Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: If you've never spent time on Reddit, then you might think it's just another social platform where people argue in the comments.
But in reality, Reddit has become one of the most honest places on the Internet to understand what people think, what they struggle with, and what questions they're actively trying to solve. So for professionals in the health and wealth industries, that kind of insight is beyond valuable.
So today we're going to talk about why Reddit has become one of the most important platforms in the age of AI.
How the platform works, what the culture looks like there, and how agents and advisors can use it to better understand their audience and improve their marketing strategy. I'm David Belleville.
[00:00:38] Speaker B: And I'm Jo Barker, and this is
[00:00:40] Speaker A: the Amerilife Marketing Mentors podcast.
All right, Jo, as always, let's start with the big picture here as we're talking about Reddit today.
Reddit isn't necessarily the first platform that I think people think about when they're thinking of social media marketing, but its influence is continuing to grow by the day, it seems. So why is Reddit so important, especially to our audience in 2026?
[00:01:14] Speaker B: It's a place where you can go and you can have real conversations about topics that are important to all of us and where you can put questions and you get people in the industry who are responding. Or if you're a consumer and you have questions about life insurance, you can go in there and ask people's opinions. And the fact is, is people trust people. And so if you put something out there and people start responding to you, you take into consideration those responses and it becomes a powerhouse for, for anybody that's trying to reach, you know, those target audiences to be on there and provide the answer if you are qualified to the questions that people are asking.
[00:01:51] Speaker A: We say it all the time that people trust people over brands and that is what you're alluding to.
Reddit is a forum for people to share information and answer questions that other people might have. It's a great place for long form dialogue and discussion. And so trust is something that is super important when it comes to Reddit. So for those out there, there's more than 70 million daily active users looking for information that you might be able to provide.
So, Jo, as we also incorporate AI into this discussion, we why should our audience today consider being an active voice on Reddit?
[00:02:29] Speaker B: AI is looking for tells across all of the different social media channels from Google to Reddit to LinkedIn to Facebook. It doesn't matter. It's looking for tells about who is an authority leader and who is the, you know, who's out there that is providing information.
So best case scenario for anybody if you're building your personal brand is say, and I always use myself as an example. So say I'm trying to, to talk about digital marketing to insurance agents. The best plan that I can do is be on Reddit and be in the digital marketing, be in the insurance subreddits, be in the financial planner subreddits, and anytime something about marketing gets mentioned, I should be right in there to give my opinion. If it's something that I have knowledge about, same thing on LinkedIn or those other social media platforms. If I see anything that has to do with those topics, what AI then does is now it sees my website is talking about this. My, my Reddits and subreddits when I'm on there is talking about this. My LinkedIn is talking about this. That's how you really begin to build the foundation of being an authority in that space. And it's the same for everybody, depending on who your target audience is, of making sure that you're on there. And as long as you're confident that you're providing the right answer, then you should be on there giving your two cents and being helpful. What it's not about is, it's not about going on there and saying, hey, I'm Jo Barker, call me, here's my phone number, here's. It's not selling, it is truly just providing value. And then if somebody wants to connect with you, you know, on other forums, they will. But it is definitely not about just going on there and spamming your information and putting it on, on the subreddits or in the, in the feeds.
[00:04:04] Speaker A: Gosh, you just touched on so many incredible points there. But that last one might be the most important. Reddit has a bit of a culture that we'll talk about and here in just a few. But you're right, it's not a platform where you're going to have a warm reception if your main intent is just self promotion. So let's put a pin in that because I definitely want to revisit it. But let's zoom out a little bit and look at Reddit as a whole. When we're talking about the social media landscape, how is Reddit different than more traditional platforms like an Instagram or a Facebook that our audience might be more used to talking about when we talk about social media, I think if it's
[00:04:46] Speaker B: more familiar to any of it, in my opinion, it goes Closer to, towards the Google my businesses of the world, where you're leaving reviews and you're giving your opinion on things when you're, when you're on the different social media platforms. So on Facebook, it's more about your friends and family. It's more about being entertained and connecting with, with people that you know. When you go over to Instagram, Instagram's all about the picture. So that's what it's meant to be. It's meant to be that visually appealing platform. And then even LinkedIn is meant to be that professional platform. Reddit is meant to be a community platform to where people can ask questions and get real answers. That is, it's not about posting photos, it's not about putting things out there personally. It's all about having real conversations about pe, about things that people have real questions about or they want opinions about. And that's where it makes it so different because it opens it up to where everybody can have their opinion. And if you have a really good question or a really good comment, that's where you start to see people, you know, up it and say, hey, this is really good.
So the more value you can bring to that platform and, and that partnership it did with Google in 2024, that is when you saw Reddit just explode because it popped up at the very top of all of the search engines or all of the search queries. So you almost couldn't find a search query where it didn't pull Reddit and didn't give people's opinions. That's really where you start to see that, that, you know, that social proof or that or the other people's opinions matter. And that's where people like the opinions of people. And it just goes back to that. And that's, in my opinion, that's what sets it apart from all the other social channels, is you're over there to hear people's opinions. I don't go on Facebook looking for
[00:06:25] Speaker A: opinions, although that doesn't stop people from sharing their opinions. Yeah, Reddit, if you want to look at it a bit differently, is a, is a great listening platform for so many platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, those are meant for you to consume content, to be a consumer of content. Reddit is somewhere where people spend a lot of time, literally their, their sessions are often longer than, than many other platforms because they're doing those deep dives and they're not only looking for answers, but providing answers. And that is kind of getting me into a segue for the culture that we were talking about on LinkedIn and also how the platform is constructed a little bit. For those of you out there who may have never used Reddit before, the platform can feel a little intimidating at first, but rest assured, it's just a matter of experience and understanding how to navigate it.
So you mentioned subreddits.
Let's define subreddits as communities that form around specific topics. So we're level set on what subreddits are. Reddit has a very distinct culture compared to other social media platforms as well.
So can you, let's revisit that conversation. Can you speak a little bit more to why it's so important not to be that self promoting person and instead just focus on helping others?
[00:07:50] Speaker B: Yeah. If you were to go into. So one of the ones that I follow and I'm a part of is the insurance agent subreddit and if I was to go in there and just start promoting, I would get, I would get tons of bad comments very quickly. It's not meant for that. It is, it is meant to have real conversations. It's not meant to promote yourself. It's not meant to try to give them the links to your website to get people to go check it out. It is meant to be authentic and real conversations. And so that's where you want to make sure as you're on there, you are in no way trying to say, hey, go check this out or hey, this is who I am. Just answer the questions or give your opinions. If people want to follow you after that and want to connect after that, they will based off of the value you provide. But it really is about providing the value. It's also a great source. Even if you're not looking to go on there and provide value, it's a great source to understand what are people talking about. And that's something that we use it for all the time is I go into the digital marketing channels, I'll go into the insurance channels or subreddits and I'll go into the financial planner subreddits. What are they talking about? What conversations are they having? What hot topics are they talking about on a weekly basis? Where are things where you know they're asking a question and then I can pull that into one of my other channels as a piece of content based off of real questions that are out there being asked. And that's another huge value from Reddit that you can get.
And it's just being selective about what, what subreddits you're hanging out in and following along so you can see what people are actually saying and real opinions, right?
[00:09:21] Speaker A: Reddit users, especially longtime Reddit users, are super protective of the culture and environment that's been developed there. And so, as you mentioned, you'll get called out quickly because there is that protection that users tend to keep close and place a high priority on because it is such a great source for people to share their knowledge and gain insights. So now that we understand the platform a little bit better, let's talk about how professionals in our industry specifically should be using Reddit. We talked about how you can use Reddit as a listening tool. How can that then turn into a content strategy? Because we hear all the time from people who. I just don't know what to post. So let's take this a step further. And how can we start using Reddit to develop a content strategy?
[00:10:09] Speaker B: I recently shared on LinkedIn a prompt that I use with AI to go scrub the subreddits of certain conversation pieces for that exact purpose. So one of the things that I do on a weekly basis is I run a, an AI prompt that says, hey, go, go scrub Reddit under insurance agents, financial advisors. And I list out some subreddits and tell me what the top five topics are that have been discussed in the past week.
Notate anything that had a lot of, a lot of comments or a lot of activity with it. And so it comes back every week and it will tell me like, hey, here's something that, that is trending that people seem to be talking a lot about. That's pure gold to me because now I know, okay, this is what real conversations are happening. Let me go build my content based off of this and let me go answer and give my opinion or just give the answer to whatever that question was. If I, you know, if I, if it's within my wheelhouse now, I stay away from the sales side a lot, so I try to stay only on the marketing side. And I just remove the ones that don't really aren't that relevant to me. But it really is a gold mine for anybody that's looking for those topics. If you can't think about the frequently asked questions that your own clients have asked you, just go there, go, go look up life insurance. Go see the type of questions that people are actually asking about it. Go look up Medicare. What are the questions that people are asking about Medicare. All of that is great content. So even if you're not quite ready to engage on Reddit, it still is the opportunity to pull those out and use those on the platforms that you are more comfortable with and more willing to share to your own chann channels.
[00:11:44] Speaker A: And that's why at the top, you compared Reddit more to a Google business profile than Facebook, for example, because people are also providing those recommendations and insights to services that they've had positive or negative experiences with. Exactly. Also, I think Reddit has been a little ahead of its time because we are now in this question and answer phase of search where AEO has entered the mix and that stands for Answer Engine Optimization.
And so many of those answers to those questions are being pulled from Reddit. So it's just another reason why you want to be on that platform and use it as a place that you can just be helpful. Helpful to your community and those you served. Jo, if someone wanted to start using Reddit as a research tool today, what would a simple process look like for finding those relevant tools, communities and conversations, especially to those who might not be familiar with how the platform works?
[00:12:47] Speaker B: Honestly, I personally would use AI if I was starting all over again is I would go to Copilot, I would type in there that I am looking, you know, who I am and who I'm trying to serve, and that I'm looking for subreddits within the Reddit platform that will have content that's most relevant to who I serve, and it will come right back and it will tell you what all the subreddits are. And then right behind that, you can either go to Reddit yourself and go look them up, or just go on and continue with your conversation with your LLM and say, okay, now that we've pulled those, can you please pull the last month's worth of conversations and let me know which one has the most engagement and then see what those results are. The good thing when you're dealing with AI is it's, it's not a set IT prompt and forget it and then you're done. It's full conversation. So you can continue and learn from AI. So if you're completely new to it, you can even ask AI. Can you, can you break down Reddit for me? Can you explain it to me? If you've never set it up before, you can ask AI to help you, give you the step by step to set it up. That truly is where I would start. If I was starting all over today, had no idea what Reddit was, I would absolutely use Copilot to help me do that. If I'm not comfortable with AI, and I'm still, and I know there's still a lot of people out here who are like, no, I will never do that. I would simply go over to Reddit and I would start playing around and I would go up to the search bar and I would put in my topics and then go find those subreddits and just get familiar with the platform. And the more familiar you are with it, the easier it becomes as, as you navigate throughout the platform. Because you're right, it can be a little confusing when compared to Facebook or Instagram or any of the other social media platforms.
[00:14:28] Speaker A: I love that advice of simply asking Copilot to just tell you, hey, I've never utilized Reddit before.
Provide me a step by step process so that I can start leveraging the benefits of it to which there are many benefits. And one of them, as we're discussing right now, is how AI is really leaning on Reddit as a source of truth. And that's been one of the most interesting developments over the last year or two is how often these AI platforms are citing subreddits. Jo, what do you think is driving that? Why do you think Reddit is such a positive source of truth when it comes to these AI chatbots?
[00:15:08] Speaker B: I mentioned it earlier. I think Reddit really took off with their partnership with Google when they started becoming a source of that peer suggestions and peer commenting and opinions. And it's just natural that people want that, even utilizing AI. So you want to know what your peers say, what people just like you think. And those opinions do matter. And so it's pretty telling why. Or it's. To me, it seems obvious why AI pulls that because it can pull websites and tell you what businesses want you to think all day long. But when you really start pulling in people's opinions, there's no benefit to the people that are giving those opinions. They're not trying to sell you, they're just giving you the answers. And so it's authentic, which is what I love about it. And especially as it pulls in all of the sources, you start to see trends of. Okay, well this website obviously is maybe an affiliate because they're. The way that they're, they're steering this so positive where in Reddit the reviews aren't as positive. And so it really gives you that, that diverse look at everything which, which is what I love about, you know, pulling in from all those different aspects.
[00:16:16] Speaker A: Yeah, it's truly one of the most honest places on the Internet. So, you know, for the most part what you're seeing is, is likely something that you can put trust behind.
Jo, as we wind down this conversation today.
I want our audience to remember that Reddit is not a platform to go to promote. It is a platform to go to, to listen, to understand what your audience and what people that you're looking to help are asking for. It's a place where people are asking real questions, sharing real experiences, and talking about things that matter to them. So if you're in the health or wealth industries, that kind of insight can be incredibly value when it comes to shaping your messaging, your marketing, and the content that you create. Jo, in our final moments, any last words on Reddit?
[00:17:05] Speaker B: I would just get comfortable with it. If you've never utilized it before, get in there again. I would utilize AI to start pulling those trends, give you, you know, those talking points that maybe if you're unsure what you should be talking about or what's trending out there, but it's great for that. So that's probably. If you've never done it before, that's where I would start. If you've been utilizing it, then become a part of the conversation.
You know, provide that value. And I think as long as you always remember upfront, it's not about self promotion, it's about providing value, the rest will always follow. But provide the value, give you your unique take on it, and it's okay to even share a story or two about your experience with whatever that topic is.
[00:17:42] Speaker A: I love it. And of course the Amer Life Marketing Mentors will be with you every step of the way. If you need more strategic advice or want to walk through what a Reddit strategy might look for your business, then please reach out to the Merelife Marketing Mentors and subscribe to our YouTube channel. Of course we're on LinkedIn and stay tuned because we are developing a bit of a presence on Reddit ourselves, so there's more to come there. Jo, thank you so much for your time today. Thank you for listening and we'll see you next time.
