The next attention-grabbing post you see in your Reddit feed might just be a paid 'free-form ad'.

Calling them “free-form ads,” Reddit said the new advertisements are its most native format ever, designed to look and feel like community content shared by real people.

The ads, meant to mimic the site’s megathreads, will enable advertisers to utilize a variety of formats in one post, including images, videos, and text.

According to numbers from Reddit, free-form ads got 28% more clicks than all other types of ads on the site and saw a jump in community engagement.

The next time you see an interesting post in your Reddit feed, take a closer look - because it might just be a paid advertisement.

  • LiveLM@lemmy.zipEnglish
    17·
    9 months ago

    Man, reading this post nearly gave me a headache. I hate it when brands try to act all ‘hip and cool’.

    Help us fill this thread with ways you use PHILLY Cream Cheese that shouldn’t be delicious✨ but are ✨

    Yes, something about cream cheese freshly squeezed straight from the brick really does hit different. Why let a little packaging get between you and your PHILLY, am I right?

    Shut up brand. Shut the fuck up brand. Jesus Christ

    • ilinamorato@lemmy.worldEnglish
      11·
      9 months ago

      When it’s a social media manager acting like an actual human, it’s one thing (like when the person running the Moon Pie account roasted the guy for telling them they were wasting their life), and the non-profits are almost always awesome at this (follow libraries, seriously). But if you’re trying to write something relatable and your brand guidelines won’t let you write about it in the way a normal human would (all-caps “PHILLY,” writing “searching with Google” instead of “googling,” ©®™ spam, etc) you’ve already lost.