Reddit has this week provided an overview of its key performance stats and milestones for 2019 as part of its year in review - and there are some very interesting insights included within the various data points.
Reddit's main, broader usage points of note for the year are:
- 430 million monthly active users (+30% YoY increase)
- 199 million posts
- 1.7 billion comments
- 32 billion upvotes
That top number is the most significant - back in April 2018, Reddit reported having 330 million monthly active users, its last official update on this front. It's now added another 100 million, which means that Reddit now has significantly more users than Twitter (330m as of April 2019), Pinterest (322m), and very likely LinkedIn, TikTok and Snapchat (the latter three don't report MAU stats, but the data available would suggest that none have close to 430 million monthly actives).
But what's also worth noting here is the relative growth rate.
As you can see here, since April 2018 (or near to), Reddit's MAU numbers are actually growing faster than every other major platform, aside from Facebook, which continues to expand into new regions.
Again, the comparisons are not definitive - we don't have official MAU rates for Snapchat, LinkedIn and TikTok, which is why they're not listed, and Twitter stopped reporting MAU data in favor of its own mDAU stat back in July (Twitter went from 335m MAU in Q2 '18 to 330m in Q1 '19). But Instagram reported hitting a billion MAU in June 2018, and hasn't provided an official update since, and Pinterest is growing, but it's a way off the same rate.
Reddit, going on these stats, is fast becoming a more critical social platform, with its human-moderated approach seemingly holding more sway with more users as time goes on, which is important to consider.
This is further underlined in Reddit's on-platform engagement stats:
- Monthly comments have grown 37% YoY
- Monthly view count has jumped 53% YoY
These are impressive numbers, and while Reddit may not be as advertiser-friendly as other platforms, it's difficult to overlook the potential here.
And that's before you take into account the additional specifics of who's now using Reddit, and why.
In its further reporting, Reddit outlines the growth in various topic areas and communities, noting that there are now more than 100K active communities on the platform (though, interestingly, Reddit has previously pegged that number at 130k).
Among these, Reddit highlights significant growth in discussion and engagement around beauty:
"Increase in YoY subscribers in the top 50 beauty (+63%) and style (+52%) communities."
Food trends
"35% YoY increase in subscribers in top 50 food communities."
And parenting:
These are not areas that most would traditionally associated with Reddit - and while the majority of Reddit discussion still revolves around memes, web trends and gaming:
The broader overview of popular subjects shows that the Reddit community is diversifying - which, again, could point to increased marketing opportunities in the app.
Reddit has also added a range of new ad options this year as it seeks to improve its revenue potential, while it's also worked on improving its guidelines and cleaning up its platform to provide more assurance to advertisers. It still might not be the right platform for your business, but the data here would suggest that it is likely worth another look as you go about your 2020 planning.
You can read Reddit's full, in-depth usage and trend rundown for 2019 here.
