Reddit Is Changing How People Consume Content. Pay Attention.
You probably didn’t wake up this morning thinking about Reddit. You woke up thinking about your inventory, your staff schedule, or that customer who still hasn’t paid you. But here’s the thing: some of your customers are spending hours on Reddit right now — and the way they consume content there is about to shift in a big way.
Reddit just announced it’s testing a “video Reddit” experience: TikTok-style feeds inside the world’s largest forum, plus the ability to listen to posts like a podcast. CEO Steve Huffman told investors on the company’s second-quarter earnings call that people are already consuming Reddit content everywhere else. On TikTok alone, there are 19.6 million posts tagged #reddit and another 9.9 million tagged #redditstories, according to TechCrunch. Many feature a robotic voice narrating a viral thread over unrelated gameplay footage. And people love it.
That’s not a niche hobby. That’s a content consumption pattern. For Malaysian SMEs, it’s a signal worth acting on.
TL;DR: Reddit is adding video feeds and audio narration to its platform. This validates what’s already happening — people prefer consuming stories as video or audio, not just text. For Malaysian business owners, the takeaway is clear: your content strategy needs to be multi-format, and Reddit is becoming an even richer source of customer insight.
What This Means (In Plain Language)
Reddit is essentially a massive collection of discussion forums. For years, it’s been text-first — you read posts, you read comments, you scroll. Now, Reddit wants to let you watch its content and listen to it, the same way you’d watch a TikTok or listen to a podcast.
Huffman put it plainly: “There is an emerging content type elsewhere on the internet of, basically, podcasts where people read Reddit content. I think this version of, like, listened-to or spoken Reddit can be really engaging.” He confirmed Reddit will have something available for testing later this year.
Reddit also revealed its video-in-comments feature — launched in June — already accounts for more than 10% of all video posts on the platform. That’s lightning-fast adoption by Reddit’s notoriously picky user base.
“There is an emerging content type elsewhere on the internet of, basically, podcasts where people read Reddit content.” — Steve Huffman, Reddit CEO
Why This Matters for Malaysian SMEs
Let’s bring this home. Malaysia has a healthy Reddit presence — r/malaysia has hundreds of thousands of members, and subreddits like r/Bolehland and r/MalaysianFood are active communities where people discuss everything from policy to where to find the best nasi lemak in KL. Your customers are there, being brutally honest about their experiences with local brands.
First, the way people consume content is shifting toward passive formats. Your customers are tired of reading long product descriptions or blog posts. They’d rather watch a 30-second video or listen to a five-minute narration while they drive to work. When Reddit — the internet’s most text-heavy platform — starts prioritizing video and audio, it’s a clear signal that text-only content is losing attention everywhere. If your business communicates mainly through written posts on Facebook or your website, you’re leaving engagement on the table.
Second, Reddit is becoming a goldmine of unfiltered customer feedback. Malaysians on Reddit talk about brands, services, and products without the filter you’d see on Instagram or Facebook. They’ll tell you exactly which F&B chain has gone downhill, which e-commerce platform is a headache, and which local brand they’d recommend to a friend. With Reddit pushing more video and audio content, these conversations will only grow — and searchable, quotable clips from Reddit will start showing up on your customers’ TikTok feeds.
Third, this is a content repurposing opportunity. You don’t need to be on Reddit to benefit. But you should absolutely be thinking about how to turn your existing knowledge — your FAQs, your customer service responses, your product explanations — into video and audio formats. The viral Reddit-story format is essentially repackaged user-generated content with a voiceover. The same logic applies to your business: if you already write posts or answer the same questions repeatedly, those can become short videos or audio snippets that reach a much wider audience.
When the internet’s biggest text-based platform starts investing in video and audio, that’s not a fad — that’s the direction attention is heading.
What You Should Actually Do
- Set up a Reddit search alert for your brand name, your industry, and common product terms. Treat Reddit as an unfiltered focus group. Search “site:reddit.com [your industry] Malaysia” to see what people are saying.
- Repurpose your top five written FAQs into short video scripts. You don’t need fancy equipment — a phone, good lighting, and a conversational tone work fine. Post them on TikTok or YouTube Shorts.
- Create an audio version of your content. If you write a monthly newsletter or a blog post, record a five-to-ten-minute audio version. A podcast doesn’t need to be elaborate — it just needs to be listenable.
- Pay attention to video in comments. When Reddit says video comments already make up over 10% of its video posts, that tells you people respond strongly when video is easy. Consider adding video responses to your customers’ comments or messages.
- Monitor platforms that repost Reddit content. If someone turns a Reddit thread about your industry into a viral TikTok, that’s a signal about what your audience cares about. Use it to shape your own content.
The Numbers Behind the Shift
| Signal | What We Know |
|---|---|
| TikTok posts tagged #reddit | 19.6 million, per TechCrunch’s report on Reddit’s earnings call |
| TikTok posts tagged #redditstories | 9.9 million — voiceover narrations of Reddit threads |
| Video in comments adoption | Over 10% of Reddit’s video posts since launching in June |
| Platforms adding short-video feeds | Facebook, Netflix, Disney+, Peacock, HBO Max, Amazon, and LinkedIn, per the same report |
The Bigger Picture
This isn’t just about Reddit. Every major platform — Facebook, Netflix, Amazon, even LinkedIn — is adding short-form video. When a platform as text-first as Reddit joins the trend, it confirms something: attention is moving toward formats you can consume passively. People are busy. They don’t want to read; they want to watch and listen while doing something else.
For Malaysian SMEs, the long-term implications are practical. The content you create — whether it’s a product description, a customer guide, or a response to a common question — should be designed once and deployed in multiple formats. A blog post becomes a video script. A video becomes an audio narration. An audio clip becomes a snippet on Instagram.
Reddit’s move also means the boundary between “social media” and “all media” is dissolving. Your competitors aren’t just the businesses selling the same product; they’re every piece of content fighting for your customer’s thumb. If you’re not creating content that people can consume while commuting, cooking, or scrolling, you’re invisible.
The good news? You don’t need to be an early adopter. You just need to notice the direction things are heading — and start making small moves in that direction today.
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