How to do social listening with Reddit data

Whilst Twitter and Instagram might be the most used data sources for social intelligence professionals, there’s one platform that has been rising up the ranks. Reddit, once thought of as the Wild West of the internet, the place where the weirdos and wrong’uns would hang out, has cleaned up its reputation in recent years. In fact, it’s become one of the go-to data sources for those who want to understand their audiences better because it’s now seen as the place to find genuine connections, authentic opinions, and the true “voice of the customer.” According to the 2024 State of Social Listening report, it’s now the third most used data source for social listening professionals, compared to 2023 when it didn’t even make the top five. 

So, let’s dig into Reddit data in a bit more detail to learn why it’s so interesting for understanding online behaviours and how you can get the most out of it.

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Reddit 101: What’s it all about?

Reddit is a forum-based social media platform, with individual message boards for different topics, called subreddits. Content shared by users - Redditors - is voted on by other users based on usefulness and popularity, so the more upvotes a post has, the higher up the feed it will appear. The content shared is predominantly text, but Redditors also share images, gifs, and videos within each subreddit. From a social listening point of view, this makes it a rich source of data as conversations happen across a range of media.

The platform was founded in 2005 and acquired by Condé Nast Publications in 2006. In 2011, it became an independent subsidiary of their parent company, Advance Publications, and they now own 30%, with the Chinese tech conglomerate, Tencent, owning 11% and OpenAI CEO, Sam Altman, owning 9%. In March 2024 it went public.

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What’s the vibe?

As we alluded to in the intro, Reddit has kind of been seen as a controversial platform in the past as its 1000+ active communities cover topics across the spectrum of light and fluffy to dark and kooky. However, what this really means is that, unlike other social media platforms where people feel the need to portray a particular image (#TradWife, #Mumfluencer…you get the jist), you’re more likely to see authentic conversations with people going to specific subreddits that match their legitimate interests. 

It’s especially known for being used to promote political activism, and several left-wing and anti-theist subclutures have emerged here. Having said that, the majority of people use Reddit for entertainment or news. Only a few - less than 20% - use it to follow brands or strengthen their professional network.

Reddit is THE place for niche communities to thrive. One of the main reasons people come to these subreddits is to look for answers or recommendations that they feel they can trust. According to a 2023 Reddit-commissioned survey, 75% of respondents said they believe Reddit is a trustworthy place to “inform their decision to buy a new product across specified consumer product categories.” So, whilst it might not be the place for brands to engage directly with their audiences, they’re likely to discover who the true influencers for their products are. 

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What makes Reddit different from other social data sources?

Authentic is probably one of the keywords used to describe this platform, but others would argue the same (we’re looking at you TikTok). So what sets it apart from the rest? What makes it so interesting from a social listening perspective?

Firstly, it's community moderated by volunteer users or creators of the different subreddits. That means moderation decisions are taken in context and that there is more effort to keep discussions on topic suggesting the content shared is genuinely relevant to their interests. According to Reddit’s 2023 User Perceptions Survey, 83% recognized conversations on Reddit as more on-topic than anywhere else on social media. 

Secondly, it’s seen as a trusted source of information for users. Another Reddit survey revealed that 76% of Redditors questioned agreed that “people post things that are honest and truthful,” which was higher than each of Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, X, and YouTube. For social listening professionals, this highlights the authenticity of the communities on the platform.

That said, this decentralised moderation model, the ability for users to post anonymously and the lack of fact-checking systems beyond the good will of volunteer moderators means there is a greater potential for misinformation and disinformation to spread than perhaps on other channels. The community-based set up of the subreddits also enables echo chambers to flourish which can result in highly polarised content. What does that mean for social listeners: analyse with caution! 

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Introducing the Redditors: Who uses Reddit?

Ok, let’s talk numbers…

Currently, Reddit is available in all countries except Indonesia, China, North Korea, Turkey and parts of Bangladesh (as of October 2023) where it’s blocked due to government censorship. As of Q3 2024, there were 97.2m daily active users, a growth of 47% compared to Q3 2023. It has, on average, 74m unique daily active users and 267m unique weekly active users. In total, there are over 1000 communities, with more than 500 recording at least 1m subscribers. When it comes to potential reach, Reddit ads reach close to 11% of the world’s active internet users and more than 1 in 14 people on Earth.

In terms of demographics, 60% of users are male and 39% are female. Around 50% of users are based in the US and 90% of all posts are in English. Of US-based Redditors aged 18 and over, 41% were between 18 and 34 years old and 64% have a household annual income of US $75,000 or more.

Many Reddit users aren’t active on traditional social media platforms - 32% weren’t active on Facebook, 37% weren’t active on Instagram, 73% weren’t active on Snapchat, 41% weren’t active on TikTok, and 53% weren’t active on X. For social listening professionals, that suggests you’re getting access to people on Reddit that you can’t anywhere else, giving it a unique advantage over other platforms.

The majority of Redditors are indivduals, rather than businesses, however around 50% of web traffic to Reddit is from bots. On top of this, there’s a fair bit of AI-generated content on some of the subreddits. For example, up to 45% of content in SEO and marketing subreddits is AI generated and there was a 174% increase in AI-generated content in popular writing subreddits. Depending on the audience you’re looking to reach and the community that you’re analysing, you’ll want to make sure the content is genuinely the voice of your customer.

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How to access Reddit data for social listening

You can access real-time Reddit data through an API for a fee. For organisations who need to use the data to support commercial use cases, they can access via the Data API. In 2023, Reddit changed the terms of this API to enforce rate limits, and now pricing is based on usage levels:

• Up to 100 queries per minute per OAuth client is free to access. 
• For those without OAuth authentication, up to ten queries per minute are free of charge.
• For third-party apps and other customer use cases that require higher usage limits, the price is around $0.24 per 1,000 API calls.

Reddit data is accessible through a number of social listening platforms via the Data API, and they have announced formal partnerships with Cision/ Brandwatch, Meltwater, Sprinklr, Sprout Social, and Talkwalker. 

It’s important to be aware that the only way to legitimately use Reddit data for commercial use cases is through the Data API. There are several platforms who claim to provide access to Reddit data without it, however they are non-compliant. Working with them could jeapordise your access and put you in a difficult legal situation, so it’s always worth confirming with any company how they are accessing this data. If they seem a bit shady, it’s probably safer to look for an alternative way to access the data, even if that means manually analysing conversations in specific subreddits.

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What are the main use cases that Reddit data can support?

Given the nature of the platform, there are many use cases that Reddit data can help with. Are you ready for a long ol’ list?

• Campaign tracking and performance
• Category trends analysis
• Competitive benchmarking and crisis tracking
• Consumer behaviour
• Consumer interests and affinities
• Consumer purchase behaviour
• Content ideation
• Crisis detection and management
• Cultural insights
• Customer feedback and satisfaction
• Customer journey
• Emerging trends detection and trend spotting
• Event and sponsorship analysis
• Identifying brand advocates and influencers
• Market insights
• New audience discovery
• Opportunity identification (product and communications)
• Product developments
• Redputation monitoring
• Strategic planning

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Case study: Using Reddit data to understand fandoms

So, it’s clear that Reddit can be used for many use cases, but what does that actually look like in practice? One really interesting use for Reddit data is exploring fandoms. We asked Christopher Chen, Founder of Pulse Analytics & Insights and former Executive Director, Head of Global Social Intelligence, Corporate Strategy at Warner Bros. Discovery to give us an example of how he uses it in this way. 

Can you give an example of when you’ve used Reddit to explore fandoms? 

At Pulse Analytics & Insights we recently worked with a major entertainment brand to analyse Reddit conversations on a specific niche genre's fandom subreddit and its related subreddits. Our goal was to understand how various movie audiences engaged with a genre, the impact the genre had on their platform's streaming audiences, and how the audience relate to the themes presented in various titles in the genre. By analysing upvoted discussions and AMA (Ask Me Anything) sessions, we helped the platform think about how to better make a push into the genre as well as strategies to tailor its digital engagement to resonate authentically with the community.

Why did you choose Reddit for this particular project?

Reddit is a treasure trove of deep, organic conversations, making it a go-to platform for exploring fandoms, niche communities, and sentiment at a more detailed level. Unlike other social platforms that thrive on quick reactions, Reddit users tend to dive in with thoughtful analysis, detailed opinions, and spirited debates. At both Pulse Analytics & Insights and Warner Bros., Reddit has been key to not just tracking what fans are saying, but understanding the why behind their conversations—insights that have been invaluable for shaping marketing strategies, content decisions, and overall audience engagement.

How did you collect and sort the data?

For most projects, we use a combination of social listening tools and manual deep dives to ensure both broad and nuanced insights. We leverage a third-party tool like Quid or Talkwalker to aggregate Reddit data, then layer in manual review to capture tone, context, and emerging trends that automated tools might miss since Boolean only picks up posts where the search parameters match. Sorting typically involves categorising discussions by themes, such as character/plot reactions, meme culture, or fan theories, to understand how engagement shifts over time.

What approach did you take to analysing the data?

Our approach depends on the project goals, but generally includes:

Thematic analysis: Identifying key drivers of conversation (e.g., character/actor discourse, sequel/future episode speculation, Easter eggs, areas of friction).

Sentiment analysis: Assessing emotional tone - intent to watch/purchase/stream, positive hype, and critical skepticism.

Engagement trends: Tracking how a topic might gain or lose traction, which can indicate shifting audience priorities or how much an audience cares.

Did you blend Reddit data with any other data sources for this project?

Yes, blending Reddit data with other sources strengthens insights. We often merge Reddit insights with Twitter, TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram to compare real-time reactions with long-form discussions. We also have integrated Google Trends to see if Reddit-driven topics influence broader public interest.  As a mixed methods researcher, I also highly value combining Reddit data with survey data to understand how fan sentiment aligns with general public opinion. 

Is there anything in this project that Reddit data wasn’t useful for?

While Reddit excels in deep fandom engagement, it has limitations. Since Reddit doesn’t provide robust user profiles to listening platforms, audience segmentation is difficult to do and better at simply understanding fandom segments based on subreddits. Some subreddits are also heavily moderated or have audiences who skew toward specific perspectives, which can lead to biased sentiment analysis if not cross-validated. To counter these gaps, we always contextualize Reddit insights within broader social and behavioral data.

What other use cases do you use Reddit for?

My teams have used Reddit in other use cases such as crisis monitoring (tracking backlash amongst the core audiences before it spreads further to mainstream media), product or feature feedback (understanding both owned and competitive landscapes to understand reviews and requests to improve an offering), and speaking tone (ensure brands speak in a language that is familiar with the audience and not overly corporate).

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What’s next for Reddit data?

We might not have the inside track on upcoming developments to the platform and how Reddit data, and access to it, might change in future, but they have given a few clues. The main aim is to grow users, which will provide more, and potentially richer, data for social listening professionals to analyse. 

One way they intend to do this is by increasing the number of international users, particularly among non-English speaking countries and they are already starting to translate existing conversational data to multiple different languages. The markets they’re focused on growing are the UK, France, Spain, Germany, Brazil and India markets which represent a potential 1.1bn additional users. In doing this, they hope to provide more culturally relevant content which will provide social listening with much more diverse audience insights.

They also plan to grow engagement with the platform and increase the number of daily unique users by improving the user experience and making it easier for people to discover relevant communities and content. If users do spend more time conversing around topics they find meaningful, this will only provide more opportunities for social listening professionals to extract insights. 

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Stay tuned for more

Hopefully, this has given you a better understanding of how you can use Reddit data for social listening projects. This information is up to date as of publishing but, as with everything on the internet, things change and evolve quickly, so we’ll keep this as up to date as possible. If there’s anything you think we’ve missed, or a change you’d like to highlight, let us know!

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