I joined Slobodan on the No Hacks podcast recently to talk about Reddit, why it matters today, and why I believe it’s bringing us back to what marketing was really all about.

The Real World Online

The unfiltered, honest, and often chaotic conversations on Reddit, what I call “the real world online,” are the actual blueprint for the future of brand building.

Brands fail on Reddit because they treat it like a traditional advertising channel, only to get torn apart by a community that values authenticity above everything else. They walk in with their polished messaging and corporate speak, and the community sees right through it.

Community Is Not a Megaphone

Think about Reddit like a networking event. You wouldn’t walk into a conference, grab the mic on the main stage, and start pitching your product to a room full of strangers. You’d get escorted out by security. But that’s exactly what brands do on Reddit every day.

People on Reddit aren’t there to be marketed to. They’re there to solve actual problems. They’re having real conversations about what’s working, what’s not, and what they wish existed. And those conversations are now feeding into Google’s search results and ChatGPT’s responses.

When someone adds “reddit” to the end of their search query, they’re saying they don’t trust brand websites or sanitized reviews. They want to hear from real people who have nothing to gain from lying to them.

Two Stories That Show How This Works

I’ve worked with some examples over the years that really show this dynamic in action.

The REI AMA went from PR disaster to a masterclass in accountability. They came in to promote their Black Friday decision to stay closed, employees started sharing the real story about internal pressure and problems with their membership program, and instead of shutting it down, the CEO came back and took full ownership. They made actual changes based on what they heard. That’s rare.

Then there’s the beef jerky story. A guy asks why jerky is so expensive. Another user explains it’s basically six steaks shrunk down into one bag. First guy asks if he works for a jerky company. He says his family owns one. Someone jokes “discount code?” and the guy posts a code leading to an AMA and an estimated $30,000 worth of jerky sales in the next couple days from a single honest conversation.

No marketing budget. No campaign. Just being helpful and authentic.

The Shift We’re All Missing

I think people are missing that we’re at the end of a 20-year period and the start of something new. We’ve spent two decades learning how to game systems, how to manipulate algorithms, how to shortcut our way to visibility. And for a long time, that worked.

AI has changed the game. The systems are looking for the same thing users have always been looking for: real answers to real problems from people who actually understand what they’re talking about.

You can’t keyword-stuff your way into an LLM. You can’t buy backlinks to get into ChatGPT’s responses. The only way in is to be genuinely helpful in the places where people are actually having conversations about their problems.

A Few Key Takeaways

From the conversation, here’s what I think matters most right now:

• Community is a networking event, not a megaphone. You’re there to connect with people, not broadcast at them.

• Trust is the only metric that matters. Algorithms follow trust. If you lose community trust, you lose everything.

• Solve problems, don’t chase keywords. People don’t know what their real problem is when they start searching. They figure it out through conversation.

• Your new job is to train your AI assistant. Start gathering everything about yourself and how you think, because that virtual assistant is coming and it needs to understand you to be useful.

Why This Matters More Than You Think

One line from the conversation captures where we’re at: “As technology gets more complex, the path to success gets more simple. Be human.”

Everyone’s rushing to adopt AI, to figure out the next prompt engineering trick, to game the new systems. The brands that are going to win are the ones that figure out how to show up as real people, solve actual problems, and build genuine trust with their communities.

That’s what we got into on the podcast, along with a lot more about the psychology of decision-making, why Reddit’s anonymous structure creates better conversations than any other platform, and what the future of search and AI really looks like when you strip away all the hype.

Listen to the Full Conversation

If you want to hear the whole thing, including the stories I didn’t mention here and some thoughts on what’s coming next, check it out:

Audio: How AI is Forcing Brands to Be More Human with Brent Csutoras

Video: Watch on YouTube

Slobodan’s built something special with No Hacks, and I’m honored he had me on to talk about this stuff for an hour.