Once upon a time, there were a variety of popular news aggregators on the internet. There was Digg, StumbleUpon, Metafilter, and others. Today, most of these sites have been effectively replaced by a single outlet: Reddit.  As marketers, we are always in search of audiences. As such, we have been active users and advertisers on almost every popular platform and website (in our case, excluding Snapchat and Twitch).

 Reddit is unique because it behaves differently than other platforms. We were very early users of Reddit (long before the fabled “Digg Migration”). In that time, we have witnessed the evolution of the platform as it attempted to monetize its business model.

 In its early days, Reddit was a place of arguably too lax supervision. There were racist, violent and sexually exploitive subreddits. There were also lots of users who behaved as though they had a cheering interest in the success of the platform. 

 People volunteered their time and talent to help Reddit become what it is today. In exchange, those users were made to feel that their voices mattered. 

 A problem for advertisers was, those voices might behave in a way that was not brand friendly, or worse voice critical opinions of an advertisers product or service.

Companies invest significant money in marketing activities that aren’t explicitly advertising. They might, for example, seek favorable press. Agencies could help magnify the potential impact of this press by building traction on Reddit.

One of the ways that marketers could amplify favorable comments on posts and comments came in the form of Reddit awards. Pitched as a fun way for users to show appreciation for one another, these awards, intentionally or unintentionally, created a way to shape the perceived voice of a crowd.  

Today, these awards disappeared from the site. Reddit still operates as a volunteer run aggregator of news and content, but most active users are aware of the different ways organizations try to influence the site. Interestingly, for a period, this manipulation was baked into the cake of a monetization strategy.