Right now, somewhere, a marketer is being told two things at once. Build authentic community. And have the ROI ready by Friday.
Those two instructions don’t actually fit in the same sentence. Authenticity takes months.
ROI wants an answer this quarter.
And that mismatch is exactly how a lot of businesses end up spending real time and money in the wrong room — chasing a platform their customers were never on in the first place.
Hi, I’m Jeff Payne. You’re listening to The Jeff Payne Show, Episode 73: Wrong Room, Right Advice.
Here’s the trend. Over the past year, many marketing teams have suddenly become interested in Reddit. Not because their customers moved there. Because AI search engines started citing it constantly, and somebody decided that meant Reddit was now a growth channel you could switch on.
A well-respected voice in the search marketing world put it plainly this week: the AI obsession is getting people to do the right things — show up, be helpful, build real presence — for a reason that guarantees they’ll do them badly. When the goal is “get the AI to notice me,” you end up optimizing for the appearance of trust rather than actually earning it. Keyword-seeded threads. Manufactured mentions. Comments that read like ads wearing a disguise.
And here’s the part that should really change how you think about this: it doesn’t even work on its own terms.
People who’ve actually sat down and read what AI engines pull from Reddit have noticed something consistent — the threads that get cited are the ones where real people are genuinely comparing options they actually use. The keyword-stuffed, promotional posts don’t show up as sources. They get filtered out, just as they’d get called out by the subreddit itself if a human caught them first.
So the tactical version of “do Reddit for AI visibility” fails twice. It wastes your time, and it doesn’t even get you what you were chasing.
Which means the real question was never, “Should I be on Reddit?” It’s the same question for any platform, any channel, any tactic somebody’s telling you is suddenly urgent: is my actual customer already having this conversation here — or am I about to manufacture a presence in a room where nobody I care about is standing?
We’ve actually already shown you the data on why this matters. Community content — Reddit, Wikipedia, LinkedIn, the places real people talk without a brand’s fingerprints on it — is the single largest source shaping what AI tells your customers about your industry. Bigger than review sites. Bigger than press. And unlike a press push or a review campaign, you can’t buy your way into it. It’s a floor, not a lever.
But we also showed you what happens when a business tries to force that floor to move faster than it wants to. Weeks ago, one of AI search’s most trusted sources lost the vast majority of its citation share in less than a week — a reminder that platform-specific tactics are built on ground that can shift beneath you without warning. Community trust is real, and it’s valuable. It is also not a dashboard you can optimize on a sprint cycle.
So here’s the test, and it costs you nothing but time to run it.
Pick the platform everyone’s telling you to be on. Find where your actual customers would be discussing your category — not your brand, your category. Read it, don’t post, for a few weeks.
Then ask yourself three things:
If the answer to those is no, you have your answer. That platform wasn’t your room. Move on, no guilt, no sunk cost. If the answer is yes, you’ve earned the right to show up. Not to post. To help. The selling, if it ever happens, comes so far down the road it barely looks like selling anymore.
So ask yourself this week: am I investing in the channel because my customer is actually there — or because someone told me an algorithm is watching it?
If you found this useful, subscribe to The Jeff Payne Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or TrueFans. If you’ve got 60 seconds, a 5-star rating and a quick review help more business owners find this show. Thanks for listening — I’ll see you next time.
A lot of marketing teams got suddenly interested in Reddit this year. Not because their customers moved there — because AI search engines started citing it constantly, and somebody decided that meant Reddit was now a growth channel you could switch on. Here’s why that logic falls apart, and the actual test worth running before you invest in any platform.
THE AI Obsession Is a Bad Reason to Do a Good Thing
Rand Fishkin, a well-respected voice in the search marketing world, put it plainly this week, in response to a round of media interview questions: the AI obsession is getting marketers to do genuinely good things — show up in communities, be helpful, build real presence — for a reason that guarantees they’ll do them badly. When the actual goal is “get the AI to notice me,” you end up optimizing the appearance of trust instead of the substance behind it.
The result is predictable: keyword-seeded threads, manufactured mentions, comments that read like ads in a thin disguise. It looks like community participation. It isn’t.
The AI obsession is getting people to do the right things for a reason that guarantees they’ll do them badly
The Tactic Doesn’t Even Work on Its Own Terms
Here’s the part that should really change how a business thinks about this. People who’ve actually sat down and read what AI engines pull from Reddit as sources notice something consistent: the threads that get cited are the ones where real people are genuinely comparing options they actually use. Keyword-stuffed, promotional posts don’t show up as sources — they get filtered out, much like a subreddit’s own members would call them out if they spotted them first.
So the tactical version of “do Reddit for AI visibility” fails twice over. It costs real time and effort, and it doesn’t even deliver the citation it was chasing.
The tactical version of “do Reddit for AI visibility” fails twice. It wastes your time, and it doesn’t even get you what you were chasing.
This Isn’t Really About Reddit
The specific platform is almost beside the point. The real question underneath all of this is the same one for any channel somebody tells a business is suddenly urgent: is the actual customer already having this conversation here, or is the business about to manufacture a presence in a room where nobody who matters is standing?
Community content — Reddit, Wikipedia, LinkedIn, and the places people talk without a brand’s fingerprints on the conversation — is already the single largest source shaping what AI tells customers about an industry, ahead of review sites and press. It also can’t be bought. That makes it a floor, not a lever you can pull on a campaign timeline.
This is one of the best written, most informative email newsletters I’ve ever read!
Thank you for sharing your expertise, and hope you’re doing well.
Beth Zimmerman
Founder, Executive Director
The Test That Costs Nothing But Time
Here’s the practical version. Pick the platform everyone says to be on. Find where the actual audience would be discussing the category — not the brand, the category. Read it, without posting, for a few weeks. Then ask three questions:
1. Are the people who matter actually here,
2. Does this conversation ever surface in what AI engines cite for the industry,
3. And does anything here ever come up in a real sales conversation?
If the answer is no across the board, that’s the answer — that platform wasn’t the room, and there’s no reason to feel behind for skipping it.
If the answer is yes, the presence has been earned, and it starts with helping, not posting. Any selling that eventually happens is so far downstream it barely looks like selling.
Episode framing inspired by Rand Fishkin’s commentary, “Reddit, B2B Mistakes, and the AI SEO Obsession,” shared on LinkedIn.
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