Since it launched in 2005, Reddit has remained a mystery to many marketers. Reddit is a user-influenced platform that embraces discussion and community engagement over content creation or branding. Its difference in focus makes Reddit vastly different from other networks — like Facebook or Instagram — where brands naturally find their niche. In the past few years, however, Reddit's attempted to gain more attention from brands by introducing several advertising offerings. The platform also launched features such as video streaming and video hosting, enabling the platform to evolve from the text-based format it's known for. The platform is also thriving with Gen-Z and millennial audiences that might be using that platform to make purchasing decisions later in life. Though we don't encourage you to put all your money into Reddit ads or a community manager to build subreddits just yet, there are still ways businesses and brands can use Reddit to their advantage if they choose to.
One way is to host "Ask Me Anything" posts (also known as an AMA) to build community and trust with your audience. Another way is to start subreddits about specific topics relevant to your brand, similar to Facebook groups.
Reddit Statistics
To keep you informed and help you make strategic social media decisions, here's a list of 24 helpful and intriguing Reddit stats related to the company, its user base, and what it takes to engage audiences on the platform.
General Stats
- Reddit has over 430 million active monthly users. (EarthWeb)
- Reddit is the fifth most visited website in the U.S. (SemRush)
- Reddit is valued at over $10 billion. (The New York Times)
- Reddit was founded in 2005 and acquired by Condé Nast in 2006. (Crunchbase)
Demographics
- The majority of Reddit users (63.8%) are male. (Statista)
- 47.13% of Reddit users are found in the U.S. (similarweb)
- 36% of U.S. Reddit users are between the ages of 18 and 29 years old.
- Gen Z makes up 26% of Reddit Users. (Reddit Blog)
User Behavior
- As of 2021, there are 2.8 million subreddits on the platform. (Orbelo)
- Reddit has 52 million daily users. (The Wall Street Journal)
- Reddit users spend close to 24 minutes a day on the platform. (Insider Intelligence)
- Users spend significantly less time on Reddit than on other platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter — but that's because Reddit is more of an information and education platform than a video and entertainment platform. (Insider Intelligence)
- 51% of Gen-Z users say they're attracted to the platform's user-driven features, such as subreddits, comments, and upvotes. (Reddit Blog)
- 82% of Gen-Z people trust Reddit when learning more about products. (Reddit Blog)
Source: Reddit Blog
Videos on Reddit
- As of 2018, Reddit users consumed more than 1.4 billion videos on the platform per month. (Variety)
- In 2018, video viewing time grew by 38%: Total users went from viewing 400,000 hours of natively hosted video every day to more than 13 million hours of video monthly. (Reddit Blog)
- In 2018, three of Reddit's five highest-performing posts included videos, while one had a photo. (Reddit Blog)
Engaging Content and Hot Topics
- The top four subreddits as of 2022 are /r/announcements, /r/funny, /r/AskReddit, and /r/gaming. (OneUp)
- In 2021 the most popular "Ask Me Anything" (AMA) post with over 90,000 upvotes was I'm a lobster diver who recently survived being inside a whale." (Statista)
- In a 2019 study of 60,000 Reddit posts, those between 60 and 80 characters get 8,600 upvotes. (Foundation Inc.)
- The study also found that posts under 120 characters get more upvotes than posts above the character count. (Foundation inc.)
- Posts with questions generate twice as many comments as posts without them. But, oppositely, posts without questions get more upvotes than posts with them. (Foundation Inc.)
- In 2019, important topics of discussion included beauty, weddings, and self-care, a shift from 2018's hot topics, noted below. (Reddit)
- One of Reddit's most popular topics is technology. In 2018, Reddit reported that all of its tech-related subreddits combined received more than 27 million unique monthly visitors and 284 monthly views. (Reddit Blog)
Takeaways from Reddit Stats
If you're a marketer in a field related to consumer products, especially technology, you might not want to count out Reddit just yet. As we've learned from the stats above, young people, especially in Gen Z, are using and trusting the platform as a source for product research.
If your company has a lot of excellent video content, you may want to incorporate Reddit into your next marketing strategy. Remember, Reddit users consumed more than 1.4 billion videos monthly in 2018.
Online video, especially in a mobile format, is being embraced much more heavily than in the past. Because of this, it might be worth exploring the idea of a Reddit video strategy if you ever have extra time or resources available.
If you're interested in testing out content on Reddit but don't know where to start, it can be helpful to get inspiration from brands who've already succeeded there. In this post, you can check out a few great examples.
Topics: Social Media Marketing
