PRNEWS sat down with Adam Collins, the Chief Communications Officer (CCO) at Reddit, at the 2026 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Nevada. The discussion focuses on Collins's PR background, his experience and comms focus at Reddit, and how brands can effectively utilize the Reddit platform, especially when it comes to AI search and reputation.
Nicole Schuman is Managing Editor at PRNEWS.
Transcript:
00;00;05;29 - 00;00;10;09
PRNEWS here at CES with Adam Collins the CCO of Reddit. And as you probably know. it's a hot topic for a PR folks right now. So we're going to get into it with him. First off, though, Adam, I'd love to hear more about your background and how you ended up at Reddit.
00;00;24;20 - 00;00;40;21
Speaker 1
Yeah, I, I've had a I've been lucky to have a number of wonderful experiences over the course of my career. I worked in politics for almost 20 years and sort of moved around the country as, as one does. And I worked at Molson Coors, that was the CEO at Molson Coors for about six and a half years.
00;00;40;24 - 00;01;03;26
Speaker 1
Wonderful company, incredible people, great industry. But I made the move to Reddit about 6 or 7 months ago. It's been incredibly rewarding, very exciting. It's fast paced. Fun. Right in the middle of everything is, as you're saying. And so it's it's you know what? I've what I've told my friends, is there is no place I'd rather be right now in this moment than here at Reddit.
00;01;03;29 - 00;01;10;11
Speaker 1
So it's it's been a, it's been a lot of, a lot of fun so far. It's my first CTS, having been in here before,
00;01;10;14 - 00;01;11;20
Speaker 2
Very overwhelming.
00;01;11;22 - 00;01;29;01
Speaker 1
Yeah. You know, it's fun. Beer has big events. This is, different scale. I would say, but it's a lot of fun, and we've we're we're we're really lucky. We've got a great team, great comms professionals here at Reddit and a really good, a really good group of people across the business. So it's been a lot of fun so far.
00;01;29;03 - 00;01;30;22
Speaker 2
Are you a brother now yourself?
00;01;30;23 - 00;01;50;16
Speaker 1
Oh, yeah. For sure, for sure. And I have, like, my, my, you know, my admin account. And I have another one as well that I've used for, for quite some time. And I think I use Reddit the way that a lot of people do, I would assume. You know, I'm a dad. I've got two, two young boys that are super into hockey.
00;01;50;19 - 00;01;54;16
Speaker 1
I'm a big Cubs fan. So, you know, it's it's a.
00;01;54;18 - 00;01;55;02
Speaker 2
It is.
00;01;55;04 - 00;02;15;28
Speaker 1
Sports. What? It is amazing. Right. And no matter what your passion is or what your interest is or what your hobby is, there's a there is a group of people and there's a community for you. For having real conversations with other human beings about the same interests that you have. So it's been really fun to be here and I just I haven't looked at it.
00;02;15;28 - 00;02;23;22
Speaker 1
I'm gonna check it out. Well, to get out of there at all. Right. So you learn. All right. I did learn something today. Let's get into it.
00;02;23;22 - 00;02;37;03
Speaker 2
Reddit is a really hot topic in the PR industry right now. Particularly because a lot of people have been naming it as a strategy for showing up. And I am just curious to your staff or brands or.
00;02;37;03 - 00;03;08;28
Speaker 1
Organizations that want to utilize it. Yeah, it's we are the number one source across all of these, for human generated, content. There's a study from profound, but 3 or 4 weeks ago, just for the holidays, that went out, and really said. So you know, I think when you, when you think about what, what alums look for and what they like and what they source from, it's really what Reddit is authentic, real conversations between human beings that are current and continually up to date.
00;03;08;28 - 00;03;34;17
Speaker 1
And there's really no other space, like that other than Reddit. You know, we've we've been continue to grow both users and, and advertisers. And it's ultimately because I think in, in a world that's increasingly dominated by algorithms, the desire to have a real engagement that we're talking about, the communities that I'm in and, the desire to have real engagement is, I think, never been more valuable.
00;03;34;20 - 00;04;03;12
Speaker 2
Yeah. It's interesting that the social part of social media has kind of been taken away. But it's you guys really just kind of stood the test of time and stayed true to your values and, and just the mission of what you guys are as a platform. So that's, that's really interesting. You know, and as many of you may or may not know, Reddit communities are extremely loyal and not always so brand friendly.
00;04;03;14 - 00;04;11;06
Speaker 2
So if someone in the PR comms is looking to build an authentic Reddit strategy, how should they say it?
00;04;11;09 - 00;04;18;20
Speaker 1
I think I think there's a key word that you use in that question that's authentic. You know.
00;04;18;23 - 00;04;38;11
Speaker 1
I understand the perception about about Reddit, and you mentioned this about how brands show up. The reality is, every social platform is different. And so, you know, you wouldn't use the same strategy on, you know, Facebook that used on tick, tick, tick tock that you'd use on LinkedIn and well, it's no different. Right. So yes it's different.
00;04;38;11 - 00;04;58;21
Speaker 1
No, it doesn't need to be hard. I think we have tools, free tools for companies to use. Reddit Pro is a great one to, to learn, to learn how to how to start engaging, on the platform. But the biggest thing to me is understand the audience, add value, and be authentic to who you are as a brand or as a business.
00;04;58;21 - 00;05;17;13
Speaker 1
Right. And I think those are the spaces. It's not just one Reddit, but those are the spaces where where people go astray. Are you are you bringing value to the conversation? You're bringing value to the user, and are you showing up in a way that's authentic to who you are? If you're trying to pretend you're someone that you're not, it's not going to work out.
00;05;17;13 - 00;05;24;02
Speaker 1
And that's where you see the community is, it's me. Just react negatively. There isn't tons of companies who do this very, very, very effectively though.
00;05;24;07 - 00;05;26;10
Speaker 2
Yeah. I'm curious, do you have any examples?
00;05;26;16 - 00;05;43;21
Speaker 1
Yeah, I have works there are some of my favorites. Right. So I'll give you a few if you'll indulge me here. I think Sonos is a is maybe one of the best examples. So they went through the update a few years ago and had some, consumer challenges that they were at that they were dealing with.
00;05;43;21 - 00;06;09;12
Speaker 1
And our Sonos was not the happiest place. There's a guy, Keith. His username is Keith from Sonos. So real person from Sonos. It's a it's it's a it's a great it's great. And he was active in the community. They wasn't telling people that they were wrong or admonishing them for their opinions or the frustrations. He showed up in a way that was trying to provide value to them as they were.
00;06;09;15 - 00;06;37;23
Speaker 1
It was they were navigating, this this, update on the on the system, right, helping them with tricks and tips and helping them understand what was going on. And not very much changed the perception of the company within the Sonos subreddit. So much so they had a new CEO, this summer. In the last few months, and on his first day he posted in the subreddit and it's on a subreddit, he said, as I've been going through the process here, I've been lurking.
00;06;37;26 - 00;07;01;05
Speaker 1
But listening and learning from the users in the Sonos subreddit really appreciate your continued, your voice and your ideas and whatnot. And I'll continue to, continue being here. And so I think when you think about where they were a couple of years ago to, to where they are now, you know, the work that he's done, the work that Sonos has done is, I think, a maybe a gold standard type examples.
00;07;01;07 - 00;07;20;28
Speaker 1
There are tons of other other fun ones. Just go to the car company and, and in Europe there's a very dedicated, very loyal, very active fan base of their vehicles. So they give they give, folks in that subreddit the chance to, to try out some of the new cars and those new designs. Tons of fun, craft tines.
00;07;21;01 - 00;07;47;06
Speaker 1
So there's, I love I love Reddit so much. There's, there's, in the Kitchen Confidential subreddit. There's a guy chive lord chive guy who is chopping chives every day and tolerates as a perfect. It's been going on for quite some time. It's been fun and it's cute and, people are enjoying it. Kraft Heinz came in and saw this as a moment, and advertised.
00;07;47;06 - 00;08;12;20
Speaker 1
So it was organic. It was paid in a way that was cute and fun, was authentic to craft as a business, but works was like they were in on the joke at work within the context of that. For Philadelphia cream cheese with chives. Super fun. It worked really well for them. Good engagement. And then on the other side of like, size of business, this is the last one, I promise.
00;08;12;23 - 00;08;38;25
Speaker 1
There's a there's a, tree service company in Austin, Texas called Tres Amigos, which is tres an amazing. I love it so much. Right. But he's been active on Reddit for a long time in the Austin subreddits. And what he does is when there's a storm coming was an issue, he'll go in and he's providing, you know, ideas and tips for people as they're navigating issues with their with their trees in their yard.
00;08;38;28 - 00;08;59;04
Speaker 1
He's not saying, go, you know, hire me, you must hire me or anything. It's just providing some some value in there. He's gotten business from that. Obviously it's helped grow his profile. And right now he's showing up in the Los Tres Amigos and what he's told us is he's only active on Reddit. He's not use other platforms.
00;08;59;06 - 00;09;18;01
Speaker 1
And so it tells him that the reason that that the leaves are pulling from, that he's showing up there is because they're pulling from his comments on Reddit. And what we've seen is that they really value the engagement, the back and forth engagement in a real conversation. So it could be positive. It could be negative.
00;09;18;03 - 00;09;36;07
Speaker 1
But real active conversations. So those are some examples. But there's a ton of companies out there who are doing this really effectively. Engaging. They're, engaging their fans or engaging communities, and in ways that's, that's good for the community and good for the brands to have one tip on what not to do for that. Yeah.
00;09;36;07 - 00;09;54;22
Speaker 1
I mean, it's sort of the inverse, right? I mean, if you show up and just start, you know, it's like a Dilbert comic strip, like nobody wants that, you know? And it's worth you're trying to represent yourself in a way that's not true to who you are. Now, that's again, it's not just a Reddit thing. It's it's a reality thing.
00;09;54;24 - 00;10;13;25
Speaker 1
It's not going to work out for you. And I think the biggest thing is show up, be on Reddit. You can do that paid. You can do that organically. You can do that in both. But show up and be here. We've got great, great tools to help make it easier for companies to figure out how do they get started or if they're already started, how do they take it to the next, the next space?
00;10;13;27 - 00;10;46;19
Speaker 1
But the reality is we have 100,000, thriving community on Reddit, well over 100 million, daily users. Significantly more from a weekly standpoint, I can promise you that. As you said, like every industry, every company, every interest, every hobby, there are conversations happening about brands and about the spaces right now that are driving for decisions. And so you can choose to put your head in the sand and ignore that, or you can choose to be an active, part of that conversation in a way that brings value to the users and value to the community.
00;10;46;19 - 00;10;49;15
Speaker 1
So when you do that effectively, it works really well.
00;10;49;18 - 00;10;50;18
Speaker 2
I think it's going to be one of my other.
00;10;50;18 - 00;10;57;13
Unknown
Questions in terms of pairing comms teams. Monitoring your reputation.
00;10;57;20 - 00;10;58;08
Speaker 1
Yeah.
00;10;58;10 - 00;11;07;25
Speaker 2
And there's so many places to do that right now. But I think a good place to include is Reddit. Yeah. You know, what do you suggest for, you know, companies. And I'm just looking.
00;11;07;25 - 00;11;32;01
Speaker 1
To do that. Yeah. So come check out our tools. So there's there's a couple here Reddit Pro is, is I think the most all encompassing from a their free. It's a great I love it. You brought that up. They are free. But at the end of the day if a company is showing up or a brand is showing up on Reddit in a way that is advantageous to the brand and advantageous to the community and the user, that's a win for everybody, right?
00;11;32;04 - 00;11;59;02
Speaker 1
So Reddit pro free tool, will help sort of get you started. There we have some other ones that are more geared towards advertisers. We just launched a new one. Reddit Max campaigns just two days ago, forgetting what day it is that happens in Vegas. Right. But, so we just launched our Reddit Max campaigns, which which brings AI powered insights to help people understand, personas and, and understand the conversations and where they can show up.
00;11;59;05 - 00;12;27;20
Speaker 1
AI powered, platform, ad platforms, as well. So there's a number of tools that companies can use that are all free, to really help, to really help them be on here and be effective. There's a there's a great stat. I was just thinking about this as we were talking. It's IPG media, I think it was the did a report recently, 81% of people who are in the active and Reddit sports a ton of fun.
00;12;27;27 - 00;12;49;00
Speaker 1
Whatever your sport is, what your team is. It's a great place to be. 81% of people find value and brands being active in their conversations. And so I think it's that data point is so interesting because it breaks this notion that, like, people don't want to see brands showing up there. They do. It's about how you show up and how you show up in a way that's beneficial to them.
00;12;49;02 - 00;12;57;03
Speaker 2
Last question. Yeah, is super fast. What is one thing that your comms team is focusing on for 2026?
00;12;57;06 - 00;13;15;16
Speaker 1
Yeah, I think, you know, the world around us changes and evolves so quickly every day. And so we're focusing on continuing to evolve our story and evolve the ways that we tell our story and helping companies, understand, how they can be effective here on Reddit as well. Awesome. Yeah.
00;13;15;21 - 00;13;16;25
Speaker 2
Thank you so much, Adam.
00;13;17;00 - 00;13;22;12
Unknown
Thank you all for joining us. Thank you.