If you’re a marketer of any kind, Liam Fallen’s name likely precedes him. You’ve probably clocked one of his viral Borat-themed posts about marketing in your LinkedIn feed, chortled to yourself, and instantly hit “follow.” (If you’re not following him there, you definitely should be — you won’t regret it.) But, and this is a bold statement, his breadth of experience and expertise in our industry surpasses his hilarity.
Aside from amassing 70,000+ followers on LinkedIn, in large part by making them laugh their heads off, Liam has also reached one million people on Reddit — all of whom were in his target audience — using an organic strategy. Interest piqued? Cool. If it isn’t, by the end of this Q&A, you’ll understand why it should be — especially if you’re a small or local business owner like the ones we work with every day at our New Orleans agency.
LinkedIn followers
Reddit reach, organic
Spent on paid ads
And on a more personal note — if you’re like Steven and me, you’re lucky enough to call Liam a friend. Thank you so much for trusting us with this interview, Liam. We hope we’ve done you proud.
Let’s get into it.
Questions About Reddit
Liam has had some incredible results from Reddit. And we feel like he’s waaay ahead of the curve with that channel compared to many marketers. We were itching to pick his brain about Reddit marketing and dig in deeper?
Starting off more bluntly, would you say that Reddit, as a channel, is even “worth it” for local and small businesses?
Yes, but approaching Reddit as a local business will not work. I’ve spent many years on Reddit and through extensive testing I can say for sure showing up as a business works against you short term and long term unless you’re using it solely for customer service or running your own official subreddit. Even then I would recommend not showing up as the business, instead, use accounts with real names like John[businessname].
I get you! I see that same occurrence a lot in other areas of marketing — an individual having more impact than a company. It’s interesting that it also applies to Reddit.
Anyway, so we know it’s “worth it.” What does a Reddit strategy look like for a local contractor vs a B2B SaaS company? Is it a different tone, subreddits, or goals? Or are there overall similar strategies for each company?
Every strategy should be unique to the person/business but ultimately the core approach should always be the same. Before you start with anything you need to create a list of target subreddits and spend a lot of time there as an observer, look at what posts work, why, read through the comments and understand the culture of the subreddit. You have to think long term and be patient, don’t jump in trying to be everywhere, let things happen organically and jump in when you can add real value to the conversation.
I love that! There’s often such a race-to-the-finish mentality in marketing, in general. Everyone wants to get there NOW, even if the actual strategy is compromised by rushing the implementation. That’s all from me on Reddit. Short ‘n sweet. I’m going to hand the floor over to WTF SEO’s Founder, Steven, who has some more detailed (and, honestly, superior) questions. Can’t wait to hear your answers.
Questions From the Founder
From an agency’s perspective, going down another marketing rabbit hole seems stressful. Now needing to account for Reddit strategy takes more marketing dollars, manpower, time, and strategy… That said, Reddit shows up in almost every search that I do, and it seems to be a large ranking source for long-tail question keywords, specifically. It’s all wildly overwhelming. But it’s obviously becoming more important for organic search. We are a smaller agency with a smaller team, where some months we feel completely maxed out. From your perspective, what do you feel like is worth doing first, and what can wait for a few months before implementing?
You should be warming up Reddit accounts regardless of whether you’re running a strategy now or not. The easiest way to fail is to post from a cold account when you decide it’s time to start marketing on Reddit. I suggest creating multiple accounts that your agency owns from clean residential IPs and a clean email address.
What I always have is Reddit accounts in all the niches I am working in and for all clients I am working with and spend some time during the week rotating through the accounts commenting in subreddits related to the focus of the account. For example… I have a Reddit marketing account that is active and involved in most marketing, business and startup subreddits. I have an Ecommerce account that has the respect and trust of most ecommerce focussed subreddits. I have a solutions account where I solve problems in Subreddits that ask questions and need solutions that also pulls in leads through DMs.
I have around 50 accounts at all times and if I face any issues with one I immediately replace it and start warming up a similar account so when the time comes I am in a good position to hit the ground running.
💡 One thing I’ve been doing well (mentioned in the answer below) is farming subreddits for issues, then using AI to vibe code a mini app that’s free for the community to use and host it on a website I own. I post something like “I created [this] to solve [this problem] we were all having and it’s free and open source for members of this community” then link to a dedicated page with the most subtle CTAs to give people a nudge but don’t make it look like a landing page. The goal is to get the post upvoted, build goodwill with the community and have a URL from your website in there.
We get a lot of requests to write content for our local NOLA SEO clients. Some of them, though, write their content in-house and have limited time to write each week (about 5–6 hours). For these businesses, how would you split hours, or where would you recommend they concentrate their time — content for their own site or on Reddit?
60/40 split to start with and I wouldn’t be posting blog content to Reddit, I would be posting comments/helpful posts to position them as a trusted source and I’d have links all over the Reddit profile for people who want to read more. The saying “be where your customers are” is what I think about in this situation and content on a website is great if you already have a lot of traffic coming in.
Getting people from Reddit to a website is difficult because the fastest way to get downvoted on Reddit is to jump into comment sections and post a link to your website (redditors don’t like this). What I tend to do is I’ll farm a subreddit for common issues people are facing then I’ll solve those issues through content on the website, and find a way to work that angle into a comment or post without explicitly saying here’s the link (unless it’s the strategy I mentioned in my previous answer).
💡 You can also use ALT accounts to comment under posts with something like “I was having this exact problem and [this article] solved it for me” — this works great for old Reddit posts that show up in AI and search because people still hit those threads.
What does a Reddit “win” look like? Is it a question or answer getting found on Google or AI, larger brand awareness, something else?
I know I’m winning when I am embedded in the community as a trusted, respected and credible member. I believe everything else comes from that and long term you’ll naturally show up in places like search, AI etc as everything compounds and creates a sort of snowball effect.
Long term it all adds up, like when I reached over 1 million people all in my target audience in a very specific subreddit I’d been establishing a presence in. I warmed the account up, spent time observing the culture and providing loads of value to the community which gave me a platform to reach over 1 million people that would’ve cost a lot of money using paid ads.
What are the types of answers that won’t get you banned from the platform? Is there a way to strike a balance between being authentic without promoting yourself too heavily?
The best way to promote yourself on Reddit is not to promote yourself on Reddit. If you must, you can use what I call “The compare and contrast” strategy where you play your strengths against your competitors’ weaknesses. This works great for startups with big competitors and small budgets. I’ve used it for years to grow scrappy startups entering competitive markets.
Can you tell us more about “The compare and contrast” strategy?
You write a post on Reddit where potential customers ask a question you already know the answer to. For example, I work for Microsoft and I want people to know that Windows is better for gaming. I post on Reddit: “I’m looking to buy my first computer for gaming. I’m torn between a MacBook Pro and a Windows PC with an RTX 5090. Which one is better for gaming?” We already know it’s Microsoft with the RTX 5090, right?
You can apply this to almost every industry where you have a competitor: What do you do better than your competitors? Maybe slow deliveries and you need it fast? They got too big and stopped caring? Is your warranty better than theirs? Maybe they use cheap materials? Let people come to their own conclusions as if the idea was their own and next time they have to renew/replace/purchase you’re going to be top of mind.
These things also spread really well across Reddit and you’ll notice when other people ask a similar question people will repeat the same answers and if you’re lucky you might even end up in the subreddit’s FAQ section (this happens a lot more than you think — when people ask the same questions over and over the mods see it as part of improving the community).
Does Reddit work for all types of businesses? When should I not use it?
Of course, there’s a subreddit for every business. If you just want to reach other business owners you can jump into subreddits like r/startups, r/entrepreneur, r/smallbusiness etc. If you want to reach potential customers just search for a word related to your business and you’ll find a lot of communities to target using the strategies mentioned here.
Don’t use Reddit if you had a 1 hour meeting where you agreed to start reposting your old content when your brand voice sounds like a corporate robot malfunctioning and spitting out buzzwords. Be deliberate about what you do on Reddit, don’t treat it as just another channel. It takes real effort to get results on Reddit but the payoff can be huge.
Questions About Growing an Authentic Personal Brand
Liam has now surpassed 70,000 followers on LinkedIn, which is just incredible. Kudos to him! Anyone who’s followed him there for a while knows that he grew his presence by doing something that few others were doing at that time — being funny and sharing memes on a corporate platform. We wanted to know what’s behind the strategy.
Should a business build an online brand at all if they’re a local business owner? Does it benefit a local New Orleans business at all, or does it benefit someone who is more of a consultant or content creator?
Every business should show up on LinkedIn but mostly through their employees, especially local business owners and solo operators. If you’re a business with employees… Don’t just post on the business page “We have exciting news to share”, instead, share it on your own personal LinkedIn page “I have exciting news to share”. Instead of posting “We grew 500% in January” on the business page, suggest your CMO posts about the strategy like what worked, why it worked, and what they learned.
Is there a way business owners can encourage employees to post on LinkedIn naturally? Or do they have to hope and pray that employees will want to post about the business, their work day, whatever? (I’ve heard about businesses coming up with financial incentives. I’m not sure how that sits with me because it feels like it won’t be “authentic.”)
Get your employees excited to talk about their work, encourage them to share their wins on LinkedIn, and champion them through your own LinkedIn content. It’s okay to post about how proud you are of your team for producing incredible results, it might even land you a few leads because you can tell a lot about a company by the way they treat their employees.
A good example of this is… If I asked you now to think of a C-level employee at Ahrefs who’s active on LinkedIn you immediately think Tim Soulo right? Why is that? Why didn’t you think of the CEO? Or someone else?
What if you’re a contractor (say, a plumber or an electrician) and you ARE your only employee? Is LinkedIn “worth it” in this scenario?
Yeah, that’s a good point actually… I still think they should be on LinkedIn because opportunities can come to them that might not just be a local tap that needs fixing. They could land a contract through a recommendation to be the plumber for multiple locations, like for a project developer or on call for a business across multiple office locations. Like, for example: Jessie Cannizzaro on LinkedIn.
Amazing! So how can a local business owner build an authentic presence on LinkedIn? Does this strategy look different from someone who does it full-time? (For example, is humor “so last year” now?)
LinkedIn personal brand consultants will tell you to choose 3 core content pillars and focus on solving one problem for one person and you’ll be an overnight success story. I disagree. I believe you should post whatever you want and not lock yourself into a box because we all bring our own unique perspective, experiences and stories to the platform.
I’ve posted a Borat meme that landed me a 10k per month client on a 12 month contract from a DM that started with “Liam that meme was spot on. I’ve been dealing with something similar. Maybe it’s time we had a quick chat?” I’ve also posted a 20 slide LinkedIn carousel with a strategy and that post landed me zero clients.
Also, this doesn’t mean you have to go post Borat memes or try to be funny in everything you post. Humor can be anywhere at any time and it can be used for a whole post, a hook, or to poke fun at something halfway through your post. Just show up as yourself and don’t try to be something you’re not.
Aside from LinkedIn and Reddit, is there something else (a different platform, for example) you’d suggest to help local and small-business owners build a personal brand?
My advice is always to be wherever your customers are and meet them where they are, sometimes Facebook groups can be great for some businesses and also local subreddits (specific towns etc).
Can you expand a bit on the “local subreddits” and “specific towns” element? Do you have an example?
Sure, small local subs — these are quiet, but here are a few examples: r/harrogate and r/sevenoaks. And if you’re targeting US ones like r/Naples_FL and r/savannah.
LinkedIn aside, is there any advice you’d give to a small or local business owner about building a personal brand, in general?
Imagine everything you do online will be shown to a potential customer. If you want to use sarcasm/humor/be cheeky etc then you need to 100% commit to it from day one, because if you ever stop, someone will read your old comments and think you were being serious.
Don’t always try to paint a pretty picture of running your business — people always champion an underdog or someone they see themselves in. Last weekend, I saw a Facebook post from a small business owner who celebrated and thanked the local community for coming together for a special event they ran to raise money to stay open with a photo of them and their family. You know what that does? I’m looking for an excuse to go in and buy something, because I’m supporting parents, friends, good people and a family who I want to see succeed.
Also, don’t try to be everything to everyone — you’ll never be everyone’s cup of tea and that’s okay.
Wrapping Up
What’s the one thing in marketing more broadly that we’re not talking about as an industry that you think we really should be?
I think a lot of people are burying their heads in the sand when it comes to AI, and what that means for all of us. Behind the scenes a lot of people are worried about their careers and their future. I have so many people sending me DMs asking me if they should pivot and if I believe something is future proof. Most of the time I don’t know what to tell them because we’re all in the same boat really aren’t we?
I think that we’re all in this weird situation where we watch 1000s of people losing their jobs and think “oh they just overhired” and “they are just making improvements” like it’s some sort of correction. We as an industry need to just be more open talking about the potential implications of AI instead of hyping it up.
We are living in exciting times right now, which is great, but I know people with 15+ years marketing experience with families not able to find a role because “AI can do that now”. This won’t last forever though. Businesses who bet on AI made a good choice right now but in the future I believe it will all come full circle and businesses will go back to hiring people in fields that AI was supposed to dominate.
The internet is full of geniuses that can replace your whole marketing team with AI if you buy a $39 course and don’t ask too many questions. They leave you with a prompt database with lines that start with “You are an expert writer with 23 years experience…” and we all know how that goes. Like a great writer will always be a great writer and with a significant amount of businesses putting out AI slop content, the only way to stand out will be to hire great writers who know how to stand out.
And finally… this last question is kinda left-field, but I think it relates to what you’ve said above. We’re all out here (well, some of us are anyway) trying to be human and make authentic human connections through the internet. With that in mind…
What was your favorite video game as a kid, and why?
Pokémon Red Version / Pokémon Blue Version (the original Game Boy versions) without a doubt — I could probably complete that game with my eyes closed the amount of times I’ve played it.
I liked taking a low-level Pokémon from the start (usually Charmander) and leveling them up through the course of the game, taking my Pokémon from zero to hero from scratch.
The exploration element, the challenges, the sounds, and finding better ways to complete the game by optimizing my choices, routes, approach, and strategy. So every time I did a new playthrough, I would do something better than I did on the last one.
Thank you so much for your time and for how generous you’ve been with your knowledge and expertise, Liam. I think we can speak for many others, both inside and outside the marketing industry, when we say we now have A TON of inspiration for how to move forward with Reddit and personal brand strategy. To show our appreciation, here’s an ode to you, in the style of your favorite childhood video game.
Want help putting any of this into practice?
If Liam’s approach to Reddit, LinkedIn, or building a personal brand sparked something — the team at WTF SEO can help you turn it into an actual strategy. We’re one call away.
|
Fallen, Liam. “Liam Fallen on LinkedIn.” LinkedIn, www.linkedin.com/in/liamfallen. Accessed 8 May 2026. |
|
|
Cannizzaro, Jessie. “Jessie Cannizzaro on LinkedIn.” LinkedIn, www.linkedin.com/in/jessie-cannizzaro-b6971417. Accessed 8 May 2026. |
|
|
“r/harrogate.” Reddit, www.reddit.com/r/harrogate. Accessed 8 May 2026. |
|
|
“r/sevenoaks.” Reddit, www.reddit.com/r/sevenoaks. Accessed 8 May 2026. |
|
|
“r/Naples_FL.” Reddit, www.reddit.com/r/Naples_FL. Accessed 8 May 2026. |
|
|
“r/savannah.” Reddit, www.reddit.com/r/savannah. Accessed 8 May 2026. |
