What Is Redit
What is Reddit? A Quick Look at the Popular Online Community
If you spend a lot of time online, chances are you’ve heard of Reddit. The site bills itself as the “front page of the internet, ” and that’s not an empty boast: As of this writing, Reddit is the seventh most popular site in the U. S., according to Alexa, and the 19th worldwide. So, what exactly is Reddit? Essentially, it’s a massive collection of forums where people can share news and content or comment on other people’s posts. Here’s everything you need to know.
Further reading
Best subreddits
Most popular YouTube videos
The jargon and design of Reddit
Reddit is broken up into more than a million communities known as “subreddits, ” each of which covers a different topic. The name of a subreddit begins with “r/, ” which is part of the URL that Reddit uses. For example, r/nba is a subreddit where people talk about the National Basketball Association, while r/boardgames is a subreddit for people to discuss board games. Those are straightforward subreddits, but they can get weird, such as r/birdswitharms, a subreddit devoted to pictures of birds…with arms.
If you’re just looking at Reddit for the first time, you may be a bit confused by what you are seeing, so here’s a quick rundown. The homepage (or “front page”) shows you various posts that are currently trending on the site, pulled from a variety of subreddits. You can sort these posts by clicking one of the icons on the ribbon menu located underneath the Create Post text box (if you’re logged in with a Reddit account) or under a smaller header called Popular Posts, if you’re not logged in. These icons will sort the posts by Best, Hot, New, Top, or Rising if you’re logged in. Or it will sort them by your chosen location(s) (instead of Best) along with Hot, New, Top, or Rising, if you’re not logged in.
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There is a search bar near the top that you can use to find posts and subreddits related to a particular term. A search for “World Cup” for example, turns up some popular posts about the World Cup and relevant subreddits such as r/worldcup and r/sports.
You can only create a subreddit for a topic if you meet specific criteria. Namely, you have to have a Reddit account, your account must be at least 30 days old, and your account must be relatively active and have earned a minimum number of “karma” points as a result of that activity. The exact required number of karma points isn’t necessarily high, but the number is known only to Reddit.
Subreddits are managed by moderators (“mods, ” for short), volunteers who can edit the appearance of a particular subreddit, dictate what types of content are allowed in the sub, and even remove posts or content or ban users from the subreddit. Reddit as a whole is governed by the admins, employees of Reddit who have vast powers across the site, including the ability to strip moderators of their privileges, and even ban entire subreddits from the site.
Next to a post, you’ll likely see up and down arrows, as well as a number. Users click the arrows to upvote or downvote posts, increasing or decreasing their visibility, and the number reflects the current sum of upvotes and downvotes. Reddit users can also upvote and downvote other users’ comments, and every account has a karma number tied to it, which indicates how much karma their comments have received in total. Karma doesn’t get you hip Reddit swag or anything like that, but it does help to boost your standing in the Reddit community. Be proud of your karma!
Like most online communities, Reddit has its own language. Redditors tend to talk in abbreviations such as OP, TIL, IAmA, and AMA. OP just refers to the “original poster” in a thread, while TIL means “today I learned” and is one of the most common abbreviations you’ll see. Many posts are simple TIL observations and realizations. Both IAmA and AMA refer to what might very well be Reddit’s most popular feature: The Ask Me Anything thread. In an AMA, a well-known person such as Barack Obama or Nick Offerman, or someone who’s had a unique life experience (or a harrowing one, such as the woman who was mauled by a bear, fought it off, and drove four miles down a mountain with her face hanging off), submits themself to the inquisitive minds of Reddit. The resulting threads are some of the most insightful, humorous, and fascinating interviews you’ll ever read.
Hey, everyone: I'll be taking your questions online today. Ask yours here: -bo
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) August 29, 2012
Users can give awards to other users to recognize and highlight posts the giver really enjoyed. Giving an award costs Reddit Coins, which you can buy as a way of supporting the community.
Another way to support the community is by purchasing Reddit Premium, the site’s membership program. For $6 a month, Premium users don’t see ads and it gives you access to r/lounge, a super-secret subreddit where the brightest minds on Reddit assemble to engage in witty banter (or something), along with other benefits. Premium membership also comes with a regular supply of Coins to spend on Awards. You don’t need to buy Reddit Premium to have fun on Reddit, but it’s a way to support the site, get some perks, and be invested in the community.
Just remember, Reddit is a group of people meeting on the internet, sharing stuff, and talking to one another. That’s it. Act as you would if you were hanging out with old friends or new ones. Be mindful of your language and where you post (some subreddits are unfriendly to off-topic posts). Reddit has become a popular hub for many topics, both good, bad, and niche. And the community has also taken steps to make the site more inclusive by eliminating explicit content from its public homepage.
Signing up
If Reddit sounds like your kind of place, you can sign up by clicking on the blue Sign Up button in the top right corner of the main Reddit page. Then, follow the on-screen prompts to create an account. Reddit doesn’t limit you to just one account, either. You can set up multiple usernames and choose which one to log in with, depending on which subreddits you plan to participate in. Some subs encourage personally revealing posts, for example, and you may find it useful to have one persona there and another one in a sports subreddit. Some people create throwaway accounts when asking for relationship or professional advice, among other topics.
After signing in, Reddit will offer you recommendations on finding popular boards that may match your interests. If you currently have a particular community in mind that you want to join, go ahead and enter its name in the search field. Alternatively, you can hunt for applicable words and investigate that way.
When you encounter a subreddit you want to revisit, you have the opportunity to subscribe to it. Your homepage will show posts from your subscribed subreddits. You can look at all your subscriptions in the navigation bar’s drop-down menu; this lets you switch between communities easily. You can also link comparable subreddits into customized feeds—for instance, you may organize r/nba, r/nbadiscussion, and other team subreddits into a basketball multireddit. If you want to do this, just head to the proper subreddit and click the Three Dots symbol next to About Community. From here, you’ll see a menu pop-up where you will need to select Add to Custom Feed. After this, follow the prompts to add the subreddit to an existing feed or make a brand new one. You can even decide to make your multireddit public so other Redditors can become a subscriber.
You can join as many subreddits as you want, and the ample amount of topics assures your continued interest. Maybe Reddit’s most engaging feature is that you can be as incognito or otherwise socially low-key as you desire. With all these cool features, it’s not surprising that it interests so many subscribers.
Check out our guide to the best subreddits to get you started.
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6 Ways to Use Reddit to Grow Your Business – Social Media Examiner
Have you used Reddit?
The popular website Reddit goes by the slogan, “The front page to the Internet. ”
It has earned this name by creating a platform that allows users with similar interests to discuss and curate the best content on the web.
Let’s have a look at a few popular communities on Reddit.
Reddit is a popular social news platform where users submit and comment on content.
What Is Reddit?
Reddit is a social news platform that allows users to discuss and vote on content that other users have submitted. To help police the site and prevent spammers from bombarding readers, Reddit came up with “karma” points.
Users get karma by their comments and links being up-voted by others in the community. If you spam post your unrelated content to Reddit, you are sure to get down-voted consistently by other users. This in turn means Reddit begins to limit how often you are able to submit content to the site.
The great thing about Reddit is there are small communities called sub-Reddits that bring people and their interests together. These sub-Reddits range in topics from how to teach English to juggling.
The following is a list of strategies used by popular sub-Reddits to build their community.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Our readers have come forward to say that the sub-Reddits mentioned in this article are run by fans of brands and not the brands themselves. We have edited this article accordingly.
#1: Encourage User Submissions
Reddit is not a platform to shout your message at your fans, but rather a place to interact with them.
Along with calling their followers “petrol heads, ” the sub-Reddit of the popular car show Top Gear drives engagement with their followers by encouraging them to submit their favorite car pictures.
Each week, this sub-Reddit group selects the best picture and features it along with the name of the person who submitted it in the sidebar of their sub-Reddit.
This gives followers a sense of ownership in the community. Giving followers this voice increases the interaction in the community and is more likely to create brand advocates.
The Top Gear sub-Reddit showing how to encourage user engagement by having customers submit photos.
#2: Customer Service
Popular brands will have customers who need help.
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The Xbox 360 sub-Reddit has done a great job providing a place for people to discuss this popular product. The sub-Reddit funnels Microsoft customers with questions into the right channels to get resolved.
By redirecting users with product issues to the proper channels, this increases customer service and allows Redditors to discuss and share photos, videos and experiences they had with the Xbox product.
This sub-Reddit provides customer service by doing the following:
Clearly identify the purpose of the sub-Reddit.
Create sections of helpful links.
Outline directions on the best ways to get fast customer service.
It costs less to maintain a customer than to acquire one through other marketing channels. A big benefit of improving customer service is that it helps keep customers happy and wanting to stay with your brand.
The Xbox sub-Reddit shows how to use Reddit for customer service.
#3: Create a Network
Anyone can create a sub-Reddit, and with the right strategy you can easily build a network (several interlinking sub-Reddits) around an idea.
This is what the SFW Porn Network has done. They created a network of interests like nature, cars and cities for people who are “addicted” (hence the “porn” in the name—it’s not actually explicit material) to discussing these types of images and posts.
The following helped them create this strong network:
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Have a common naming convention (subject + porn).
Have a common navigation that links all of the sub-Reddits.
Monitor to make sure the images and content are high-quality.
If you have one popular sub-Reddit, it’s easier to get those followers to go to another sub-Reddit on a similar topic. The benefit of creating a network is to amass a large following inside the growing and active Reddit community.
The Water Porn sub-Reddit showing how to create a network on Reddit.
#4: News and Calendar
It’s simple. Brand advocates and followers always want to know the latest news and upcoming events.
For example, fans of the Philadelphia Phillies baseball team want to know the game schedule, the team’s standing in the NL East and other vital information. The Phillies sub-Reddit does this by having an updated calendar and league ranking board in the sidebar.
Consider using some of the following in your sub-Reddit sidebar to ensure your followers stay in the loop.
Have a calendar of events.
Display company news.
Increase the percentage of a goal reached.
The benefit of displaying news and events to your followers is that when they visit, they are immediately updated with important facts and status.
The Philadelphia Phillies sub-Reddit showing how to display news and events on Reddit.
#5: Perform Interviews
The Breaking Bad sub-Reddit got its fans involved by holding interviews with the cast of the show. The actors themselves answered the most popular questions that Redditors wanted to ask.
Doing this consistently not only grew the size of the community but also brought it closer together by eliminating the wall between actor and fan.
The benefit of this approach is again to allow the community the opportunity to be heard and interact in a memorable way. Facilitating the opportunity for fans and celebrities to communicate is a great way to create a strong memory for those fans.
The Breaking Bad sub-Reddit showing how to use Reddit to interview people.
#6: Creating a Community
Out of the many sub-Reddits I’ve searched through, none compares to the community built by the Game of Thrones sub-Reddit. The group does not do just one thing right, but has taken several steps to create a strong, tight-knit community.
Below are the different strategies they used to really make their community stand out.
Get Everyone Into Character
The best part of joining a community is connecting and talking with others with the same interests. Beyond the amazing look and feel of Game of Thrones sub-Reddit, here are a few things they’ve done to make sure followers get into character:
Give your followers a name.
Make it easy for readers to add Game of Thrones flair to their name.
Provide a link for users to download wallpapers in the background.
Game of Thrones sub-Reddit showing how to get followers into character.
Spoiler Control
There is nothing worse than finding out the final score of the big football game before you are able to watch it. Just like how co-workers can spoil things around the water cooler, someone can easily spoil the ending of a Game of Thrones episode on Reddit.
The Game of Thrones sub-Reddit has taken the following steps to ensure that their followers don’t get their favorite show spoiled.
Have a posting policy.
Create theme modes (Normal, Talk Only, Mute Talk, Show Spoilers).
Create a spoiler guide and link to it often.
Game of Thrones sub-Reddit showing how to control spoilers on Reddit.
Conclusion
Creating a community on any platform takes a lot of time and hard work, and Reddit is no different. If you have a product or brand that thrives on interacting and gaining feedback from people, Reddit is a great place to do it.
What do you think? For those of you who have never tried Reddit, what questions do you have? Leave your questions and comments in the box below.
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What Makes Reddit So Awesome – Wix.com
If you’re unfamiliar with the universe of Reddit you are missing out on some serious internet pleasure as well as a great social media marketing tactic. Founded in 2005 by a couple of students with some time on their hands, this bulletin board is home to one of the most vibrant, clever, nutty and hilarious communities online, numbering hundreds of millions of visitors each is divided to thematic sections called “subreddits. ” In each section, members post forum-like threads of content – it could be a link, a story, a photo, a survey, etc. – accumulating replies as well as “up” or “down” votes to rate the quality of the post. The end result is a multitude of original and fun content that will take up hours of your day if you don’t practice illustrate more clearly what makes Reddit so awesome and addictive, we compiled a list of our favorite Reddit qualities. If you’re a dedicated redditor, feel free to share yours in the comments:1. Because It’s Not about Showing OffRestroom selfies? Not in here! Unless you’re going for sarcasm, that is. Reddit is not a social network that encourages (or imposes) the type of non-stop exhibitionism that you find on so many other social platforms. A redditor’s profile only shows you their previous threads and their ranking – no relationship status, business CV or anything like that. 2. Because of the AMA SubredditAsk Me Anything is one of the most popular and intriguing sections on the site. Anyone can go on it, present a certain aspect of their life and take questions from the audience. The interactions vary from a self-proclaimed “extreme couponer” being asked if store clerks hate him to President Barack Obama asked to share the recipe for the White House beer. 3. Because You Learn So Much! There’s a reason why Reddit is so popular with the nerdy slice of the world’s population. It’s an incredible source of information on pretty much every field of human knowledge. You can browse through the many subreddits in philosophy, languages, coding, molecular gastronomy or whatever makes your mind hungry. Our recommendation: Don’t skip the Today I Learned subreddit, which contains hours of fun, enlightening and sometimes utterly useless trivia bits. 4. Because It’s A CommunityReddit has a bad reputation for being filled with trolls and anonymous weirdos. While these users are definitely around, they are not representative of the majority of redditors at all. You will find people giving free legal advice, comforting others in pain, help members to organize surprises for loved ones, and many other kind proof? Our favorite for the moment is this guy soliciting photos from around the world to make a special engagement proposal to his sweetheart. 5. Because Redditors Have the Best and Craziest HumorA group of people get together to count up to a million 1, 001, 805. This is not a social experiment, it’s a Reddit pastime. The counting games are just one example of the whacky and hilarious fun that Reddit brings out of people. On another occasion, a “test post please ignore” thread got 2, 205 snarky these seem too random for you, don’t worry about it. You’ll definitely crack up at this thread of parents sharing their kids’ funniest moments, or at the Not The Onion subreddit for news that is too crazy to be The Wix Team
Frequently Asked Questions about what is redit
What is the purpose of Reddit?
Reddit is a social news platform that allows users to discuss and vote on content that other users have submitted. To help police the site and prevent spammers from bombarding readers, Reddit came up with “karma” points. Users get karma by their comments and links being up-voted by others in the community.Sep 20, 2012
Why is Reddit so popular?
There’s a reason why Reddit is so popular with the nerdy slice of the world’s population. It’s an incredible source of information on pretty much every field of human knowledge. You can browse through the many subreddits in philosophy, languages, coding, molecular gastronomy or whatever makes your mind hungry.Apr 1, 2016
Why is Reddit inappropriate?
Second, Reddit is a site made by and for adults, and as such, there’s an incredible amount of inappropriate content. While there is some moderation, the sheer volume of content means that almost anything can be found, including pornography, violent material, hate speech, and suicide tips.May 28, 2019
