Reddit’s journey from meager news sharing site to runaway stock market success offers clear lessons for publishers facing the headwinds of declining search-referral traffic and signal loss. The secret isn’t just about having a comments section or user forums — it’s about hosting a true community.
This article is a look at how they did it.
Nothing Says Community Quite Like Reddit
A neighborhood isn’t necessarily a community. If you don’t know your neighbor’s name or favorite food, chances are you don’t really have a community. Communities are created when people come together around shared interests and values that they act on. Proximity is irrelevant.
Take Reddit. The platform defines what it means to be a community. To wit: Consider GameStop.
In case you forgot, back in January 2021, members of the Reddit community r/wallstreetbets were a bit perturbed when large hedge funds took significant “short” positions on GameStop stock. So they concocted a plan: If enough of them bought and held GameStop shares, they could force the stock price up instead of down. The impact of their collective effort is the stuff of legend, leading to a Congressional investigation, as well as a book and a movie.
That same year, Reddit users made news again, this time during the landing of NASA’s Perseverance rover on Mars 2021. Millions of people watched the official livestream, of course. But the real sideshow was the spontaneous AMA (ask me anything) by aNASA engineer. Some 75,000 participated, resulting in the most engaging scientific discussion in social media history.
A Testament to the Power of Community-Driven Platforms
Reddit is testament to the power of community. This was no happy accident. From day one, Reddit’s founders deliberately built their platform to nurture diverse groups of people who share common interests to talk.
Here’s what Reddit does right:
- Upvote/downvote content curation system. Unlike other social platforms where an algorithm decides what you see, Reddit lets its users vote on what content rises to the top. If enough people think a post is helpful, interesting, or important, it gets more visibility.
- The role of moderators in shaping communities. Moderates set rules for discourse on Reddit (e.g. like “no medical advice” in health forums or “be civil” in debate spaces). These rules shape how the community functions.
- The subreddit phenomenon. Reddit’s structure allows incredibly specific communities to form around nearly any topic. What makes these subreddits powerful as knowledge hubs is how they combine expertise, discussion, and archive all in one place.
- Real-world impact. As we saw in the beginning of this blog post, Reddit communities don’t stay in the online world. They can have measurable impacts on real-world events.
Success that Spurs Growth
All platforms measure their success in numbers of active users. By this metric, it’s hard to deny Reddit’s incredible success. Its growth is proof-positive of the appeal of its community-centric approach, and should serve as a guiding light for any publisher concerned about the impact of generative AI search on its referral traffic, among other challenges. Consider:
- Daily active users reached an eye-popping 97.2 million in Q3 2024, which is a 47% increase year-over-year.
- Weekly active users grew to 365.4 million in Q3 2024, up 53% year-over-year.
- Monthly active users increased from 330 million in 2018 to an estimated 1.2 billion in February 2024
And those metrics — daily, weekly and monthly active users — pave the way for greater opportunities for Reddit as a company.
Google AI Deal
Earlier this year, Reddit made the news when it struck a $60 million deal with Google to allow it to train its AI on Reddit data.
Generative AI thrives on high-quality data in its training set, and the fact that Google was willing to pay tens of millions of dollars to Reddit speaks volumes about the multitude of communities, as well as the value of active moderation.
This partnership not only provides Reddit with a new revenue stream but also validates the quality and diversity of discussions on the platform.
And the good news didn’t stop with the Google deal.
Successful IPO
Reddit’s communities have always been its heart, but in 2024, Wall Street put a price tag on their value. The platform’s journey from a $100,000 startup to its February 2024 IPO tells a remarkable story of the impact of communities.
When Reddit hit a $10 billion valuation in 2021, it proved what its users already knew: Bringing people together around shared interests isn’t just powerful, it’s profitable.
What Publishers Can Learn
Reddit’s journey from startup to tech giant offers clear lessons for publishers facing the headwinds of declining search-referral traffic and signal loss.
The secret isn’t just about having a comments section or hosting forums, it’s about building intentional spaces where readers with shared interests can connect with one another. When you give your community tools to curate content and encourage meaningful discussion, you create something that’s truly valuable. And value shows up in the metrics that matter most for your revenue: user loyalty, time on site, and repeat visits.
At a time when publishers worry about AI search eating into your traffic, Reddit proves that authentic community engagement isn’t just nice to have, it’s an engine for growth.
