Reddit because oftentimes This
is kind of almost an early
warning system, if you will, for
interesting content and
interesting internet behaviors
also other things but really
like that weird internet stuff.
That is like let it is a
fountain of gold for that.
So that's, that's a great
opportunity for publishers. One
thing that a lot of savvy
publishers will do is they'll
find a story on Reddit they will
report the story like they would
any other story like a story
like they would any other story.
And then they'll also put it out
in Reddit communities often that
inspired this story lines giving
credit where credit is due. And
that tends to be just a really
good technique for a lot of
publishers. Another thing
anniversaries are really popular
on Reddit. I know that from
every newsroom I've been in,
there's almost always at least a
few big anniversaries that are
important to your readership.
And you generally are creating
these big packages around them.
Well read it as a place where
you can find homes for those
anniversary stories. People are
going to care if it's been 50
years. Since this kind of
obscure person's died, there's a
community out there that cares,
right? It gives you an
opportunity to find that
community and get a little extra
bump for that traffic. They are
that content that you work so
hard to create. Reddit users
love to go deep. I know that on
Twitter, it's it can feel a bit
superficial. People are sharing
stories they haven't read, it's
clear that they don't actually
know the subject matter that
they're sharing. Well let it
read. It's different. This is a
place where people will go deep,
they're more likely to actually
read their stories before
commenting on them. They really
value that deep expertise and
that deep dive into things and
that's one reason the AMA is our
winner platforms favorite
features. This allows you to
really dive deep into a specific
topic with an expert on that
topic. And I'm in fact valued
more on Reddit than it is say
something like Facebook.
Joe Amditis: So, um, yeah,
Patricia wants to know, what
what what constitutes proof and
I see in some cases, I've seen
it as A photo of yourself
holding a piece of paper that's
the name of the subreddit or
your username with the days day.
There are other forms that it
depends on the subreddit, and
the moderators. So just be aware
of that. They'll ask you for
some standardized again, it'll
all be usually laid out in the
well, you know, rules or wiki
and you can go through.
Meena Thiruvengadam: Yeah,
definitely. And if you do want
to do an AMA, you want to get
familiar with the community, you
want to get familiar with that
subreddit tools. In my
experience, the moderators are
really great about walking me
through, but you really just
want to show kind of that I'm
the one who's actually doing it,
but some of them have gotten
really creative.
Joe Amditis: And I would also
note that some of the subreddits
have default bet limits for
participation before you can
actually participate. For
instance, you you have to garner
or amass a certain amount of
karma in certain subreddit. In
order to post or, you know,
leave comments for instance,
there are all kinds of little
barriers to entry to in order to
prevent spam and disingenuous
posting. various brands have
adopted, you know, for instance,
one of them is account age, you
have to have an account that's
older than X, you can only post
every seven to nine minutes,
those kinds of things. So you
have to be aware of that. You
can't just like jump into a
subreddit that day and expect
people to allow you to post or
be allow you to submit these
kinds of requests.
Meena Thiruvengadam: Yeah, I
mean, I think really what it is,
is so many news outlets want
kind of that quick return, and
they don't want to invest in the
community and a lot of these
subreddits have some catch
points to make sure that that's
they're not exploitable in that
way. And that's why I think the
people who are deeper editors
value the community so much,
it's so much harder to hijack
than other places. And this is
actually how Reddit co founder
Alexis ohanian describes it. He
says, imagine being invited to a
dinner table where people are
all discussing an article you
wrote, how would you engage with
them? This is exactly how you
should think about engaging on
Reddit. And I would say that in
my experience, this is 100%
true. Twitter is a place where
hey, here's an article I wrote
That might be enough for your
audience there. But this is a
place where people really want
to go deep again, they don't
necessarily care that you wrote
the article, but they care about
what you wrote it out. And it is
also like kind of being around
the dinner table. How would you
engage with them? You would
never go to a dinner table
without kind of knowing your
etiquette rules. You know, if
you're going to a fancy dinner,
maybe you'll look up which fork
is for what maybe you'll go back
to that old seeing with Hector,
Elizondo, and pretty woman. And
raticate is going to be key here
as well. Which brings me to what
is proper etiquette. Now this is
something that changes a bit,
but it's something that you
definitely need to pay
attention. The worst thing you
can do on Reddit, I think is
kind of like break those Reddit
rules kind of those major fo
pause then that's one reason
that self promotion and
promoting your own content. your
brand's content has been so
looked down upon lately. So the
first thing that you want to do
if you're going to get started
posting Kyle, this is for you to
help bring you from that worker.
active participant stage, but
read the rules of a subreddit
before posting get to know how
this particular subreddit works,
what the policies and procedures
are. If you do have a post that
you want to post in and you see
a relevant subreddit, for
example, let's say that I've got
a travel article that I wrote on
a credit card where you can get
it get 500,000 miles and then
turn it and it's over. I might
say, this is a travel story, but
it's also a cherished story. So
I can post it to those two
subreddit, that's not a full
pot, it's okay to post it in
multiple communities, as long as
those communities are relevant.
Like I wouldn't take that story
and say, Hey, let me go post it
in this Audi channel, or this
politics channel, because it's
completely irrelevant,
regardless of what kind of
audience I would reach there.
Joe Amditis: In the comments in
the chat real quick. For those
of you I posted a link to one of
the ama's that reporters from
the Asbury Park press here in
New Jersey did. It was posted
and originally hosted on the I
am, I am a the I am a subreddit
and then it was cross post To
the New Jersey subreddit where
they work, and they were also
allowed to engage with the
people in New Jersey separate an
example of a of a relevant
subreddit where you cross post
it, you wouldn't cross post it
to the funny subreddit, for
instance, if you're
Meena Thiruvengadam: a guest.
But I mean, that's a great,
that's a great way to serve
different types of audiences and
to engage with more people and
to really kind of, you know,
those reporters then later on
are trying to be more active in
those subreddits they're hurting
a little bit of crowd there and
that's going to go over well,
it's like if you're a regular
visitor, that will definitely
get get you more points with let
it You also want to vote, you
want to be an active member of
these relevant communities. If
you're going to be a part of the
community with Reddit, you want
to be a part of the community
don't just lurk and do things
that are good for you use it as
a place to drive traffic to your
brand actually be part of the
conversation, to whatever extent
is appropriate within your
editorial guidelines. Reddit has
a lot of respect for original
content creators and original
posters. So if you could say
hey, you know, Joe recently
posted this and I saw that can
be valuable, because people like
being credited. I mean, I think
for any of you who are
journalists, there's nothing
worse than having someone
basically take your story we
write it not say you and not
linked back to you, especially
if it's something that you
broke. So you here's place where
you really, it really pays to be
a better internet citizen in
that regard. Few things you do
not want to do. You never ever,
ever want to encourage people to
troll others on Reddit, you want
to be kind of a good steward of
this community that you're in.
And you want to kind of follow
the procedures that they've
established as well. You don't
want to shamelessly ask for
uploads, this isn't a place to
say, hey, load up this piece,
load up this piece. let that
happen naturally, based on the
quality of that piece, don't use
the word breaking. Now breaking
is a tough one on social
platforms and the platform like
Reddit as well. Content takes
time to spread and it can take
some time before something that
you've posted actually hits the
Reddit front page based on the
number of upvotes. So if that
takes three hours, that story is
about Probably not breaking
anymore, it's probably not
developing anymore. It's
covering the same thing that
you'll see on Facebook, people
will put, hey, breaking story,
but by the time it surfaces for
you, it's nine hours later, and
it's not breaking. So remember
that people aren't always going
to see your post when you post
it. So keep that in mind as
you're casting it in a greater
timeline and sense of time. And
don't flood Reddit with multiple
posts. So this is not one way
you want to set up your buffer
to just like post all 50
articles that your news
organization published today.
Doing that could mean that your
future posts are blocked and
labeled as spam. And it's also
just not very authentic with
most social platforms and
content platforms, you find that
actually customizing for the
experience on that platform is
worth it. And I think this is
the same case with read it read
it again also is about the
community not about you. So you
don't want to flood someone with
all the cool things that you've
just done all the stories that
you've just written unless you
can find a way to connect that
with the communities that
they're in. interests that
they've had. So make it a true
group conversation as opposed
to, I'm sending you this
broadcast type of approach. Now,
and if there's ever anything you
want to know about Reddit
etiquette, this is a great link
down here that will kind of walk
you through a lot of the do's
and don'ts. But the biggest
thing is to always read those
rules of a subreddit and think
of yourself as having a
conversation around the dinner
table. If you're sitting around
the dinner table, you're
probably not going to say, Hey,
everybody liked my content, like
my content, you're probably
going to actually be a little
bit more of a person about that.
And that's really what you want
to do on Reddit. And it will
take a look, Washington Post was
moderated by Gene Park and Max,
one of the things that he did
incredibly well is he was a key
part of the community respect of
that community and showed that
in the work that he did, and
promoted washington post content
and that's one thing that's
really helped turn the tide
towards the way Reddit community
feels towards publishers. And
again, Reddit actually has one
of the best partnership teams in
my experience for publishers,
especially small publishers, it
can be really hard to get
Facebook or Twitter up to give
you a time of day and to help
you with your issues. If you're
not a huge publisher, huge
advertiser, things like that,
rather, truly is much more
democratic in that regard. They
make their partnerships team
super easy to reach. I mean, try
and find the Facebook Partner
Manager and I bet it's going to
be a lot harder. But here they
make it super easy. click a
button, send them a message.
They've got a full layout of how
they work, what resources they
have, and they're available to
everybody. They've also got best
practices for profiles page, if
you're looking to set up a
profile page. This will show you
not just within media but
outside of media really cool
approaches to profiles and how
you might want to adapt that for
your own needs. There's also a
link where you can request to
host an AMA and read it will
work with you on finding that
ama coordinating with the
moderator and things like that.
Especially If you're early on,
this can be really helpful.
And tools, there's a few tools
that you can use with Reddit.
Now Reddit user experience is
one where, you know, as Joe said
earlier, there are a lot of
tools to kind of combat the fact
that it's not always the best
user experience. And there are
two that I want to point out to
you, the Bula. Now, you may know
this is the annoying little ads
on the bottom of various
stories, which they are but w
actually has a large suite of
other products as well. And one
of those is an integration with
Reddit that allows for tracking
and engaging with conversations
around your brand. So if your
newsroom has an existing
relationship with timbu, figure
out who your two little rapids
and you probably have one,
somebody on your ad side or your
paid traffic side probably knows
that person and see how you can
set up tracking on Reddit so
that you get alerts when
someone's talking about your
story in a specific subreddit.
She might want to go in and
comment on that. Not Having to
track it manually could be
really helpful and a lot of
trouble as, I guess side tools,
if you were are actually free to
newsrooms, but a lot of
newsrooms don't know about them
because they try and kind of
keep them separate from the paid
traffic acquisition efforts.
Now, second tool is crowd Tango
crowd timeline is kind of one of
the best tools in social
journalism, it's a little bit
difficult to get an account set
up with. But if that's something
that you're interested in
pursuing, talk to me and I'll
try and help you out. This
started as an independent tool.
Facebook has since bought it,
which is why it's a little bit
harder to kind of get ahold of
now. But what protocol does for
Reddit is it will talk it will
track subreddits in any kind of
way, slice or dice that. So this
is basically a list that checks
the top 100 subreddit. So what I
did yesterday is I said, Okay,
what are people saying about the
Iowa caucuses, and I'm able to
see what Reddit threads are
happening around this particular
subject line. You can do that
with anything you want. You can
also save the search So that you
get an alert every time there's
an increasing Reddit activity
around iowa caucuses or politics
or whatever it is that you're
covering. And that's actually
one of the most helpful ways to
do it. And a lot of beat
reporters who are savvy will set
certain keyword alerts based on
specific subreddits. They're
simple, just have tech related
subreddits. And they're looking
for, you know, movers of the
next iPhone, whatever it is, and
they'll get those alerts coming
to you, which really is easy if
you're a small staff or an
independent journalist, and I
mean, who doesn't want to use
their time more efficiently so
they can free themselves up for
higher value tasks. Another
thing you can do is you can kind
of see what's trending on
Reddit. This second image here
is from crowd Tango, and it
basically shows over performing
content from Business Insider
for the last 30 days and the way
an editor might look at this and
say, Okay, this is my content
that's really performing well on
Reddit. These are the
communities that I'm performing
well with It if I'm looking to
increase my Reddit traffic maybe
to offset a decline from
Facebook, maybe tapping into
some of these topics, where
there's increased interest from
Reddit is a great way to do
that. You're also able to see,
are there certain communities
that tend to drive spikes to
your content a lot, where people
talking about my work? Where
might I want to jump into this
conversation? A story like this
war crimes case, maybe that's a
great opportunity for an AMA,
obviously, people are talking
about that story. People are
uploaded in that story. There's
deep interest in it. And if I
happen to have a reporter who
really knows it, that's a great
opportunity for me to tap into
that interest, dig into the
expertise of the reporter lift
their profile a little bit drive
traffic to a larger piece of
their work. And you can set
these by over performing
underperforming every instance.
I think there's some publishers
that want to know every time a
story of theirs, makes it onto
Reddit. You can also have a URL
and basically search like yours.
URL within a Reddit or within
one of these lists, and then
have email sent to you whenever
something's popping there. And a
lot of editors find this really
helpful, particularly as I
figure, you know, kind of
figured out, what do I want to
focus my reporting resources?
And how do I kind of get
interesting stories before other
people?
Anybody have any questions on
this?
Joe Amditis: All right. I will
just point out that if you're
hoping to use the search
function on Reddit to find
anything, good luck, it is
garbage. And it has always been
garbage. And it is, you're much
more, you're much better off
just googling what you want to
know. And then adding the word
Reddit, to the Google search.
Meena Thiruvengadam: Yeah, 100%.
I mean, it's not just usernames.
It's everything on Reddit.
That's, you know, not very
searchable. And that's a great
tip there from Joe. And I mean,
the user interface. I think,
with a lot of people, it's a
little intimidating some
platforms. It's like they really
try and make themselves visual,
and easy to use. Read it takes a
little bit more effort. But for
some journalists that effort
really pays off. Well, Reddit
can be a great additional source
of traffic and great path to
story ideas and a really cool
way to engage with your
audience. And to show off your
expertise. I think that's kind
of one of the best things to do
is, you know, a lot of reporters
will get super bummed out that
their story doesn't go viral.
And sometimes you look at it,
you're like, well, look what
you're covering, like you're
covering some really obscure
topic, like, I mean, the amount
of times I've had to tell
someone, the Fed is not going to
go viral, like I love you. But
that's just not going to happen.
This is a great way for those
reporters to kind of have their
ego stroked and say, you know,
what,
your in depth knowledge
about the Fed's balance sheet is
never going to go viral on
Twitter. But there are a whole
bunch of nerds over here on
Reddit who want to dive deep on
what's happening with line 68
you know, reverse repos.
So it's a great way to do that,
too. I found that a lot of
reporters who are reluctant to
embrace platforms
will actually love to read it
because they can find those
niche audiences.
Joe Amditis: Two things I got a
question in the chat one thing,
slight correction on the slide
mean his mean his username is
you slash yeah me. If you see
our slash or slash are slash
that is referring to a
subreddit, you slash user slash
user slash is referring to a
user. And then the question was,
can you friend or can you follow
people on Reddit like I can
follow on Facebook, you can, you
can also send them friend
requests, which you can also
direct message them. And you can
see in most cases, how many
times you've more downvoted a
particular user. So if you are
engaging with someone and you
see a large negative number, you
can tell Oh, wait, I've already
argued with this person, this is
likely a troll. This person is
coming after me. So you don't
have to worry about engaging
because you can see that you're
negative, you have a negative
relationship already. And a lot
of this again, I'm speaking a
lot of this someone who's use
Reddit enhancement suite, the
tool I posted earlier for almost
the entirety of my experience. I
barely I barely Actually, I
don't recognize the homepage
without it. And so I highly
recommend using that. But again,
some of the features may be
different. So take whatever I
say with a grain of salt.
Meena Thiruvengadam: And that's
a free tool, right? Sure.
Joe Amditis: hundred percent
free. Yep. Free. It also allows
you to manage multiple accounts.
If you'd like to use multiple
accounts to for instance, I have
one account, you have one
account that's like for art, and
you like to share pictures of
art. I want account for pictures
of puppies and kittens, one for
hard news and you know,
journalism related stuff. It's,
it's encouraged. It's not a you
know, people to have throwaway
accounts. So if they want to
talk about something sensitive,
they create an entirely new
account that they'll likely
never use, again, that's not
tied to them or the other
identities. And they can ask
questions, honestly and
anonymously. So they're all
different ways you can use the
enhancement suite, and the
variety of tools that Reddit
gives you to you know, explore
the internet and I'm not
anonymous, or, you know, not
anonymous, I guess, whatever the
opposite of that is.
Meena Thiruvengadam: Exactly.
All right. What other questions
do you guys have About Reddit
and getting the most out of it
for whatever your goals might
be.
Joe Amditis: Feel free to unmute
yourself and ask if you Yes,
Meena Thiruvengadam: definitely.
Alright guys, well, I think that
everything ran out Snow. Snow is
like one of my favorite, the
little character that you see
that guy's name. He's kind of
awesome.
All right. Well, thank you guys
for joining us. If you've got
any questions, feel free to
reach out to me reach out to Joe
Kyle, man, I'm rooting for you.
I'm hoping that you and I can
both come out of our personal
lurking on Reddit become, you
know, more active members of the
community. All right, everybody.
Thanks so much for joining us.
Thanks, Joe, for organizing and
have a good day.
Joe Amditis: Thanks, everybody.
I'll be sending the recording
and the transcript from this
shortly. So keep an eye out for
that and sign up for our other
trainings. Center for
Cooperative media.org slash
programs. I'll see y'all soon. I
