Jody Serrano
Editor in chiefEditor in Chief at Xataka On. Before joining Webedia, I was a tech reporter at Gizmodo and The Messenger. While I've covered all sorts of things related to technology, I'm specialized in writing about social media, Internet culture, Twitch, and streamers.
Finding out what real people are saying about a product or service can be difficult on the Wild Wild Internet. Ads, paid reviews, and sponsored content can run amok in search results amid genuine opinions, and it’s not always clear which is which.
To evade this, some users resort to a savvy trick: They type in your query and add “reddit.” It takes them directly to the platform and right to a conversation where someone may be ranting or raving about that vacuum or phone you’re looking into.
For the buyers, these results are gold. Reddit knows this, and it’s cashing in.
Turning posts and comments into ads. This week at the Cannes Lions festival, Reddit announced a new AI-powered advertising feature called Conversation Summary Add-Ons. The feature essentially turns the trick mentioned above to find opinions Reddit into an advertising tool—featuring only positive comments, of course.
As explained by Reddit, the tool uses AI to identify relevant user posts and comments about a product or service. It then inserts them on the bottom of a company’s ad. In an example post for the EV company Lucid, the tool included posts about users’ experience with the Lucid Air Dream as well as their initial reaction upon picking it up.
22 billion posts and comments up for grabs. Early tests of Conversation Summary Add-Ons produced a 19% higher click-through rate than standard image ads and enhanced ad relevance, Reddit said. Lucid and Jackbox Games were among the Alpha testers of the product.
With more than 22 billion posts and comments on its platform, Reddit has a staggering repertoire of content to lean for its new tool. It’s also notable that users that see these ads can click on the posts and comments that are included, potentially enhancing the time they spend thinking about the product.
Avoiding grenades. As any Reddit user knows, the social media platform isn’t exactly known for being a sunshine and daisies kind of place. While there are positive conversations about products, there is also user content that rakes companies over the coals.
The AI element will be interesting to see in action, as well. AI isn’t perfect and may not always be able to pick up on the irony, sarcasm, or inside jokes on certain subreddits.
In its announcement, Reddit didn’t elaborate on how it would avoid potential problems with the tool.
Reddit Insights. In addition to the social proof tool, the company also unveiled Reddit Insights, its AI-based social listening tool. As reported by Axios, in the past, Reddit would provide insights to advertisers on certain topics manually.
With Reddit Insights, however, advertisers can now gain information on what users on talking about it in real-time. Advertisers interested in launching a campaign about hair loss products, for instance, can use the tool to view the main communities talking about the topic.
Courting advertisers. While ads may not the first thing you think of when you think about Reddit, if you ask Reddit CEO and co-founder Steve Huffman, finding ads on his platform makes perfect sense.
“It happens to be, and we didn’t design Reddit this way, that a lot of what people talk about is what they’re going to buy next,” Huffman said in an interview with Axios, adding that half of the conversations on Reddit are commercial in nature. “It turns out it’s a natural place for customers to meet the companies over a genuine shared interest.”
Reddit’s stock reacted positively to the announcement, rising 6%, and have continued to increase in recent days.
Images | Brett Jordan
Related | Reddit Has Become the Best Source of Human Data on the Internet. AI Companies Are Trying to Steal It
View 0 comments