Latest / Founder Mode / Why AI Loves Reddit Most with Brent Csutoras

Transcript

Why AI Loves Reddit Most with Brent Csutoras · Founder Mode

0:00
That's the beautiful thing for the companies that are getting
0:02
in right now because let me tell you, it is the next 12 months is
0:06
the land grab. It's being able to say, you know
0:08
what short domains dot coms and links 20 years ago and you could
0:13
just flashback, what would you do today if you had knowledge of
0:16
where, where that was all going to go back then?
0:18
Like we have a crystal ball that shows us exactly where things
0:22
are going right now. Maybe not the exact route, but
0:24
we definitely know where they're going and we definitely know
0:26
what's going to influence it. And people are like but not yet.
0:29
Let me wait. You're listening to Founder
0:46
mode. Where we breakdown what
0:48
actually? Works today's episodes about
0:50
marketing in a world where attention is harder to earn.
0:53
And where authenticity is no longer optional.
0:55
We're seeing a shift away from polished messaging.
0:59
And toward real conversations that people actually trust.
1:02
Kevin, I like to joke that in the age of AI, you're more of a
1:05
growth in marketing guy than me. Now, how are you creating
1:08
marketing messaging campaigns that feel more human and less
1:11
polished for for all of your companies?
1:12
Yeah, I don't think we've figured it out completely.
1:15
I think it is funny you joke about it, but I've always kind
1:18
of had this kind of growth hacker mentality of trying to
1:20
like what's the there there and how do you either shortcut the
1:23
process or how do you sort of like automate things.
1:26
I think the AI thing honestly just took that same sort of like
1:30
playful creativity, if you want to call it, and now it's just
1:33
giving me so many more ideas and and I can go execute on a lot of
1:36
different campaigns and whether that's coming up with, you know,
1:38
sort of funny content or things to post and you're.
1:41
Just a really good GTM engineer now I think.
1:43
Exactly mapping things together and and linking things.
1:46
JJ made this joke he's like, oh, some of the AI stuff you post on
1:49
like LinkedIn or Twitter, the account is like those look like
1:51
AI generated. I'm like, well, dude, we're an
1:53
AI company, like a court. Like it's almost kind of meme
1:55
it. And he's like, well, I know
1:56
they're AI. And I'm like, well, when talk to
1:58
our voice bot, I also know it's AI.
1:59
Like I can tell. And you know, it's not perfectly
2:01
human, even though, you know, some people don't.
2:03
But yeah, so I think to me, it's just AI gives us a lot of ideas
2:06
and it's just made it a lot more efficient to sort of get get
2:09
stuff done. And and quite frankly, you know
2:11
this, but marketing is all about testing, right?
2:12
You just don't know what's going to work, right?
2:14
I mean, you're going the other way though, I think.
2:16
And and now you've kind of started an AI video company,
2:19
like, if anything, making AI less human.
2:22
So what's up with that? Yeah, I, I started this AI kind
2:26
of brand film studio with a buddy of mine who is really
2:29
talented commercial director. We were sitting at the Standard
2:32
Hotel in New York about a year ago, and he said, you know,
2:35
look, my job's gonna fundamentally change as a lot of
2:38
people are realizing. And he said, you know, you're
2:40
pretty good. This kind of marketing, setting
2:42
up agency consultancy stuff, you know, maybe we could join forces
2:45
and create like an AI film shop. And so we did.
2:48
And we're, we've got some of our first clients.
2:49
We're making these, you know, 32nd one minute commercials that
2:54
look like 1,000,000 bucks that cost a fraction of that for big
2:58
brand names that you've heard of.
2:59
And that's like some of them and we'll talk about this.
3:01
I bet with Brent are afraid to try new things and others are
3:04
embracing it like Coca-Cola has their squirrels commercial they
3:07
did over the holidays. It's all AI and people there's
3:09
big backlash. But at the end of the day, if
3:11
marketing is about testing lots of things, AI just gives you way
3:13
more throughput and volume of tests.
3:15
To your point, and, and I think what's interesting about using
3:18
AI to make films is that, you know, if a brand is like, hey, I
3:22
want to do this ad, but for my Spanish speaking market, I want
3:25
the lead to be Latino and I want it to all be in Spanish.
3:28
And like, you'd have to shoot 2 ads to do that with practical
3:31
filmmaking, right? But with AI, you can literally
3:34
make the same ad. Everything is exactly the same,
3:36
just different lead character, 14 languages.
3:38
It's incredible. And so that kind of ability to
3:41
tweak and test is, is, is really a game changer.
3:43
Anyway, we're going to talk about tweaking and testing with
3:46
Brent. Should we should we kind of get
3:48
going on that? Yeah, I mean, Brent, I've known
3:50
him for a long time. I mean, he's spent, you know,
3:51
two decades kind of inside these online communities really just
3:54
helping brands navigate sort of the right way.
3:57
Yeah, and he's seen it first hand, right?
3:59
Of what works and what gets rejected instantly.
4:01
Can we bring them out? Kevin?
4:02
Let's do it. Yeah, yeah.
4:14
Brent, welcome to Founder Mode. You've been inside one of the
4:16
most misunderstood platforms on the Internet for now nearly two
4:20
decades, and you're helping brands navigate sort of this new
4:24
AI driven world. I mean, today we're talking
4:26
about authenticity community and how marketing kind of actually
4:29
works. Yeah, dude, it's it's crazy.
4:31
Like I was, I was just looking the other day and it was like
4:34
had like every single conference out there about 7 years ago was
4:37
like, bro, we love you, We love that your sessions.
4:40
But can you find any other topic other than Reddit to talk about?
4:43
Because like, nobody wants to hear about Reddit.
4:45
And then two years ago, I heard I got a text message.
4:49
And the text message was like, hey, we're at, we're at like pub
4:51
con or something. And somebody on stage was like,
4:53
where is Brent? And they were like, you know,
4:55
because they were talking about Reddit.
4:57
And it was like, where is this guy?
4:58
You know? So yeah, it's been a whirlwind,
4:59
man. It's been fun.
5:00
So good. Brent, you've been active since
5:03
2006, so literally 20 years on Reddit, but also Dig and all
5:07
those other sites back in the day.
5:08
Like you've kind of you figured out the like message board weird
5:13
underbelly of the Internet strategy.
5:15
What did you understand early about these kind of online
5:18
communities that most people still miss?
5:20
Yeah, so I actually started when I was in Tokyo with Yahoo
5:23
Answers. It was separate from Yahoo in
5:26
the US, but I saw people really gamifying this like idea of
5:29
coming up with the best answer. And it really taught me early on
5:32
that like, people want significance, right?
5:35
And, and I love Tony Robbins because he talks about the need
5:38
for significance as well, but it's it's just primary thing,
5:41
right? And so when we got into dig
5:42
early on, it was never about really winning.
5:44
It was always about like, could I get the story that hit the
5:47
front page? Was it me?
5:49
Right? And so when we first started
5:50
promoting wired, like I never had to really promote it.
5:53
All I had to do was go to the top users that be like, I have
5:55
wired content before it's out. Do you want to submit it?
5:58
And everybody would submit it, right?
6:00
So early on, like, you know, what we really figured out
6:03
probably more than anything, is that people need somebody else
6:07
to guide them towards important information.
6:10
And social media at that time was more like a filter of the
6:13
UN, you know, the unknown, kind of the vast of the web.
6:17
There was no way of really finding out what was the best.
6:19
And users were willing to give their time and energy to do
6:22
that. And that was the value of
6:24
social. Early on, what's just changed
6:26
more like the community or the culture?
6:27
I think that honestly, the cultures, the shift that we're
6:31
really seeing, I mean, the culture is what's driving
6:33
everything. And Reddit sits in a place where
6:35
it satisfies all the needs that people have to make a decision.
6:38
You've helped brands. It's kind of show up in a place
6:41
that punishes bad behavior very quickly.
6:44
What's the biggest mistake that companies make when they first
6:47
enter these communities, especially Reddit?
6:50
This is an easy one because like the difference, like everybody
6:53
wants Reddit to be like every other site, but the reality is
6:57
Reddit is more like a real world community.
6:59
And so every rule is also a broken rule.
7:03
Every law is also broken, right? Because you're dealing with
7:05
human beings. It's like WordPress, it's a
7:07
platform that allows people to create a community.
7:10
So the biggest mistake people have is that they think I'm
7:13
going to go in and find 5 or 6 communities.
7:15
They're going to want to hear from me and I can go in and
7:18
treat them all like a category. And that just doesn't work
7:21
right. I used to give the example like
7:23
automotive, if you have a Corvette and you're like, oh, I
7:25
want to sell Corvettes and you go into automotive, you might go
7:28
into a car community that actually hates Corvettes, and
7:31
then there might be another community that loves them.
7:33
You have to know what people want and what their needs are
7:36
and how they're running their community, and nobody takes the
7:39
time. They think of it like they're
7:41
just walking into a website instead of into individual
7:44
networks. Yeah, it makes sense.
7:46
And what what would you say is the difference between showing
7:49
up as a brand or showing up as like a participant?
7:52
Because I think like that, you know, that one thing that you
7:54
know, as soon as somebody who was doing a lot of LinkedIn and
7:55
they're like, you know, my personal LinkedIn gets a lot of
7:58
engagement, but my brand page doesn't.
8:00
And I'm curious like your answer on that view, like where on
8:03
LinkedIn it's very discreet. Like there's company pro,
8:05
there's a company and then there's a, a human.
8:07
And on Twitter, same thing. There's like a company thing and
8:09
you can be an affiliate of that. Like how does that work on
8:11
Reddit? And what is that sort of
8:13
difference of showing up as a brand or a participant?
8:16
Or is there even the notion of a brand on Reddit?
8:18
There is a notion of all of this and it does fit, but again, I
8:21
would take it to the the idea of like, what is the ability for
8:24
you to be a a brand in the world and be a person that's
8:27
associated with the brand in the world?
8:29
I often will like kind of like paint it like a difference.
8:32
You're the brand. You have a booth at a
8:33
conference, right? You people come up to your
8:36
booth, they expect you to talk to them as a brand, right?
8:38
If you walk around in the networking environments, you
8:41
don't walk up and say, hi, I'm OGS Media.
8:44
You would walk up and say, hey, I'm Brent, I happen to work at
8:47
this company. So you carry the authority as
8:50
the person, the connection with the person, but you're not the
8:53
brand, right? Then you have people like Keith
8:55
at Sonos who are like, you know, you know, actually tied to the
8:59
brand. So there's like three types of
9:01
users, the employee, the brand, tide, you know, kind of like
9:05
person and the brand itself. And I think that it depends on
9:08
the community. Some places they really want the
9:11
brand because the brand carries weight.
9:13
Some places they don't want the brand because they're looking
9:15
for opinions from users and the brand's not going to give them
9:18
that. And you've worked with companies
9:19
that started with like super negative perception, right?
9:23
It just, it baseline was like, we hate you.
9:26
How do you reverse that in a community that just has like
9:29
infinite memory, does not forget what bad stuff you've done as a?
9:33
Brand well, you again, humans forget the bad things, right?
9:36
There's always one or two people who bring it back, but humans
9:39
always forget. They always move on to
9:41
campaigns. We have was like that was TikTok
9:43
like when we started doing the TikTok campaign, I think within
9:46
the 1st 30 minutes, I like 300 death threats.
9:48
I mean people were trying to find where I live and I honestly
9:51
transparently was like, this is going to suck like this is going
9:53
to be rough. And so I kind of just got
9:55
sarcastic. I was just like, they were like,
9:57
go back to YouTube and I was like, I heard there's a lot of
9:59
TikTok ads, you know, because this is when they were paying
10:02
for all of the ads on YouTube to try to get to the, the front of
10:05
the, the store, you know, the App Store and stuff and take
10:07
over. And just by being in the room,
10:09
it changed the entire narrative. The entire front page of Reddit
10:13
was all about like, how can we get TikTok off Reddit?
10:16
We don't want them there. So literally there was millions
10:18
of views. Everything was get them off by
10:20
the end of the day. We had thousands of positive
10:22
karma awards on our ads. People editing their comments
10:25
saying like, Hey, you know, I learned a lot today about, you
10:29
know, humbleness and about, you know, Mark and about, you know,
10:33
just being a part of something else, right.
10:35
And so that was really fascinating to me that just
10:38
simply being in the room changes the narrative.
10:41
But think about it like a human right.
10:43
When you're in a room, people might think things about you,
10:46
but they're not so prone to come up and tell you to your face.
10:49
People are are a lot more reserved when you're in the
10:52
room. And that's why I tell brands,
10:53
even when there's something negative, be in the room.
10:55
Assurion's another example of kind of like, you know, going
10:58
from a toxic ex employee community.
11:01
So like, it started out as a positive thing.
11:03
They left the company, turned it super toxic.
11:06
So we ended up going out and taking over the community built.
11:08
What we didn't do is like immediately change it.
11:11
Like we did a slow 6 month transition because people
11:15
adhered to the standard of the community they're in.
11:17
Like if you go into a place and everybody's bitching, it's like
11:20
this is a place to pitch, right? If you go in a place and
11:22
everybody's asking, you know, questions that they want to
11:25
figure out, this is a place to ask questions to figure things
11:27
out. So you set the standard of what
11:29
you want people to do. Rules are just like the really
11:33
egregious that you put on the wall, right?
11:35
I always tell people a bartender's job is to keep the
11:38
creepy person out. That person might break no
11:40
rules, but if he's walking around getting close to people
11:42
and acting creepy, they're going to throw his ass out.
11:44
And on the way. I was going to.
11:45
I didn't do anything wrong. I don't care.
11:47
You're out right. This is society online.
11:50
Yeah. What's the moment?
11:51
Like you would say that that community sort of decides to
11:54
trust you instead of reject you? Like, is there like a was there
11:57
a turning point? Like in that example where you
11:59
went into a toxic community and sort of had to turn it?
12:01
He said. It took months, but was there
12:03
like a moment that you remember where it was like, wow, that was
12:05
the sort of point. The point that you're going to
12:07
notice a community shifting is when people are comfortable to
12:11
talk about you positively, right?
12:13
That's a key factor because when you're in a room with people
12:15
that you don't feel like everybody's negative, the last
12:17
thing you're doing is being the one person that raises their
12:19
hand and goes well, I actually think they're really cool guys,
12:23
you know? But at a moment when you start
12:25
seeing people start to say positive things in a room of
12:28
negative comments is the moment you've started to shift the
12:30
tide. And in reengaging those voices
12:34
is what starts to give people the confidence to start coming
12:37
in in that way. So it's really important to
12:39
notice that point and when you see that point, reinforce where
12:42
that a point is coming from. But that's why I would tell
12:45
people, even outside of this, the number one thing you need to
12:48
understand about Reddit is where your user actually goes on
12:52
Reddit. That has an impact on their
12:54
decision making because just being on Reddit is only a part
12:58
of the story. You need to be in engaged in the
13:01
journey where they're looking to solve a problem, where you're a
13:04
good solution to that problem. And if you're in that place and
13:08
you figure out what they're doing and saying that's positive
13:11
and you latch into that, that's your key to getting to the other
13:14
side. We're seeing platforms like
13:16
Reddit show up everywhere in AI answers.
13:19
Brent explain that like I'm 5. Like why is that happening?
13:23
Absolutely. See, algorithms try to reinvent
13:28
essentially what authority is, right?
13:30
Go back to Google. Google always said, we're really
13:32
not happy with links. We're not happy with the way
13:35
authority works. But how else do you determine
13:37
authority, right? And so as AI kind of came into
13:40
the space, we got away from needing hard rules to determine
13:45
authority. We got to a place where we had
13:46
large enough pools of data that we can look at other signals,
13:49
signals that we don't necessarily have the ability to
13:52
easily discern, but AI can when it's looking at every
13:55
conversation on the web, right? And so that shift went towards
14:00
this need that we have that we worked out.
14:02
Marketers killed the ability for people to feel comfortable about
14:06
their decision anymore. Everything's polished,
14:09
everything's paid for, everything's through a vine of
14:11
like, I can't piss anybody off because I'll lose an advertiser.
14:14
So people got to a point where they were dissatisfied with the
14:18
ability to make a decision and feel good about it, right?
14:21
I, I need somebody to talk to That's real.
14:23
We all blocked comments on our blog because it was hurting our
14:26
ad revenue or something. So all of these things we did,
14:29
we really worked out all the things that make people feel
14:32
good about a decision and Reddit never did.
14:35
Reddit reinforced that an anonymous nature of like feeding
14:39
people, getting to the root of the problem by having six or
14:42
seven comments. And that's what led to people
14:45
saying, hey, I want to hear what real people say.
14:47
I want to hear what somebody that's actually touched this
14:50
thing. And I can't trust reviews, I
14:52
can't trust comparison blogs, I can't trust the websites.
14:55
So Reddit became that source. And when they couldn't find
14:58
Reddit, that's when they started typing Reddit in.
15:00
So what? What we found is that in an
15:02
otherwise technological world and in otherwise AI world, the
15:06
human voice is more valuable now than it's ever been.
15:09
And that's a key thing to focus in on is that if you work around
15:13
something that has to do with the human voice, then your
15:16
value, the service you can provide is only going to go up.
15:20
Because without, like Steve said this on the earnings call,
15:24
there's no artificial intelligence without human
15:26
intelligence, right? We have to have human
15:28
intelligence and there is not none of that.
15:30
No, I don't want to say none of that, but the vast majority of
15:33
that is coming from Reddit at this point.
15:35
What you talk about this notion of being authentic and like, you
15:38
know, authentic conversations and I and I've ran, you know, I
15:40
don't definitely don't use Reddit as much as you do, But
15:42
when I do, sometimes I get into these, you know, subreddits and
15:44
it's like you see the post and then people are just calling
15:47
this person out for like, oh, they're just shilling like go
15:49
click at their profile. They've shield the same post 12
15:52
times or like they're talking about their weight loss journey
15:55
or their workout plan and it's like they actually sell a course
15:57
behind it. How do you guys think about that
15:59
when you're looking at stuff and how much of, you know, Reddit it
16:02
is? Do you think that where people
16:04
are sort of astroturping or sort of coming and promoting
16:06
something kind of as if it's, you know, authentic and
16:09
community driven? So there's a couple questions
16:11
mixed in there. But like, let's start with the,
16:14
you know, you see a bunch of people commenting kind of
16:16
negative stuff, right? Like I think we give a lot of
16:20
weight to this when we shouldn't, right?
16:23
Like have you not looked at an Amazon where they're like, oh,
16:25
the Reds not as red as the picture showed?
16:27
Like it's a screwdriver, Like what do I care, right?
16:29
Like you read reviews and you kind of look for, does this
16:33
actually matter to me or does it not?
16:35
And that's the same thing on Reddit.
16:36
If somebody comes in and they're like, this is the answer to your
16:38
problem, this is what will fix it.
16:40
And it's a good answer. People can say, oh, you're just
16:43
chilling, Oh, you're just brand. But there's somebody that's
16:45
actually looking at that going, but that solves my problem and
16:48
I'm going to go solve my problem.
16:49
Now we worry about those couple posts when we really need to
16:52
focus on are we solving the problem?
16:55
And that's where I said before, you kind of shift that tide,
16:58
right? People don't care.
17:00
I always give it the lawyer conversation.
17:02
It's like you're having a conversation with somebody and
17:03
they keep saying like, well, you should do this or you should
17:05
find what are you a lawyer or something?
17:07
And they go, yeah, actually I am.
17:08
And you're like, oh, can I get your card?
17:09
Because, you know, it kind of could use a little help with
17:11
this, right? There's a moment when a sale is
17:14
appreciated. And we all know that in real
17:16
life. But we've lost that online
17:19
because we try to flood everybody with products that
17:21
should solve only a small group, but we try to make it solve
17:24
everything. That's where shilling comes in,
17:26
right? You know, you don't need this at
17:28
all, but I'm trying to sell it to you anyway.
17:29
That's that's what people hate. If you're solving a problem,
17:32
they actually like it. And once they get past this
17:35
whole like, let me vent a little bit about everybody else, they
17:39
actually appreciate you. So no shilling and and probably
17:42
what no broadcasting like actually stop trying to sell
17:46
stuff and start trying to connect with people.
17:48
What does that look like day-to-day?
17:49
Like I'm just trying to take your kind of advice here, Brent,
17:52
and make it really tactical for folks that want to use this
17:54
platform correctly. And so that has made people feel
17:58
a little bit like regardless of what the real rules are, I can
18:02
get around them in a shortcut kind of way.
18:04
And we've instilled this in marketers over years.
18:06
It's like it's what they say and it's what reality is.
18:09
And we can reinforce that. This is a point where it's not
18:12
so much that this is going back to saying, if you don't go into
18:16
a, if you think about it like walking in a room and talking to
18:19
people, it changes how you say things.
18:20
Would you walk in and hold a piece of paper and read it to
18:23
somebody? Would you come in with headlines
18:25
and and headers? Would you come in and like, you
18:27
know, just speak like all corporate.
18:29
No, you, you have to find a way to repackage it, right?
18:32
You have to have a way to have that conversation.
18:34
And so I think what happens is, is that we need to respect the
18:38
fact that when you're in there, you're conversating.
18:41
So how does that look, right? What does that look like to you?
18:44
From every level, it comes down to genuinely what is the journey
18:48
of the customer that you actually solve a problem for?
18:52
Where are they at in that journey?
18:54
A lot of times people are looking to find the real
18:56
problem. How do you talk about guiding
18:59
them towards what that real problem is?
19:01
How do you talk to them in a way that gives them a journey, a
19:05
pathway to go down where they land on you?
19:08
We were, we were working, I can't get into that client, but
19:11
we were working with TV's, right?
19:12
You probably know the TV company, you probably have one.
19:15
And a lot of what they were talking about was like features
19:18
and things like that. But there's little things like
19:20
is the black the true black? Because if you're playing video
19:23
games and you don't see in the dark, you don't see who's
19:26
shooting you, right? You don't hear the, the right
19:29
sound. You don't hear people coming
19:30
around you. So the conversation is not
19:33
about, hey, the challenge is I want more pixels.
19:36
The challenge is not, I want to have a different version that
19:39
has some kind of feature. The challenge is I don't want to
19:41
die because I didn't hear somebody walking around from
19:44
behind in the game. And, and these are the
19:47
challenges that people are not solving the problem for.
19:49
So what it looks like is understanding what it is that
19:53
people are trying to solve and what are the steps in that
19:55
journey and where do you participate in a way where
19:58
you're guiding them towards the? Solution and potentially being
20:02
the person who provides that solution.
20:04
And as simple as that sounds, if you actually go through the
20:07
process of going to Google and typing in and going through your
20:10
customers journey and looking at how they're seeing things and
20:13
what perceptions being made and you get through it.
20:16
You'll start to realize there's like problems here that nobody's
20:20
solving for right? Like you don't sell TV's based
20:23
on the features, you sell it on the problem it solves.
20:25
Like I want to what's the best monitor for PlayStation 5,
20:29
right? You don't, don't sell grocery
20:31
delivery or, you know, restaurant delivery.
20:34
You sell like to people who are like, I can't go to the grocery
20:38
store. I don't care how fast it is or
20:39
how much it costs. I'm terrified because I'm
20:42
phobic. I'm, I'm an alcoholic who is in
20:44
recovery and I don't want to be tempted by the alcohol that's in
20:47
the, you know, the, in the grocery section.
20:49
You know, I, I have a, you know, some kind of disability and I
20:53
can't walk through a grocery store.
20:54
So I need these groceries to come to me.
20:56
And I don't really care about these other features.
20:58
When you understand the need, you understand the place where
21:01
you solve the problem, then the conversations become really
21:04
obvious. What the build your community
21:06
into becomes really obvious. It's just we spend so much time
21:10
trying to say what's the five ideas I can write down and then
21:13
go and tell everybody about instead of taking a moment to
21:16
really listen. And it only takes a couple
21:18
hours, couple weeks, couple months Max to really understand
21:22
your audience. We just don't spend the time.
21:24
What I mean, so it's awesome and I think it's a lot of good
21:27
things that you should do. What are people that are running
21:29
marketing today? What should they stop doing
21:31
immediately? Like what are the things that
21:32
you see where you're like when you see that you're like just
21:35
delete that from their your playbook, Delete that from your
21:37
sort of day-to-day or your week to week sort of marketing?
21:40
I mean, it's going to sound like I'm repeating myself, but
21:42
they're really not understanding their audience at all.
21:45
So we, we deal with a lot of big companies, right?
21:48
And, and I mean, we're talking companies that spend millions of
21:51
dollars to understand their audience.
21:53
And when you come in and you show them the conversation
21:55
people are having and what they're actually writing content
21:59
for the connect is huge and so much to the extent that they're
22:03
like, I can't believe we didn't see that, right.
22:06
So what I want people to stop doing is continuously looking
22:09
for one more hack, one more thing that's just going to guide
22:14
them to the finish line in an exist.
22:17
Now, I don't mind if you would want to look for hacks and quick
22:20
steps, but do it from a place of we're starting fresh and not
22:23
from a place of this is 21 years in the digital marketing.
22:27
I think that's the biggest challenge.
22:28
And the other thing I would would say the biggest challenge
22:31
is short sightedness. Like everything we look at is an
22:35
investment, right? If you're going to go, people
22:36
are like, I will spend $1,000,000 to do a pop up store
22:39
in New York City that takes regulations and, and timing and
22:43
flying people and logistics and multiple teams to do this.
22:46
But I won't spend 30,000 to go in and do a campaign on Reddit
22:51
for like 2-3 months to like really get in and build a
22:53
community up, right. So there's this value prop
22:57
disconnected that I think is is wild to me because marketing is
23:01
about being where people are telling the story that you're
23:03
supposed to be involved in. And to say we're just going to
23:07
ignore the biggest audience of people talking about us is
23:10
crazy. I mean, as a, as a like a career
23:12
CMO growth guy, I think it's, I think it's partly that they're
23:16
afraid, right? I think that Reddit is scary.
23:18
And like, if I'm a big brand CMO, I'm like, oh, I don't want
23:21
to go dip my toe in that place because it's just like it's too,
23:24
it's too hard, it's too scary. And the brands that are working
23:26
with you obviously have gotten over that fear and have figured
23:28
out that this can be an amazing. But the problem with that,
23:30
Jason, is they're not really looking what they're doing.
23:32
They're not they're, they're, they're different for sure.
23:35
Well, they've even taken enough time to even go and read.
23:37
They see one post that's negative.
23:39
They see one case study of somebody said something bad and
23:42
they're like, well, I ain't going there.
23:43
There was one person that had a a delay at an airport, so I'm
23:47
never flying again. Screw that.
23:49
I'll drive for the rest of my life.
23:50
It's like it's not logical. No, I agree with you.
23:54
But they'll spend 10 times that amount of fear and and worry
23:58
trying to explain their need to exist.
24:01
When a company that is seeing profits go down, that is seeing
24:05
clicks go down, that are seeing sales going down.
24:07
And they'll make up all kinds of stories and try to look for all
24:10
kinds of answers within what they have that's already
24:13
failing. And that's 99% of the time
24:16
instead of going and saying, you know what's braver, right?
24:19
You know, going onto a platform that is clearly going to be
24:23
successful. So once you figure it out.
24:25
So again, I mean. Appreciate the converted.
24:27
I mean, look, man, you and I are are kindred spirits.
24:30
Most of these episodes we're talking to engineers.
24:32
Kevin's getting to do his thing here I am another marketing guy.
24:35
We're jamming. I totally feel you.
24:37
I just talked to a Fortune 500 CMO who literally is like we're
24:41
she she literally said we're not using AI in any of our creative.
24:44
We just won't do it. That's just our blanket rule and
24:46
like, it's just all this stuff is.
24:48
Short financed people do not use calculators.
24:51
We are a paper algebraic equation people and we have 25
24:55
people, 100 percent, 300 notepads and we just it's not
24:59
going to happen, right? It's just, you know, again, how
25:01
are you using things? But you know, I mean, I agree
25:03
with you. I think it's it's insane right
25:05
now, but I but you know that that's beautiful thing, right?
25:09
That's the beautiful thing for the companies that are getting
25:11
in right now, because let me tell you, it is the next 12
25:15
months is the land grab. It's being able to say, you know
25:18
what short domains dot coms and links 20 years ago and you could
25:22
just flashback, what would you do today if you had knowledge of
25:25
where, where that was all going to go back then?
25:27
Like we have a crystal ball that shows us exactly where things
25:31
are going right now. Maybe not the exact route, but
25:33
we definitely know where they're going and we definitely know
25:36
what's going to influence it. And people are like, but not
25:38
yet. Let me wait.
25:40
Let me wait until I actually lose the opportunity to get in
25:43
early and then come back. But you know, for the people who
25:45
are getting in. They're crushing, yeah.
25:47
So we can get to we can get to the front pay like a brand right
25:51
now luxury brand with two months in has no information brand new.
25:56
We are on the front of every single thing ChatGPT Ellie LLM,
26:01
all the AI S did answers. They're seeing sales and they
26:03
sell things at 10 grand like 5 to 10 grand per sale and they're
26:07
getting sales through Reddit every single week they're seeing
26:10
it. It's growing because people just
26:13
are asleep on it right now and it's OK keep sleeping because it
26:16
makes no you the rest of us so. Let's make it real again.
26:20
You've helped so many brands reshape their presence on
26:23
Reddit. Specifically what is like think
26:26
of 1 transformation that really jumps out for you of all the
26:28
ones that you've helped. You know, I'll be honest, like
26:31
transformation gets tough for me because it's like, what is it
26:34
that they're trying to? I would say that the one that
26:36
I'm the one that I'm most proud of right now is really Assurion,
26:40
you know, because that, you know, it's an insurance company,
26:42
company that works with cell phones and everything else.
26:45
And through Amazon, if you buy anything, it's like, do you want
26:47
to get an extended warranty? Right?
26:49
So, so because they're like, for me, they're a brand that's
26:53
really corporate. They have a lot of regulation.
26:56
They, you know, really are not the company you would expect to
26:59
be on Reddit, right? They're like the last people you
27:02
would expect to be like forward thinking on Reddit.
27:04
They had an A super toxic community.
27:07
I mean, we're talking vulgarities and just like
27:09
leaking information about the people at the company, like
27:12
things that are illegal. Like and they sell the
27:14
consumers. They sell the consumers.
27:16
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You can buy insurance for any
27:19
device you have, any technological.
27:20
I mean, I'm sure there's some limitations, you know, not, you
27:23
know, but you know, all your cell phones, all your computers,
27:25
all your, you know, I think they're just launching computers
27:27
or something. But anyway, so so they were like
27:30
in a position where everything was toxic, right?
27:32
Their number one result when you search their brand of Shurion
27:35
was a Shurion is a scam. Do not buy from them like that.
27:38
Was it like, I mean, and, and and all the LLMS were the same
27:41
way. If you said, Hey, is it worth
27:43
getting them through Amazon, which is they're not like a
27:45
really big driver. It was like, absolutely not.
27:47
They're horrible. Don't get it.
27:48
But it was all a lot of misinformation.
27:50
So just going in and like, but here's the thing.
27:52
We actually owned the conversation to the point that
27:55
there was some posts where we're like, yeah, I wouldn't buy from
27:57
us because when you tell somebody we're not good at this
28:01
area, but we're really good at this area, they believe that
28:04
you're really good at this area. When you tell somebody we're
28:07
good at everything, it's natural for us to disbelieve that it's
28:09
like, yeah, but you're really not, right.
28:11
Come on, be honest. So when you are like, one thing
28:14
with assuring is we took ownership of all the negative,
28:17
right? The negatives go on a scale of
28:19
what's horrendous and what's like just annoying.
28:22
Like own the annoying because then you have all the negative.
28:25
You need to be able to balance out the conversation, but that
28:29
gives you control of the impact of the negative.
28:31
So Assurion like turned it around and Amazon actually ended
28:35
up reaching out and were like they made changes to their
28:37
program and they actually were like what the hell do you like?
28:39
What do you guys do? Because we ended up taking over
28:42
every LLM everything for all of it.
28:44
We replaced all the search results.
28:45
We ended up having Amazon's worth it.
28:48
Our post ended up taking everything out, but it moved all
28:50
the misinformation out, which was causing the headache,
28:53
improved all the numbers on the program.
28:55
So then they were like, this is amazing.
28:57
And they were like, you know, and they still to this day, they
28:59
kind of controlled our message and have grown what's.
29:01
The common pattern if you zoomed out that you could extract or
29:05
sort of share with the listeners about these kind of big wins.
29:09
Like, you know, if you think back, like, and maybe looking
29:11
back, I know because it's changed probably over the last
29:13
20 years, but like, let's just look back over the last 6 to 12
29:16
months. If people were going to really
29:18
put something to play in 2026, like what are those patterns
29:22
that you're like, man, this is where I would sort of put my
29:24
energy. I think that a lot of people are
29:26
so focused on what is the one for read that ranks in in Reddit
29:30
that I'm going to go in and I'm going to comment on or I'm going
29:33
to go in and I'm going to change.
29:35
And I think that the ones that I've seen have had the most
29:37
success of the ones who were like, actually, I want to be a
29:40
part of this ecosystem. There there is a continued
29:44
conversation of continued value. And I want to be a part of this
29:48
ecosystem. And I want to build my own
29:50
subreddit, build my own community, engage in a very
29:53
proper way. And I'm willing to take the time
29:55
to do it right. And I think that that is the
29:58
biggest distinguishing factor between the brands that have
30:01
done really well in the day who haven't, is whether they're
30:04
going to stick it out and really take the time to invest in it,
30:07
put people behind it, take the time to be patient with it.
30:10
And all of those ones, after about 6-6 to nine months, it
30:14
turns into an intelligence play because there's no way right now
30:18
for you to. If you survey people, it changes
30:20
their mindset. If you use analytics, they're
30:22
already in a different mindset. How do you get in?
30:25
You know, you have to be able to be a family on on the wall and
30:27
there's no place to be a family on the wall like there is to be
30:30
on Reddit. And so the insights that you can
30:32
get to go now change your products to go change what you
30:34
offering. We actually we had a company
30:36
device that was like, we didn't know our audience talked about
30:39
us in this way. We're changing everything we do
30:41
our sessions and stuff. And now they're like one of the
30:43
top Microsoft partners for like doing in tune deployments,
30:47
right? And so they've been blowing up
30:49
and everything because we basically took them on Reddit
30:51
very early within the first year, they exploded in the
30:54
community and they got so much intelligence.
30:56
They were able to position themselves as the best company
30:59
in the industry, you know. I guess final question is we
31:02
sort of, you know, cruising for a close, like if somebody wants
31:05
to be visible in the future to AI but can't use Reddit or won't
31:09
use Reddit or doesn't use Reddit, like outside of Reddit,
31:12
like what? What other things have you seen
31:14
in your experience? Because I'm sure you know, a lot
31:16
of these things are holistic, but just forcing like sort of
31:18
like a little bit of wisdom that's off your Reddit train.
31:21
What would you point people? To so I, I was just having this
31:23
conversation yesterday because one of the things that we're
31:26
doing right now is that we do Reddit heavily, but we also do
31:29
Geo content for your site, right?
31:31
Because what we've really learned is it's not about
31:33
Reddit, it's not about the content, it's about that
31:35
journey. And we have a process to figure
31:37
that out. And once we do, once we know
31:39
what that challenge is, if we can put content on your site and
31:42
on Reddit, then we, we, we really nail the LLMS. So what I
31:46
would say is right now, ChatGPT is really pushing for ads.
31:50
And the more that they push towards an ads model, the more
31:53
they really need to focus on factual comparisons versus like
31:57
opinions, right? It's very hard to run ads
31:59
against opinions as much as it is to run it against factual
32:02
information. So what I'm starting notice is a
32:05
lot of GO is pulling directly from blogs when it has factual
32:08
information to compare that people have obviously gone to a
32:12
place where they're like, I want to hear from other sources, but
32:14
I want to hear from the, the, the company and the brand
32:16
itself. So I think that if you, you
32:18
know, really looking at your content on your site and going
32:22
away from like preaching and blog content in comparisons and
32:25
really getting into how am I solving the problem and helping
32:27
people solve the problem. I think that's going to be a key
32:31
factor in, in getting into LLM school.
32:33
It already is right now, but it's going to continue to be and
32:36
that's why we've kind of started moving a little bit of our
32:39
service into that area as well. All right, Brian, this is this
32:42
has been like a serious knowledge drop session.
32:46
So what The funny thing is you and Kevin know each other
32:48
forever. He told me this before we, you
32:50
know, before I met you recently. And then this recording is like,
32:54
there's just nobody who knows Reddit better.
32:55
And so thank you for like educating us and everybody
32:58
listening. Where can folks follow you find
33:00
you online? Obviously you're going to say
33:02
Reddit, but where else can they find you?
33:03
And. Yeah, I mean, LinkedIn is like
33:05
LinkedIn is mostly the only place really go for anything
33:09
that's like professional anymore.
33:10
My LinkedIn account, you know, Brent Satoris, you know you if
33:13
you want to contact us, our website has A at OGS Media has
33:17
like a contact form on there and that gets through to us.
33:20
But mostly Linkedin's, kind of like where I spend time where
33:23
I'll take the time to post. And stuff like that.
33:25
Perfect. We'll we'll include your
33:26
LinkedIn and and the company link in the show notes.
33:29
Thanks brother. It's always a pleasure, man.
33:31
I always love talking to you guys, man.
33:32
Thank you so much for having me. It's an absolute pleasure.
33:34
OK, Kevin, that was a different kind of episode.
33:36
Brent's been in the room since 2006 and you can hear it.
33:39
There's no theory in any of his answers.
33:41
It's just reps. Yeah, and the thing that's wild
33:44
to me is how simple the playbook is.
33:45
It's like, stop looking for the next hack.
33:48
You know, we're on Hack one and the next generation, and that's
33:51
the whole game. It's like, just do the thing,
33:53
right? And the and the part that should
33:54
make every CMO uncomfortable, which makes me really excited.
33:58
Companies will drop $1,000,000 on a time square pop up but
34:01
won't spend 30 grand on the platform their customers
34:03
actually trust. He called it this value prop
34:06
mismatch and I I just called it fear.
34:08
Yeah, the land grab framing was the one that I keep coming back
34:11
to. It's like, you know, we were
34:12
short domains dot coms, links. We've seen this before.
34:16
And now the people that can get in early on Reddit and early
34:19
again, being like, you know, 20 years after it was created are
34:22
going to look like geniuses in the next, you know, 18 months.
34:25
And so everybody else will just be paying 10 times more to sort
34:27
of catch up and sort of build that authority.
34:29
Yeah, Kevin, what are the top five founder mode takeaways?
34:32
Yeah, I think number one, I mean, Reddit isn't a website,
34:35
it's a real world community. It is like where humans hang
34:38
out. I think 2 is you just have to be
34:40
in that room. And three, the small negatives
34:43
are really to control the big ones.
34:45
You need to own those small negatives so that you can kind
34:47
of have that control. And then 4, you know, sell the
34:50
problem, not the features. And then five, you know, the
34:52
next 12 months is kind of this going to be this land grab.
34:55
And so you really got to kind of get in there if you if you're
34:57
the mark. Yeah, if you want to show up and
34:59
ChatGPT, you better be on Reddit.
35:00
All right, if this episode made you rethink how your brand shows
35:03
up online, send it to your CMO, your Head of Growth, or whoever
35:06
is still afraid of Reddit. Yeah, and subscribe to Founder
35:09
Mode for more conversations with people who've actually been in
35:12
the room. Brent's links are in the show
35:14
notes. That's a wrap, because in a
35:16
world full of polished content, the human voice is the only one
35:19
anyone still trusts.