Reddit adds analytics for posts: is it time journalists to revisit the platform?

Reddit now provides analytics insights for posts, potentially opening up the chance for journalists to experiment more with sharing posts on the platform.

In a post on r/Reddit, admin u/ToastedFig announced that all OPs, or original posters, and moderators of communities will gain access to post metrics to “help Redditors understand more about what posts resonate with people in communities.”

Here’s what it means for journalists.

Reddit analytics and metrics

As of March, Reddit will now provide OPs and moderators with the following metrics:

• Total Post Views (with hourly views in the first 48 hours)
• Upvote Rate
• Community Karma
• Total Shares

In the future, Reddit states it will bring this feature to mobile, alongside hopefully adding more relevant metrics for creators to use.

Of course, some form of Reddit tracking has been available for some time already – both tracking the number of upvotes, and the number of click-throughs using the likes of Google Analytics.

How journalists can use Reddit analytics

With these new insights, there are two vital insights journalists can now take from their Reddit posts. These relate to the Total Post Views, and the Upvote Rate.

Using the Total Post Views, journalists can now gain a better indication of their conversion rate on Reddit. Almost acting as an impressions rate for the platform, combining this with the number of page views and other metrics provides a deeper insight into not only what works well on the platform, but what will actually translate into clicks.

However, perhaps the more unique insight comes from the Upvote Rate. Reddit is among the few social media platforms that allow downvotes which, while they can be used maliciously, can also provide valuable feedback for posters. 

By analysing the Upvote Rates of your posts, you can assess what communities both like to see, and what they don’t like to see, too. Through this, journalists can listen to and track a core group of the community’s dislikes without sifting through hate comments, or over-emphasising a vocal minority.

Of course, this doesn’t solve the mountain of problems journalists have to face when sharing articles on Reddit. Publishers have found the platform a tough one to crack when it comes to consistency.

As with Facebook Groups, these are communities that publications usually don’t have ownership over, and can react quite negatively to any aggressive self-promotion of links in their spaces. At least now you can track it more coherently.