[snowwrestler]

If this is true, it implies that such marketing on Reddit is not worth much. Because if a marketing tactic is easy and effective, intense competition will drive up the price of doing so.

Conversely if Reddit astroturfing was actually valuable, "upvotes cost nothing" could not be true. Like, we know that Meta and Google ads are effective, and those cost something. Not because they're hard to do, but because everyone is trying to do them at once.

[red-iron-pine]

> Because if a marketing tactic is easy and effective, intense competition will drive up the price of doing so.

will it? who is occupying and competing in that space, in a business sense? and are they using reddit? if so, which subs and who are they targeted at?

the various build-a-PC subs are a great example -- they have ones for high end GPUs -- literally, r/gpu -- and others for more generic uses. you can shill all-day on r/buildapcsales and do well without having to battle on the more general buildapc

in a broader sense, building consensus is critical, and plenty of businesses or political entities are willing to take huge losses to completely corral public perception -- most notably the purchase of Paramount by everyone's least favorite villian Larry E

[snowwrestler]

You think GPU manufacturers are paying people to post fake positive comments all day in /r/buildapcsales in the hopes of materially increasing their revenue?

[JasonADrury]

I've thought about this same thing a lot, and the only explanation for the current state of affairs I can come up with is that marketers that have a good enough understanding of these communities are hard to come by.

It's also likely that many businesses are simply too risk averse to engage in things like purchasing farmed reddit accounts and upvotes.

[snowwrestler]

Oh, there’s risk? Somehow you forgot to mention that in your post about how incredibly easy it is.

I’m sure it’s possible to make small amounts of money with Reddit bots, just like it’s possible to make small amounts of money with email spam, and posting AI slop to Facebook and X, and SMS scams.

The idea that major brands do this habitually, is what I’m objecting to.

[JasonADrury]

>I’m sure it’s possible to make small amounts of money with Reddit bots, just like it’s possible to make small amounts of money with email spam, and posting AI slop to Facebook and X, and SMS scams.

I'm getting clients who are each spending a minimum of 500k USD pa on services.

There's a very wide variety of eyeballs you can reach on reddit. It's everything from people inserting impressively large items in their body to people trading eye-wateringly expensive jewelry from cult brands like Chrome Hearts and nerds discussing enterprise telco equipment and EDR platforms.

But sure, I don't think it scales.

>The idea that major brands do this habitually, is what I’m objecting to.

I doubt major brands do this habitually. There are countless smaller players who do.