The Dangers of Reddit: If You Cannot Beat it, Lead it
How do you keep your business's reputation protected when Reddit is everywhere?
Not many people realize the power of Reddit when it comes to growing or killing businesses.
It ranks, it impacts LLM answers, it’s everywhere.
I talked to a journalist once on that topic, and his feedback was, “Yeah you see it as a big thing just because you are dealing with affected businesses. I haven’t heard about that scale of a problem yet.”
While I agree (I am on the front line because I am helping affected businesses every day of my life), the problem is much more than many people realize.
Please join us to discuss this topic LIVE!
Lars Lofgren shared a story of one brand being terrorized by a Reddit mod. In a nutshell:
Negative threads were ranking for the brand’s name, as well as being cited in ChatGPT answers. “The first page of Google for their brand name is the single most important asset for managing their reputation.”
All the ranking negative threads were from one single subreddit, and they almost killed the business.
Is it the only case?
Absolutely not. I have many anecdotal stories of former employees killing a business’s reputation by posting on Reddit. I have a client whose one single customer was so unhappy that they started a defamatory subreddit for the brand’s name, and it is ranking for ALL branded searches now. I’ve seen obvious competitive attacks on Reddit.
There are no quick coping mechanisms with reputation attacks on Reddit:
Subreddit moderators have all the powers. They may or may not work with you on fixing some misunderstanding, but in most cases, their decision is final. They may ban your account from even replying to negative threads.
Negative threads can haunt you for years (like in this story, they are years old!), influencing your bottom of the funnel and AI answers.
So what to do?
We’ve tried (and see other brands try) all kinds of tactics, from posting official comments to defaming threads to starting your own.
Here’s the conclusion we’ve arrived at: The safest, most ethical way to deal with Reddit reputation problems is to develop your own official voice.
It takes time. It isn’t easy. But having your own space on Reddit is the only way to start enjoying Reddit too (this is what I found out after starting my own!).
It also works better if you are being proactive about that instead of waiting for a fire to happen.
Approach Reddit marketing just like you’d approach any other organic channel: It’s not just for reputation. Yes, it takes time to develop, but the more time and effort you spend, the more effective it is on many other levels. Your own threads start ranking for your branded search. You start controlling AI answers with your own messaging.
And you develop a channel that stays with you forever. You are in control (instead of relying on anonymous moderator accounts who can do whatever they want).
It is not the first time in digital marketing when brands become vulnerable to negative reputation attacks. I’ve seen Google and Facebook reviews go miserably wrong after a former employee or partner feels very vindictive. I’ve seen negative link-building attacks that did result in manual penalties.
Protecting your reputation has never been an easy task. But it is how you approach it that determines whether you succeed. If you cannot beat Reddit, lead it!