How to do customer research on Reddit

(You’ve downloaded and read my free PDF, Ban Writer’s Block Forever, right? If not, download it HERE, and read it. It only takes 8 minutes, 37 seconds. Then read the emails I send to everyone who downloads the PDF. The book and the emails will put this exercise in context for you.)

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For purposes of this demo, I’m gonna assume you sell spray tan products (not because I think this is what you sell, but because it’s a small niche and it’s a chance to demonstrate Reddit’s power as a customer research tool).

Incredibly, this three-word phrase, “spray tan products,” gives me a list of subreddits that sprawls on for pages (rough count, about 225). Too damn many to open and read, for sure. 

But not too many to scan. I start eyeballing the list, and I see some likely prospects:

  1. Can you recommend a subtle face tanning product that won’t cause breakouts?

  2. Stressing over Sunless Tanner / Spray Tans

  3. Spray tan stained my mattress, any ideas to help get it out or lifted?

  4. Spray tan formula question

  5. Using lotion the night before a tan

  6. Does anyone have the best shower routine when trying to make your spray tan last?

  7. What products do you use to enhance and/or prolong your spray tan?

  8. Can spray tan give me cancer?

  9. Advice for first-time spray tan?

  10. Can I (spray tan) in my first trimester?

These promising titles have an average of 20-25 comments–-more than enough to put some meat on your bones (meat being detailed answers, bones being your questions).

We can’t do them all 10 here in this exercise, so we’ll do the first two. That’ll be enough to show you what an awesome resource Reddit can be. (Now’s a good time to get out a fresh google doc so you can keep track of your nuggets. Remember that from the Amazon exercise?)

I click on subreddit #1:

Can you recommend a subtle face

tanning product that won’t cause breakouts?

And what do I learn? A lot. 

  • All the commenters use a different face tinting/tanning product on their face than the one they use everywhere else.  

  • The reasons for using a dedicated face product differ. A couple of people are dealing with menopause; some just find that regular tanning spray looks “translucent” or “white” on the face.

  • Some people tan naturally everywhere but the face. There, they use sunscreen and need a product to help the face match the rest of the body.

  • One person was looking for a way to “swap that corpse/blue cheese skin for a warm natural glow.” (News to me, but apparently, spray tan going blue or green is a known issue).

  • The general consensus is that products that work great for the rest of the body aren’t satisfactory for the face. Most of these folks prefer to tint a facial moisturizer or oil/lotion rather than use a spray tan product.

This is all gold. These people are on Reddit talking about their own personal experiences, sharing their innermost concerns and opinions about what works for them and the problems they’ve encountered. 

They’re providing rich details about how they see their problem, and they’re reporting on their own success or failure solving it.

Some of this stuff is beautifully quotable. You’d have to be crazy not to talk about “corpse/blue cheese skin” in your emails if you sell tanning products. 

Now, on to subreddit #2. This is the person who is

Stressing over Sunless Tanner / Spray Tans

OMG, this could not be better. The original poster goes into detail about how she feels about her problem. Here are some quotes:

“I feel so stupid because the instructions seem clear but I don’t know how to blend it or avoid lines around my hands, feet, and hairline.”

“I have the fear that whatever I wear will stick to my skin after and cause lines.”

“Is it bad to sit for a 30-minute drive immediately after?”

“I have so much anxiety about using sunless tanner products wrong.”

And the comments? Ohhh, the comments. They’re awesome.

“I’m so glad I’m not the only one!”

“Use a tanning mitt to avoid orange palms.”

“Shave and exfoliate the day before you apply any self-tanner.”

“I finally just now discovered sunless tanners that you use on wet skin and the difference is immeasurable. . . . no streaks . . . . looks even and natural.”

“Use a gradual tan moisturizer.”

One message comes blaring through here: A huge obstacle to using spray tan products is the fear of screwing up the application and ending up looking terrible. 

That’s it. People considering using spray tanning products hesitate because they fear they’ll make themselves look worse instead of better.

This appears to be a fundamental stumbling block to giving spray tan products a try. 

You could write a dozen emails focused on this single issue.

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OK, you get the idea. Reddit can help you with your customer research for free, no matter what you sell.

Now that you have the Reddit research process down, you can apply it to other social media sites. 

Word of warning here, though. Reddit and Amazon are anonymous. This means that most of the time, reviewers and commenters say what they really think and feel. 

And this anonymity makes Reddit and Amazon better for customer research than Facebook, TikTok, or LinkedIn. On those platforms, people say what they think others want to hear — worth a look in some cases, but waaay less enlightening.