Reddit, Credibility, and the Future of B2B PR in the Age of AI

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I’m Eric Chemi. And this is Politely Pushy. Welcome to Politely Pushy. I’m your host, as always, Eric Chemi. We know all the basic medium

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platforms that we see for B2B PR, right? LinkedIn, obviously. Some of the other ones I don’t have to name, but one that has gotten a lot of attention recently, having a lot of conversations behind the scenes, what are you supposed to do about Reddit? This has been coming up

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more and more recently, especially in the last few months, especially with AI content taking over a lot of what you see on on places like LinkedIn, on Twitter, what influencers are doing. Reddit feels like this bastion of hope for marketers, which brings a lot of

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concern, a lot of confusion, and a lot of uh sarcasm from people behind the scenes who have to deal with it. So, to talk more about this, I bring in my Bospar colleagues. Emma and Connor are here to talk about that. Connor is is nodding his head as I make that

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introduction. What are your thoughts about here comes big corporate PR infiltrating Reddit to destroy humanity? >> Yeah, I I I’m kind of like good luck. It feels like David verse Goliath and Goliath is Reddit and David is corporate PR and marketers coming for you know

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whatever they can find on the platform. And you know years and years of karma and credibility have been built up by you know the independent people contributing to the platform and now you know there’s never been a huge pressure to monetize Reddit but it’s become

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extremely important I think because other social media platforms have prioritized ads over useful content and Reddit all along has just been sticking to its guns of we are the front page of the internet and we are here to have conversations and make sure that those

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conversations are visible and people want to participate. They want to come here. >> It also is a collection of thriving communities where people, like you said, Connor, want to actively participate, but it’s also where people can go to know they’re with their people. It’s

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where they go to find their people because you have hundreds of thousands of different communities or these subreddits that exist solely for the most niche individual groups that you could possibly dream up. Um, so that’s where people go to find their people.

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>> Yeah. And I I think Emma that reminded me of something I wanted to just make sure I said once. So getting it in early. You know, Facebook doesn’t run a lot of ads or Meta doesn’t run a lot of ads, but recently where they’ve run the most ads are advertising their groups. And groups

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are Facebook/ Meta’s response to active subreddit and Reddit communities. And I think that’s really interesting when you think about what where people see value in this is like you know Meta specifically is like we can acquire it or buy it is like their their method to

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building out their product portfolio but groups is a direct response to we can’t build something as good as Reddit. The people are here but they’re not participating like they’re in Reddit. Maybe we can start changing that habit. And so I think like you said it’s where

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you go to find people and we find conversations. I I like that a lot. >> It’s interesting. Just to clarify, you mean Facebook doesn’t run ads promoting Facebook. That’s what you’re talking about. Like not obviously the ads that they run that they’re selling ads. You

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mean when Facebook spends money to advertise for themselves. They’re focused on the groups feature because I’ve noticed that I’ve noticed the Facebook groups ads more than anything else. And it never occurred to me, oh this is a direct attack against Reddit.

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I just was like, oh, they just want you to use the groups. >> Yeah. So before the most recent holiday spot where the there was the office white elephant or the office secret Santa exchange where you know the the ad that everyone saw the holidays was you

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know he finds out that his boss or co-orker used to love Kiss. Um the only ads that they had been running were for their groups um for you know TV spots and things of that nature. So you know pretty pretty interesting from that standpoint. Isn’t it true though that a platform

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starts, young people like it, they get on it, then companies come in, destroy it with ads, or older people come in and and make it not cool anymore. Your grandma’s on it, your parents are on it, and then everyone goes on to the next thing. And and we’re all chasing this

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cool factor, right? Older people and ad money are chasing the cool factor that young people have dictated. But Reddit’s been around for a long time. And I don’t feel like Reddit is that young of an audience. I feel like it’s actually a lot of adults on there talking about

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things that they think are important. >> Yes. And there’s also a entirely different set of community guidelines and standards that exist on Reddit that Facebook will never see. Uh Facebook will never have. Um but yes, to your question or you know before you go but

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what do you mean like what are the examples for community standards? My guess is a lot of people listening do not have a Reddit account, have never posted on Reddit. They’ve all been to Reddit because you can see what’s on there, but they’re they’re not

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participating. They’re just reading. So, what about the community standards? >> Well, there’s a twofold here. The users kind of guide and dictate how the platform operates. Uh they’re the gatekeepers of the content that exists. There’s elements to these subreddits.

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There’s these rules much like you would see in a Facebook group, but there’s rules about what you can post or how you can post or if you can post. There’s also the not safe for work content that’s on Reddit that you can’t find on Facebook. So, there’s that, too.

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>> And I almost think that like Reddit’s interesting as um you know, just to to to tail off what Emma said, it’s almost like modernday volunteering is being a moderator of a subreddit, right? you go to the soup kitchen. I also moderate a subreddit and and it’s like okay so

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that’s kind of like volunteering in the digital world which is really interesting and like people do take it really seriously but you know kind of talking about like who uses it. It’s really interesting in the sense of it’s like it’s like the Volkswagen van of the

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internet, right? Like it’s kind of always been cool and useful in niches. It always like has a place. You see a ton of them around still. um because they’re just super useful and they’re such a utility and I I think that it’s a true place on the internet where people

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feel like, you know, I guess a fun story for you. Yeah. The other day I I was walking the dog and my neighbor came back and said, “Hey, Connor, you I I He’s a 50-year-old man, so he has weird hours. He was up at 4:30 in the morning. He’s like, “I walked out the front door

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and I saw someone looking under your car, probably looking to scout stealing your catalytic converter.” And I’m just like, “Oh man, are you serious?” Like, “This was a headache to replace last time.” And um they’re also kind of expensive. But, you know, I I open the

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Reddit after that and Reddit/AnnArbor. He had posted on I didn’t even know that this guy had a username, but um or I didn’t follow him like on Reddit, but it was interesting to then go through and see my neighbor who’s been active on Reddit for 17 years. and you can go see

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what threads he’s interested, what his comments have been. And I think it’s like really wellindexed activity that allows people to share their knowledge in a really productive way where they get something out of it and they feel like they’re contributing to the greater

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community because people find it now AI is finding it. And so I think it’s something where like I sometimes talk about Instagram for example as a platform that I like cuz I like to go back and look at the photos of it and it doesn’t really serve that much good to

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other people. Like I think you know family members kind of tuned out to it. I don’t know if it’s going to get distributed as much but I think Reddit has really always been attractive to people because the in the information they contribute to it gets used and

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there’s something really rewarding about that. Um, whereas other social media platforms that used to be the bit to get people on it is people would see what you’re doing or you could find it. I think Reddit is able to be searched in such a simple and um, you know, just

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straightforward way that it allows people of many interests to be on the platform and then if you’re on it for one thing, it’s like a loss leader, right? It’s it’s the Costco hot dog. Well, if I’m already on the platform, I see something else interesting, I’m

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going to start clicking around. And that’s how people stay on the platform longer. Whereas other social platforms specifically have always been very focused on driving people off the platform to websites, to conversion forms, to their online store. Um, I

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think the benefits, I think that’s that’s really important to think about the user behavior when it comes to why people are still using it, old, new, and yeah, everyone in between. Why why do you think it’s getting more attention right now as a place to start

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you help helping companies? Why do you think in in this corporate PR world this is becoming more of a conversation like oh you need to be on Reddit now like what’s your Reddit strategy etc. >> I and I’m going to just jump for this one first because I I think about this

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way too much. I think people are tired and I’m sorry I just watched Troy. though people are tired of the Trojan horse and this online facade of what your storefront is and then having a totally awful product. I think that this is something that has made Reddit so

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much more popular. If you go on to Google right now, one of the most common prepopulated once I start typing results is, you know, supplements Reddit. um you know, ski gloves, Reddit, whatever it might be. PR industry, Reddit. We are in an era where online people can be

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whoever they can like want to be and what they’ll pay for. And so they can put up this fake storefront and pay for reviews and content to be made. And now it’s even worse with like AI sizzle reels. But no one really knows like is this worth it? Is the juice worth the

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squeeze? whereas you can get reviews, you can get takes, you can get experiences. Does this work? Does this not work? You can get honesty on Reddit. And that’s why I think more and more marketers are flocking to it. Um, that’s that’s like part one of, you know, my

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response. I’m I’m sure Emma, would you like do you have any thoughts on the Trojan horse idea? >> Mine is a bit more of a macro take beyond that. It’s this growing shift towards community first and why people want to return back to the old ways of Instagram and like how it was much more

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of like a a user experience based around my friends, my family, the people I actually want to follow. So on uh Reddit, it’s all about the community. It’s all about what people in small town USA are doing or what they care about. And what those people have

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to care about is very specific and they have a lot of hot takes. They have a lot of opinions. They have a lot of insights that they’re ready and willing to share that you can’t really find elsewhere unless you’re on Reddit. So, if I am a small town mechanic, I’m going to my

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small town subreddit to understand what my customers needs are or what their hot takes are or what cars they’re driving or XYZ. So, there’s some really great audience insight that is very central to community first and as a marketing strategy, community first is

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understanding your audience. So that’s I think a very attractive feature for a lot of brands now. >> Will it get weird though? Will it get will it bother people? Will it piss people off if all of a sudden companies are on there in too overtly a way trying

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to influence decisions with they’re either getting into some of these feeds, getting to message boards or here’s my you know you know subreddit about the company or whatever it is. If companies show up in an obviously corporate way, is that going to bother everyone who’s on there?

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>> Oh, it’s the hallmark of the platform. People bring out the pitchforks the second they smell marketing. That’s why it’s it’s such a hard platform to I don’t want to say infiltrate, but to actually land as a brand uh and to understand is because you can’t do your

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traditional marketing tactics on that platform. You’ve got you’ve got the you know the Reddit ads of course you can run but actually operating if you are at in any way promotional you’re getting kicked out of there with no second no second thought you’re you’re out of there. So

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>> I had a great can I if I can just expand on that like I had a boss mentor great great lady um she had a a saying and it was very specifically for marketing and PR I think probably everyone’s heard this at one point is stop answering questions and start landing messages

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right and I think that that way of thinking is just the right it’s the exact opposite stop landing messages start answering questions >> that’s good >> and I think that that is where brands need to stop spending thousands of dollars on marketing collateral and

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realize that their product engineer or their product manager or their CEO, the people with the skills need to be selling more or answering more questions. And so it so differs from like I can, you know, pay a graphic designer come with some real cool

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graphics or a sizzle reel and put it on social media. This is more in the weeds answering product questions. If I lose this part, how can I replace it? Um or just like what is my product? What is the solution that it’s solving and how does it fit into your you know workflow

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ecosystem? It’s it’s so much more like high intent in my opinion than marketers are used to um like work like like producing content around. And I think that it’s so different of I’m being like I I it doesn’t really pay so much to be like proactive. You have to be reactive.

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So you are truly listening to what the thread is saying rather than like I am just going to push my message out there loud enough that they have to pay attention to me. So it it you know it requires you to be humbled a bit. >> Yeah. There’s also the prerequisite on a

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lot of these subreddit communities that you have a certain amount of karma or um you can think of them kind of like a like a points system. If you don’t have enough karma, you can’t even post anything. So you got to listen. You have to upvote, you have to comment, um, and

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just be involved and participate. Then you could just billboard blast your marketing message. >> You get to show up on day one and be like, “Hey, I’m Eric here. Let’s talk about Eric’s.” >> You have to earn your You have to earn your seat at the table. And that’s

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essentially what karma is, right? So, you know, you can start an X account today and be advertising in 20 minutes. Um, you know, pushing whatever you want out there. On Reddit, it doesn’t really work that way. You can create account, you can start commenting, but depending

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on the subreddit, depending on um the community, you might not be able to post until you’re a part of the community for 30 days, 60 days, until you’ve worked your way up to 500 – thousand karma points. And you earn karma points by being a contributor who’s adding value

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to uh subreddit groups either through the topic or through um responses to topics. And so upvotes, reposts, comments, all those things matter. So the engagement I think is really interesting to talk about. And if we want to talk a little bit about why

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marketers and why AI, AI search and GEO really like Reddit, it’s because it’s not so focused on like just straight up I need to get likes, comments, whatever. It is very much like peervetted, peer-reviewed content that you know AI feels comfortable putting in front of people.

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Um, it’s like having a fact checker almost or somewhat like a final set of eyes before something. And I think that really the only two platforms that truly offer that, um, I think SEO Rush recently released a list that I can definitely include in the show notes for

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this podcast of the most pulled from. Um, you know, AI or GEO sources and Reddit’s the top, LinkedIn’s the second. And I think that’s by design because those are when we think about it the two most credible sources when people are thinking about the internet.

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>> Do you think there are brands right now that are succeeding with whatever their Reddit strategy is in terms of B2B? Right? Because B2B is such its own weird world. Do you know of anyone off the top of your head you’re like, “Oh, this B2B company’s doing a great job with their

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Reddit and and somehow driving purchases as a result.” >> The answer might be no. >> I mean, what’s it’s interesting to think about it from a brand perspective because what’s worked well for brands across the board, not just B2B, is the individual. It’s the advocate. It’s the

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community manager that’s just a regular person. So influencer in other in other ways like that individual person who can vouch for the product or vouch for the brand. >> Yeah. And I think that’s that’s it is you don’t know they work for the brand, right? Like you know your your Reddit

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username. Most people are anonymous on Reddit. Um they don’t it’s not going to be like Connor Grant one is my Reddit username. Um, and so Bospar, for example, does not have a Reddit username, but I regularly contribute to subreddits from my Reddit account that

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plugs Bospar. So, there was one not so long ago that was talking about um, you know, where it would be good for um, oh gosh, I’m forgetting the name right now. This is kind of embarrassing. Uh, what’s the new product that we use? The GEO >> Audit*E.

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>> Audit*E. Yeah. So Audit*E, you know, how do we how do we do a a media or an audit of landscape or that how do we audit the landscape and show how you can how you’re showing up in AI results and how you could better do it. And so I didn’t even mention that I work for Bospar. I

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was like, “Hey, at my company we recently developed this product. This is what it does. If you want to check it out more, here’s a link to it.” Right? But like you won’t know I work for Bospar at all. And I’m not trying to plug Bospar, you know? And I think

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that’s kind of the beauty of it, right? Is brands are on it and the best ones, you don’t know they’re on it, right? It’s like they’re pulling the str, you know, they’re playing 4D chess finally, right? Um, and they know that, >> you know, adding value to a conversation

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is more important than adding my logo to a conversation. I think there’s a lot that can be learned about that going into 2026 where people are just tired of being, you know, talked at. And so it’s like, let’s lose the logo and start actually answering questions again like

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I mentioned earlier. >> So what about a company? Let’s say, hey, it’s January, new year, New Year’s resolutions. I’m hiring Emma and Connor. I want a full social package and I want Reddit to be part of it. I have no accounts, no experience, but my CEO or

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CMO or someone above me told me I got to get on Reddit. It’s day zero and we’re signing up. What are they supposed to do? >> So, I’d start with Reddit ads. Um, so Reddit ads are unique. They’re not going to be, you know, very much like the same thing as uh X or Instagram or anything

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of that nature. So, they’re going to be more subtle. when you’re designing it, you want it to look a lot like um just like the Reddit conversation. So, it’s like kind of like you might not capitalize words. The graphic doesn’t need to be super hightouch. Um it it

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just kind of needs to look the part. Um and I think it’s like it always needs to feel like a continuation of a conversation and you can just like address a problem, right? So like you don’t have to be like, “Oh, visit my micro site.” You’re just like, “Oh,

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here’s your problem. here’s how we can help. Um, you don’t need to gloss your brand up. And then you can link to, you know, just the homepage. Um, and I think that’s a good place to start in terms of having a presence on Reddit and getting comfortable with it and introducing

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yourself to the audience. I think it’s also really interesting because so much of other social media targeting is based off just solely their behavior on the platform as a whole. And so like if you’re trying to sell uh sandals or something like that,

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right? It’s all based like interest and identity targeting whereas Reddit is conversation based. So you can target people who visit a subreddit. You’re not just like throwing it all out there. Um and I I think that’s that’s really really, you know, interesting and it’s

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really different from how we’ve been advertising on social media for about 15 years. um because people no longer really update their interests on Facebook, LinkedIn, things of that nature. Whereas every time they have a problem, they are visiting a subreddit

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or a thread and that’s a new way to target people that is a little bit more relevant to where what problems they currently have or >> I’m reading about this topic right now right here. I care about this in the moment. >> What’s the best power washer for, you

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know, a bike? And then it’s like, wow, okay, I’m on that subreddit and then in that is, you know, a a great ad for a power washer, right? So, it’s it’s a bit different in that sense. Mhm. >> But I’d say start with Reddit ads is a good is a good place to and then once

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you get someone who you know is comfortable talking about your brand, I would ask, you know, two to three times a week, spend 20 minutes, half an hour searching Reddit and seeing if there are certain conversations that would make sense to contribute to. Mhm.

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Uh if also if you have more of a relations community type of element to your company like for a database management platform, do you have a developer relations person? Because they’re kind of your community manager. They can speak to speak. They know

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exactly your product front to back. They know the pain points of your ICP. So they can really start to go in and have some more authentic conversations with the ICP you’re after. And much like Connor already knows a lot about what marketers are trying to understand

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around brand sentiment and AEO, then they can look to Connor and be like, “Okay, this guy knows what he’s talking about, so I can kind of reference him as someone who’s credible.” >> What does ICP mean? I guess I should know, but I don’t. >> Your ideal customer person.

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>> Oh, got it. Okay. I’ I’ve heard the phrase, but I never heard ICP before. And so I assume I’m assuming other people listening might not know. >> Not insane clown posi if that’s [laughter] >> and and then we talked about how this is all affecting generative search GEO. So,

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let’s talk more about that because there’s getting people directly on Reddit, but then there’s what people are saying about your brand on Reddit and that it might affect when they search you on an AI app, which is a different problem because it it might have nothing

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to do with you getting on Reddit, but you care about what they’re saying on Reddit because it’s going to affect another platform that you do really care about. >> Yep. I think that’s back to one of the initial questions we asked is why now? why Reddit and it’s because your

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customers aren’t just googling anymore and even the Google results are heavily impacted by what’s coming from some of these other platforms namely largely Reddit. So being able to control the content and the messaging and your brand sentiment that’s surfacing on Reddit is

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going to ultimately impact the results that are coming through on platforms like ChatGPT, Claude, etc. as well as Google. So that’s kind of your ground zero for building back your brand. >> Yeah. And if I had to summarize like my thoughts on it quickly, it would just be

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you don’t market on Reddit to to for GEO and AEO. You earn relevance there, right? So it’s like I’m not trying to, you know, upload my landing page to Reddit so that, you know, ChatGPT pulls that information when someone, you know, talks about like, oh, I want a a PR

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brand that’s really good with tech and crisis comm. >> Um, you are slowly but surely just like seeding parts of that conversation over, you know, a long time. And I think it’s like frustrating cuz it’s kind of like I have so much to say but I need to, you

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know, restrain myself. I I can’t just drop all this on once. I need to be thoughtful about how I’m building this. So I think for, you know, you know, GEO in general is a puzzle, right? And we’re still trying to figure out how to put it all together, but Reddit is something

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that can give you some really good border pieces to start seeing the bigger picture. And so that’s how I would think about Reddit in the content on the platform when you’re building out your GEO strategy. Um, what are you doing weekly, monthly to start building out

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the edges of the puzzle and making sure that your core messages or your core products, your core solutions are at least joining a discussion, a relevant discussion here and there. Um, so I think that’s that’s how GEO and Reddit fit together in my mind.

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>> How should people budget for Reddit in terms of it seems like it’s more of a time thing than it is a money thing? Because it’s not like you can just go blast them with ads or pay some influencers to say, “Hey, just talk about my brand all the time.”

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>> Yeah. I I I where I’m It’s all It’s all time investment. It’s an investment of your time and your energy. I think that we’re kind of in this weird phase where we’re just outsourcing a lot and we’re outsourcing. >> Who’s who’s outsourcing? >> Everyone. Everyone. We’re outsourcing

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creative to influencers and seeing how they talk about our brand rather than us just saying we could we could also find someone at our company to get on a camera and talk about why we make sense. Um because I I think that you know the the follower count and the engagements

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and all the you know kind of stuff of the past when it comes to how things are distributed like algorithms don’t really care as much about the engagements you get or your follower count as they used to. So if you have good content it can come from anywhere.

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But it’s maybe this part of us that’s like we don’t like to talk about ourselves. also like talk about others and like I hear this a lot with uh I don’t know I’m married to a doctor wonderful person but like I don’t ask her for advice cuz she’s like not good

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at following her own medical advice right she’s good at giving her medical advice and I think like marketers are somewhat similar social media marketers you know there’s always this argument of oh my gosh they’re this social media you know marketer at this company but their

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personal Instagrams are you know awful but it’s like I I put all my creative power into my clients right and I think we need to put more creative power into how we talk about ourselves rather than having influencers or spokespeople. Um, you know, your biggest assets, marketing

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assets are your team and you hire them for a reason. And so I think what Reddit is forcing people to do is take a look in the mirror and actually make us talk about ourselves and how we relate to our customers. And you know, as a marketer, there’s always kind of like this veil of

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separation, I feel, right, of like, well, I’m not I’m not the saleserson asking for like a hard sell or get them to sign. I am just there to get them, you know, interested, aware, and start building top offunnel sales. Like I’m not the direct interface. And sometimes

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I can hide behind graphics um or posts. But I think that generally it’s like this investment is you know A you learning to talk about what your job is and what you do and how you help in a very very direct way and making like I said getting in the habit of making you

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know 20 minutes half hour few times a week to go on and search for areas where you can just you know I don’t know think about virtual community service right um how are you helping people solve their problem and I’m going and finding it rather than it coming to me. Because,

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you know, the reality of it is Reddit is powerful not just because of the people on it, the moderation structures, um, but because it offers a platform where you are not going up against people with an ad budget like Coca-Cola of tens of millions of dollars a month that are

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just putting ads in front of you whenever they want. You’re not going up against professional content creators who spend $50,000 on recording equipment and, you know, could make a TV show from the 90s blush with the production quality. Um, you know, it’s it’s a

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platform that just is a level playing field right now. And I think it’s a refreshing opportunity if you know that like I just need to kind of get back to basics here. >> I don’t know, Emma. I just rambled for a while. >> Yeah Emma, what do you think? That was a long answer he gave.

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>> What was the original question again? [laughter] >> That’s when you know it’s a good answer or an awful one. >> I [clears throat] think it was um you know actually yeah I don’t we actually went we need more time than money because you can’t just blast

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people with 10 millions of dollars of ads. >> I think it’s worked a couple of different ways. So Connor already mentioned there’s the ad strategy you can play on Reddit, but then there’s the individual level that you can play. You can also start hosting AMAs depending on

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the notoriety and you know perhaps your already established uh platform uh as an individual you can start doing AMAs. So time is your biggest investment because you actually need to spend the time to understand A how the platform works, B how your community works, and C what

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people actually want to interact with. You know, that’s that’s kind of like content 101. But on Reddit, it’s it’s a big it’s a bigger gamble because if you don’t understand how the platform work and works and you don’t understand how your community operates, then you’re

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going to get kicked off the platform or downvoted and then you immediately have to start rebuilding back that credibility. So time investment is pretty important but I think you know even just a couple of couple of days a week that you’re spending you know 30 minutes just trying

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to dive into the conversations trying to provide some newer hot take or newer insight based on your industry based on your organization or your findings. That’s where you’re actually going to start seeing some real results. And I think something too that’s

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interesting just like on a macro scale is like how Reddit’s been used over the years as like a news aggregate. So like talking about like PR specifically and like how stories are created and even you see this different kind of content living on Instagram and Tik Tok and

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YouTube is um like people up uploading stories. Um, and you know, specifically, I I’m blanking on the name, but you know, a few years ago, there was someone who had just basically had the biggest Reddit like karma system, and they their all their posts would get thousands, hundreds of

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thousands of views, and um, a lot of, you know, content was produced off of those stories, right? So, this is a lot of ways is ground zero. But what this person was doing was they were ripping um content from smaller Reddit communities and smaller subreddits and

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then republishing on their own and using that visibility to prop up their own following. Right? And so um I think where I’m going with that specifically is Reddit has an enormous amount of influence on the content that you see in other social media feeds. So, not even

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talking about AI search and GEO, Reddit in is so where like the creators go to get content to feel inspired. Do you ever see the, you know, it’s like the Minecraft background, them telling like a murder story of something like that? Um, those a lot of those stories are

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just ripped off of Reddit, uploaded to a voice creator, and then overlaid to a Minecraft story. Um, so if you’re talking about a place where people who are producing content go to get content ideas, like Reddit is also a place where this is I don’t want to say it’s like

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the focal point, but it is a spot where creators go to find things to talk about. And I think that there’s a lot of value in that and knowing that for brands and companies, right? like if I can put something interesting enough on here and like maybe craft a story rather

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than just, you know, rambling on about, you know, all my specs, um, you know, there there’s there’s a lot of power there. And I I just like I just got to ride back from the car dealership the other day and this guy’s like, I don’t I don’t talk about the horsepower of the

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engines at all. I don’t talk about the luxury package. When I when I was selling Mercedes, I don’t have a Mercedes. I would talk about the history of the brand and I would want to give people, you know, a look into what their Mercedes experience is about. They don’t

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want the spec list. And I think that Reddit is so good at giving people that history, brand experience, information experience, if you will, and not reading off the specs that that is so appealing right now. >> Is all this going to be good for Reddit?

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If you’re Reddit, the company, do you not want all these people like Connor and Emma advising companies on infiltrating their platform and anonymously posting about their firms and all of this stuff? Does that does that make it worse in the long run?

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>> They went they went public. They want money and if they can get money and attention, eyeballs, time on the platform, they can take they’ll take it any way they can get it. They’ve now entered that game. So, I don’t necessarily think that brands being on

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the platform is going to hurt their platform. Um, especially if brands are willing to pay money to be on that platform. But I do think that um it’s regarded as like the last best place sometimes uh to a lot of more social focused people that are, you know, they

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grew up with the with social media platforms and they want to go back to the old days, Reddit is that for them. Uh, so if you piss some of those people off, I don’t see it being great, but I also don’t think it’s going to lead to many people leaving because it still

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continues to be a hub for people to go for really really niche questions and really good answers. So, >> yeah, and I love that answer, Emma. I agree with you 100%. And I think that they’re they’re going to be really protective of it because they’ve

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seen what’s happened to other platforms and how they’ve just become, you know, run down with ads and too much content and it hasn’t been good for anyone. And um as people I I really believe that in the next 5 to 10 years, like there’s going to be a massive step back from

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social media. We just can’t keep up at this rate and I think people are just so defeated by these platforms at this point. Um, it feels almost like you’re at a, you know, resort and everything costs money, right? Uh, like you, oh, you want a towel? I need five bucks,

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whatever, right? Like every time you go on social media, um, it’s just not, you just feel like I am just such the product now. Um, and I think if Reddit can stay away from that, I think that that’s going to be just fine for them. think that they’re also making because

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of the way they’ve built and indexed their platform. It’s kind of like they’re, you know, the uh almanac of the last 20 years of the internet and they’ve found a way to partner with AI. So you almost have a librarian AI who’s able to properly index all this

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information and help them organize it. And you know, my understanding is for the most part a lot of the AI platforms are paying royalties on the information that they pull from Reddit. So, there’s a really interesting business model there. Um, that’s very different from

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now we need AI to be profitable, right, to start, but it’s different from um, you know, I’m just going to run a ton of ads to make my money. And so, I think that as long as Reddit preserves the user experience, which it does feel more democratic uh, in terms of like how

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moderators handle it and how the platform’s set up to reward content and views than any other social media platform. I think that it can stay the course. And I I think there’s enough people that just really deeply care about this not turning into just an

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internet cesspool of, you know, weird complaints, a million ads about your testosterone level or whatever that like we we could be looking at like the most useful platform for 50 years, which is really saying something. >> That would be crazy. This is this is a

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great conversation, Emma Connor. appreciate the time today is it’ll be fun to watch this year. See what happens. See if we start to notice this tipping point maybe with Reddit and and what that means for the other platforms and certainly with AI. But the great

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conversation today appreciate the time. >> Love it. Thank you, Eric. >> Thank you for having us. >> Thank you to my guest and thanks for listening. Subscribe to get the latest episodes each week and [music] we’ll see you next time.