Reddit’s looking to get more publishers involved in its various communities, with the addition of three new tools that are designed to help web publishers share their content, and analyze engagement within the app.
First off, Reddit’s rolling out a new “Links” tab in Reddit Pro, its dashboard of publishing and analytics tools which it launched last year. Within this element, publishers will be able to access insights into engagement with links that they’ve shared in the app.
As explained by Reddit:
“Publishers can track which of their stories are being shared on Reddit, see the specific communities they’re shared in, and monitor key metrics like views, upvotes, and clicks. This data helps develop their strategy and grow an audience on the platform.”
Which could be a big help in developing a broader Reddit strategy, and ensuring that your content is connecting with Reddit’s highly engaged audiences, which is often a starting off point for broader web sharing.
Publishers will also now be able to sync their RSS feeds and automatically import their articles to Reddit Pro, making them instantly shareable across Reddit, while Reddit will also give publishers AI-powered suggestions of communities that they should share their content to.
Which will make it a lot easier to distribute your content in the app, though I would also question what sort of license that then gives Reddit to use your content for whatever purpose.
Because Reddit’s been making its data sales a bigger focus, in order to maximize its revenue intake. Linking your RSS feed doesn’t necessarily give Reddit access to all of your content, but I would hazard a guess that anything that is re-shared to the app will come under its umbrella of proprietary content, which it’s licensed to on-sell to AI developers.
Another aspect to consider.
Reddit says that it’s been alpha testing its new publisher tools with dozens of outlets, including The Atlantic, The Hill, NBC News, and The Associated Press.
“Starting today, we’re accepting applications for our beta test, with the goal of serving everyone globally by next year.”
It could be a good way to tap into a broader audience, and with 110.4 million daily active users, who are often highly active influential voices in a specific niche, that could be worth considering.
Reddit’s also testing out its own media viewer option, which would enable Reddit users to read articles direct within the app itself:
Which, again, I would question in regards to the data that this enables Reddit to access via such integration, but the idea is that by making it easier to read articles in-stream, the relating discussion can then be hosted on Reddit, boosting community engagement.
These are interesting options, no doubt, and I understand Reddit’s push to get more of the latest news material flowing into the app, in order to power more live, active, relevant discussions. And they will likely do just that, but it is interesting to note the related data elements, and how Reddit could look to also benefit from them.
Publishers can sign up for the waitlist for these new features here.
