This unprecedented growth has led marketing experts to view Reddit as a formidable competitor to the likes of Wikipedia, YouTube, and even Amazon in certain high-value commercial searches.
Great analysis! It's fascinating to consider how Reddit's IPO might affect its community dynamics and overall growth. I'm curious about how they plan to handle moderation in light of these changes. How do you think Reddit will balance user growth with the push for monetization? Do you believe they can maintain their unique culture and appeal to long-time users while scaling up?
I think moderation would stay tablestakes to keep and retain communities. When it comes to monetisation, I see the usual path of ads revenue, data monetisation and possibly a premium subscription offer to power users to have reddit without ads etc.
I want ot highlite that I don't agree with you about comparison of Reddit and Instagram.
You wrote
"Today, Reddit has been able to attract a very different segment from its ealry days. Let’s compare. While Instagram user base is more evenly distributed across all age groups and Facebook skews more towards older users (13% of users are >55-year-old), Reddit has much younger user base in general (44% of users are aged 18 to 29)."
But if you will check the data that you provide on screenshot and try to compare the same segments, you will see that audience of Insta actually younger (here my calculations - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1InHl4yqLz_b8BGlcr8C-kA2in_vXlQMqA0eRX22ASVU/edit?usp=sharing) My calculations very rough, I equally split some groups, which is obviusly not right, but for such comment it should be enough. Also I recalculater Insta audience share without 13-17, to be more comparable with Reddit (in other case Insta audience will be even younger).
Reddit users up to 44 years - 66%, Insta users up to 44 - 83%.
Thanks your analysis Ruslan, much appreciated.. While you're indeed correct that CURRENTLY instagram seems to have more younger base, but population on Instagram seems to be shifting towards older age categories (as younger people move to Tiktok and alikes), while in case of reddit, the opposite is true, it is growing its younger base. I predict , with this trend, its a matter of couple of years Reddit will surpass Instagram in terms of younger population.
Excellent, comprehensive take. Thank you for putting this together. Connects the dots on what many of us are seeing / experiencing. I don't think most digital teams fully comprehend this exponential growth yet.
"1 billion monthly troglodytes" needs to be their slogan. I still never saw in them what Digg 1.0 didn't do better a decade ago.
I guess on the one hand, it's a different kind of toxic than the other social media platforms... even if each subreddit seems to start open before coalescing around a prevailing groupthink.
Very insightful information. Thank you for this and keep up the great work
Glad you found it useful, Isaac!
Great analysis! It's fascinating to consider how Reddit's IPO might affect its community dynamics and overall growth. I'm curious about how they plan to handle moderation in light of these changes. How do you think Reddit will balance user growth with the push for monetization? Do you believe they can maintain their unique culture and appeal to long-time users while scaling up?
I think moderation would stay tablestakes to keep and retain communities. When it comes to monetisation, I see the usual path of ads revenue, data monetisation and possibly a premium subscription offer to power users to have reddit without ads etc.
I can see the subscription model being a good fit for this audience. Could they go down the route of sponsored subreddits?
Hi, thank you for your regular newsletter.
I want ot highlite that I don't agree with you about comparison of Reddit and Instagram.
You wrote
"Today, Reddit has been able to attract a very different segment from its ealry days. Let’s compare. While Instagram user base is more evenly distributed across all age groups and Facebook skews more towards older users (13% of users are >55-year-old), Reddit has much younger user base in general (44% of users are aged 18 to 29)."
But if you will check the data that you provide on screenshot and try to compare the same segments, you will see that audience of Insta actually younger (here my calculations - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1InHl4yqLz_b8BGlcr8C-kA2in_vXlQMqA0eRX22ASVU/edit?usp=sharing) My calculations very rough, I equally split some groups, which is obviusly not right, but for such comment it should be enough. Also I recalculater Insta audience share without 13-17, to be more comparable with Reddit (in other case Insta audience will be even younger).
Reddit users up to 44 years - 66%, Insta users up to 44 - 83%.
Thanks your analysis Ruslan, much appreciated.. While you're indeed correct that CURRENTLY instagram seems to have more younger base, but population on Instagram seems to be shifting towards older age categories (as younger people move to Tiktok and alikes), while in case of reddit, the opposite is true, it is growing its younger base. I predict , with this trend, its a matter of couple of years Reddit will surpass Instagram in terms of younger population.
Excellent, comprehensive take. Thank you for putting this together. Connects the dots on what many of us are seeing / experiencing. I don't think most digital teams fully comprehend this exponential growth yet.
"1 billion monthly troglodytes" needs to be their slogan. I still never saw in them what Digg 1.0 didn't do better a decade ago.
I guess on the one hand, it's a different kind of toxic than the other social media platforms... even if each subreddit seems to start open before coalescing around a prevailing groupthink.
Groupthink exists pretty much in the offline version of our society is as well, the online artifacts just aggravate our societal behaviors.
Interesting piece, thanks!
We're big advocates of community management and public community support over at Mava.app!
Love the idea, great stuff and thanks for sharing.
Great overview, thank you.
Thanks Anton, great you liked it. More insightful stuff to come next!