What is Reddit? A quick look at the popular online community

what is reddit mostly used for

For comments, Controversial shows those that have a roughly equal amount of upvotes Cloud Technology training and downvotes. With some options, like Top, you can filter by the past day, week, year, or all time. Once you’ve submitted your post, it should go live on the subreddit after some time. Different subreddits have various rules for posting; for example, they might not allow brand-new accounts to submit content. Your post also might not appear right away because it requires review by a moderator.

Description and features

what is reddit mostly used for

Tracking your engagement rate is the best way to tell if your social media audience cares about what you’re posting — and learn what they want to see more of. If building genuine community is a social media goal of yours, starting your own subreddit is a great way to achieve that. Or if a subreddit isn’t right for you, consider using Reddit as an advertising channel. If you’re ready to go all in on Reddit marketing, create your own subreddit. This can either be branded with your name or be topic-based.

Signing Up and Adding Subreddits

But many first-timers stare at the front page and wonder how to use Reddit. 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. 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. Obviously a few comments won’t revolutionize your product strategy, which is why Reddit shouldn’t be your sole source of market research.

  1. For example, members of r/Hiking are probably athletic people who like sports, right?
  2. Voting determines where your post shows up on each subreddit and your homepage.
  3. Like any online group, most large subreddits have multiple moderators to keep the community on-topic and spam-free.
  4. It’s really just a score that shows how active you are on the website.
  5. It’s built around users submitting links, pictures, and text, which everyone can then vote on.

Just remember, Reddit is a group of people meeting on the internet, sharing stuff, and talking to one another. 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.

What is a subreddit?

That growth, combined with 40% of Gen Z searching social platforms for info instead of Google, makes Reddit a unique opportunity for brands. Click the Save button on any post or comment to keep it for later. Click Profile under your username at the top-right to get access to all your interaction history, including saved content. You might see various icons that appear next to posts or comments. This is related to the paid Reddit Premium service, where you can purchase coins and use them to give awards to posts.

what is reddit mostly used for

Essentially, it’s a massive collection of forums where people can share news and content or comment on other people’s posts. Those who break the rule are subject to a site-wide ban, which can result in the deletion of their user-generated content. Subreddits (officially called communities) are user-created areas of interest where discussions on Reddit are organized.

Moderators can ban you for any reason they want, and some of them rule with an iron fist. Users can “upvote” or “downvote” posts in a subreddit based on how much they like or dislike them. Though most people take this to mean whatever petty whim suits them at the moment. Another way to support the community is by purchasing Reddit Premium, the site’s membership program. 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.

Each one starts with reddit.com/r/, such as reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch. In most cases, subreddits have their own look, rules, and expectations. The shadowbanned user’s posts and comments will continue to show up for them, but other people won’t see them. On most social media platforms, users have profiles, personal feeds, and predominantly use the website to grow relationships with other people.

Do upvotes have any other effect, and what is karma?

If you’ve read through everything above, then you should be ready to start surfing Reddit. Just jump in, start exploring, and get ready to spend hours going down the Reddit rabbit hole. It’s one of the best and most interesting places on the internet. Some are more strict than others, but any moderator will quickly ban you if you don’t follow the rules on a regular basis. If you are looking for NSFW topics, you will need to be registered and tick the “include NSFW results” checkbox. There are many specialized discussion boards on the internet, but if you are looking for a one-stop-shop then it’s hard to look beyond Reddit.

No matter what kind of post you pick, you’ll need to submit a descriptive title with it. Some subreddits only allow you to submit certain kinds of content, so keep that in mind. It’s best to read the rules of a community before submitting anything to it. As people upvote or downvote your posts and comments, these get added to your “karma.” The higher karma you have, the better regarded you may be by the community. However, Reddit karma cannot be redeemed and there are no prizes or rewards for amassing a certain amount of it. It’s really types of candles on a candlestick chart just a score that shows how active you are on the website.

Their community serves as a place for loyal fans to find out about new collections and get quick customer service, either from the forex indicators’ tutorial for beginners company or from other Redditors. For example, members of r/Hiking are probably athletic people who like sports, right? Vector’s ad wouldn’t make much sense in a general campaign, but it fits here.

Create your username and password

This was before the mass proliferation of smartphones and mobile applications, and Graham was skeptical about the idea. However, he liked Huffman and Ohanian and took them on at his start-up accelerator Y Combinator. Graham suggested the pair pursue what would become Reddit, directing them to look at sites such as Delicious and Slashdot, where users aggregated links to other sites.

Upvoting (in theory) means that you think more people should see a post or that a comment contributes to the conversation. Downvoting means that you don’t think the post is worthwhile for others to see, or that a comment is off-topic. Reddit is one of the most popular websites on the internet, and you can find communities built around pretty much anything there.

Due to the anonymity, Reddit uses “karma” to establish the credibility of users. Every user’s profile shows the number of karma points they’ve accrued. Here, you can also use the tabs at the top of the page to navigate subreddits. Well, it has more than 50 million daily active users and is the 10 most-visited site in the U.S. – which means more people visit it than you’d expect. Huffman and Ohanian met when they were assigned college roommates at the University of Virginia, where Huffman studied computer science and Ohanian studied history and business. During their senior year of college, they came up with an idea for a service that would allow customers to place orders at restaurants via text message before arriving.

Registered users can make submissions to any of the public subreddits. They can also join the subreddits, an action that will affect how Reddit’s front page will look for you (more on this later). Whenever you engage on the site, always consider other people and the community first. Aim to contribute and add value.Also, remember to check and follow each subreddit’s individual guidelines. You just need an email address, a username that isn’t already in use, and a password.