Reddit expands into Australia and appoints David Ray as country manager
Home to Reddit’s fourth largest user base and growing at 40% every year, today Reddit officially says “G’Day” to Australia, a core market to its international growth strategy, as it open its doors to its local business, based in Sydney’s Barangaroo.
Reddit’s new Australian team launches with locally-based community, engineering and sales staff, as well as country manager, David Ray, who will join Reddit in the coming weeks from WooliesX, and has experience leading teams in Australia for Amazon, Twitter and Telstra.
Reddit’s Australian country manager, David Ray
“We are so excited to announce that David Ray will be our country manager for Reddit in Australia who will be joining in a couple of weeks,” Reddit’s chief operating officer, Jen Wong told Mumbrella.
The Australian business is managed by Reddit’s head of international, Tariq Mahmoud, and is already partnering with local entities, working with Australian-based moderators and communities, and establishing local brand partnerships.
“We’ve been fortunate to experience strong organic growth from our Australian user base in recent years, and with this comes a significant opportunity to level-up our local offering in a more focussed and nuanced way,” Wong said.
“From building out our highly engaged Australian communities to finding homes for local brands on the platform, this launch is just the beginning of our investment in the market and key to our wider international vision as we continue to scale Reddit at pace.”
According to insights and data collected by Reddit, globally, the platform brings together more than 52 million daily active users across 100,000+ communities.
In Australia, user activity mimics global trends with gaming, crypto and entertainment among the most popular interest groups, but there is a clear local twist. In Australia, r/australia with a 700,000 members where you can “chew the fat about Australia and Australians”, is the most popular subreddit among Australian users, with r/ausfinance and r/asx_bets following closely behind.
Unsurprisingly, r/afl and r/nrl also make the top ten Australian communities list, joining Reddit’s ever-popular sports interest group which attracted more than one billion screen views globally, for the month of April 2021 alone.
Reddit’s chief operating officer, Jen Wong spoke to Mumbrella on the expansion to Australia
“Now is the time where we want to plant-down dedicated resources in the market to really advance our mission, which is to bring community and belonging to the world. What that means we need to do is build local communities with local content. For example, things like footy, rugby, are things that Australians care about. With local content and what that allows to do is create business opportunities to connect local Australian brands and advertisers to those communities and users on our platform,” Wong said.
According to Reddit’s insights, at an average of 31 minutes per day, Australians spend more time on Reddit than they do Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter and Pinterest and they collectively contribute 158 million posts, comments and votes on the platform every month. 62% of Reddit’s Australian users sit in the 18 – 34 year-old segment, with 28% aged between 35 – 49.
“There’s just a lot of engagement and conversation today. Our Aussie-based Reddit users, they are contributing almost 160 million posts and comments every month. So there’s an incredible amount of activity. The engagement is really stand-out,” Wong said.
“That’s more than Instagram or Snapchat or Twitter. This is consistent with Reddit usage around the world. Reddit is very deep in engagement. So, for our advertising partners, I would say we have a duplicated reach. There are users on Reddit that are just not on other platforms and, in Australia alone, 40% of our Reddit users, they’re not on Twitter.
“20% aren’t on Facebook or Instagram, 50% aren’t on Snapchat. 70% aren’t on TikToK. So we do have substantial reach in Australia for advertisers. If I envisioned success in the first 12 months, it’s really one building those local communities with global context,” Wong concluded.
UM’s US chief digital officer, Joshua Lowcock said of the expansion: “Reddit is a cultural phenomenon and a great platform for brands wishing to connect with customers, fans, and advocates who influence brand loyalty and purchase decisions.
“As an Australian expat living in New York, I have seen first-hand the success clients have had working with Reddit. Investing in a dedicated Australian presence and local approach to community and moderation will reinforce Reddit’s market position for locally-based brands and advertisers seeking to navigate the depth and breadth of the platform and unlock its immense value.”
Reddit’s local sales team will assist Australian brands access with these highly engaged, unduplicated audiences through best-in-class creative campaigns, scalable solutions and industry-leading trends and insights. They will work closely with Reddit’s global team as it will continue to evolve the Reddit ads platform to meet the needs of all advertisers globally.
Reprise agency’s CEO Maria Grivas said: “With the rise and power of online communities, the launch of Reddit in Australia is exciting not only for us but for the industry at large. Reddit is the home of online community and I’m looking forward to seeing more Australian brands embrace these highly influential online spaces and the distinct marketing opportunities they bring, with Reddit’s official introduction to the market.”
Reddit’s expansion to Australia comes after its successful market entries in Canada in March 2021 and the United Kingdom in September 2020.
