Transcript
Rustam Irani: A few weeks in August. And Reddit went from one of ChatGPT's most cited sources. to potentially invisible. That's the part that nobody talks about chat GPT literally didn't stop uh reading reddit It possibly stopped showing it.
Rustam Irani: Welcome back to ah ROI University, podcast for higher ed marketers and leaders. We want to change the game. and themselves. I'm Ristami Rani. Now your co -host and recovering engineer. and former higher ed CMO.
Rustam Irani: along with my co -host, Chris Shepard. 20 year plus marketing veteran. who built and sold an agency and now working to help grow businesses. Chris, welcome to the show and I'm excited to get this kicked off.
Chris: All right. Yeah, well, welcome. And yeah, thanks. yeah This is going to be a good one because I think this is. uh you know, a good topic that a lot of people want to understand, don't understand, really don't understand even how GICPT gets its sources and its data. And of course, with all this Reddit debacle, kind of what is actually happening with it, what to do, what not to do, those types of things. so Yeah, love to dig into it.
Rustam Irani: Yeah Perfect. so here's some stats uh let's start with some stats and then we can kind of jump right in so apparently From July 18th to August 7th. uh july reddit went from about 3 .8 percent of chat gpt search citations
Chris: Yep.
Rustam Irani: down to under 1%. By August 17th. it was down to 0 .52%. Which... Doesn't seem like a lot. But... That's an 86 % drop in a few days.
Rustam Irani: um What are your thoughts about that Chris? cause That is pretty significant because Reddit is on everybody's mind right now, especially on on our clients. We're talking about it all the time, like how can we get engaged in Reddit because it's showing up in the results.
Rustam Irani: What are your thoughts there?
Chris: Yeah, you know... I... I think you're going to see this a lot more. I don't know that ChatGPT necessarily said, hey, we aren't going to. crawl or source or c site or Reddit anymore. I think the question is.
Chris: more around what actual... domain scoped queries are they looking for, like actual domains? Because again, if you're just going to get all of your information from weit Reddit or um some other forum and not actually scrape the source of people's websites, then you're just going to be. referencing. and sourcing. forums, which if you're trying to get. you know.
Chris: clicks or anything else, especially if you're running ads and trying to get clicks to somebody's website, those are going to be mainly Reddit. sources. And so I think there's a lot.
Chris: to unpack there but that's kind of my thought is that I don't think Chachapin... you know excuse me, chat GPT necessarily said, no, we're not going to source it rather than maybe changing the algorithm to look at domain scoped queries. more.
Rustam Irani: Yeah. and And I think one of the keys, at least on our end that we're looking at, right, is like. I think the Reddit. tactic is still fine. It's just like... What's being put on the scoreboard now might look a little different now.
Rustam Irani: Does that mean that it's still not impactful? Does that mean that it's still not important? um No, I think to your point that that's not the case potentially, but.
Rustam Irani: you know, I think the fact that whether it's being cited or not and how it's being reported especially with a lot of these uh reports now where we can pull in uh chat gbt we can pull in a lot of these um you know llms now and where we're being citing these llms i think that's going to be the key Like.
Rustam Irani: Are we showing up? Where are we showing up? and then you know is it still impactful? Um, you know as far as like Reddit. as a channel um I still believe that there's opportunity in Reddit.
Rustam Irani: And the reason why I still believe there's an opportunity in Reddit is you know there are a lot of real conversations that are happening in reddit
Chris: Yep.
Rustam Irani: And that's.
Chris: Totally.
Rustam Irani: key to reddit right that's the key to quora back in the day that's the quinn quora still out there although people don't talk about it ah a lot but these are This is an area where these conversations are happening. and And one way that we're kind of looking at this and where we've kind of partnered ah with some of our clients on it is looking at.
Rustam Irani: you know how can you get different folks within the organization. not from a sales perspective, not from a promotional perspective, but from an engagement perspective to... provide value.
Rustam Irani: value to the community right so meaning like instructors can instructors provide value to people who are considering an architecture degree. you know what are they considering what should they be looking out for those sort of things uh challenges in architecture opportunities in architecture right that's just an example not only that but alumni
Chris: Yep.
Rustam Irani: Are you seeing alumni that are engaging in Reddit about you know your institution or your your college or and so on?
Chris: Yep.
Rustam Irani: um And then deans and and teams within. the institution like how are they getting involved so i think there's a number of different ways that that can still be impactful and i truly believe I get it. It's 86 % down, but... um you know do you believe that there's still a lot of value there, Chris, or do you think that could be changing?
Chris: well Oh yeah. Oh, I think, yeah, I think Reddit's still valuable. And i I kind of just think it's... whatever, like. demographic or industry or whatever that is that you're in, ah it kind of deems.
Chris: how you interact with Reddit or use Reddit. I mean, like it's the same with like X or other platforms. i mean It's very like. tech bros or or like other things that might be inside of these subreddits or inside of x communicating it's kind of the similar thing so we we know that there are different segments of like students or people that use subreddits versus others. uh more and so
Chris: When we're looking at that, we're kind of looking at like, well, what are they going there to do? To your point. There could be subreddits for school specific or program specific subreddits. But I've even seen more topical specific subreddits. For instance, cosmetology school near me. That's ah that's a good one because now what you're actually doing is you're seeing a lot of people leaving their... a recommendation or the review.
Chris: on uh that program or that school which is huge because if you think about it That subreddit and you everyone sees this and knows this when you go and search and Google what comes up first reddits. I mean, it depends on what topic you're on, but you could see three or four or five organic searches.
Chris: Right. Like right at the very top. And I think that's powerful in itself. And so if I were someone, you know, looking for school or whatever that might be, that's probably the first thing or at least the second thing I'm going to click is to understand what people are actually saying because they're honest. ah They're kind of.
Chris: honest ah communication in there, you know, about like. Even. programs or even specific teachers or instructors. so to have someone in there from your organization or your institution to be able to monitor that, to be able to actually create.
Chris: communication and and talking points in those subreddits is huge, not only for brand, but obviously just. for for your school and for everything that that's built around it.
Rustam Irani: Yeah, I mean I think that. You know, is the point here and that nails it down like. And a lot of people are, you know, there's a lot of buzz around it.
Rustam Irani: you know as far as like from ChatGPTs.
Chris: Yep.
Rustam Irani: uh responses and how it's showing up but um What you mentioned is is spot on. like It's still relevant in the fact that it's still showing up in organic listings, right?
Chris: Yep.
Rustam Irani: in like those first spots um and i think one thing that i've seen and and when we we audited some of these kind of key searches and stuff from from reddit like It's amazing that it's still pulling data from two, three, four, five years ago.
Chris: No, no.
Rustam Irani: Like I've seen some of these Reddit responses that are coming up, especially for some of our clients on the school side about.
Chris: Yep.
Rustam Irani: their program or something ah you know within the institution that is years old. And if you're not engaging those conversation, you're not putting fresh.
Chris: Yeah.
Rustam Irani: kind of um you know content there and and so on like That's... where it's pulling from.
Chris: Yep.
Rustam Irani: you know it could be completely outdated, right?
Chris: Yeah.
Chris: 100 % agree. I think like... The bottom line is, you know. Should schools stop investing in Reddit? Well. I think that... That's a big question. And it kind of depends on why you have read it in the first place. I i know that um
Chris: you know, back in the day or. not back in the day, but even last year, a few months ago, we might've invested in. Reddit. for citation play. purely a citation play, because that's what we heard. That's what we learned. That might have been what our marketing ah vendor or somebody told us, which could have been accurate and could have helped. um But That's not the real reason to invest in Reddit. I think if you are going in there auditing your brand.
Chris: um you know, keeping up with who's saying what and being a part and interactive in some of the conversation. I think that's even a bigger investment because now you're actually in these forums where actual students or prospective students are in there talking about you and asking questions about your school. That's the bigger play, in my opinion. And to the point of Google. um you know, bringing them queries bringing them up in the organic search queries i think you know once somebody clicks on that and goes to your subreddit and sees those things and sees even you interacting in it i think it can be a bigger play.
Rustam Irani: Yeah, absolutely. And I guess one thing I'm curious your take on it. I know we talked a little bit about this, but what's your thoughts on on Reddit ads? I mean,
Rustam Irani: i obviously get targeted uh across the board with any of these uh platforms that are looking to get us to advertise but what are your thoughts on on reddit ads i've got my opinion on it
Chris: Yeah, I think it kind of just depends on where you're at. um You know What kind of... audience that you're trying to look for. I know I've had some experience running Reddit ads for brand awareness and like just purely looking at it cost per million and just seeing kind of what that looks like. You get a lot of reach for the dollar. So that's great. You could.
Chris: generate leads for sure. It's not, in my opinion, it hasn't been quite as substantial as like a paid search or even a paid social, but nonetheless, you're still out there creating brand awareness. And again, I think it really depends on really defining your audience and understanding even what your, your scope is. Is it a high school student coming into college? Is it a college student looking for, you know, post -grad or whatever that might be. And they're subreddit specifically for those. So you could target a lot of those, but it really, I think it just depends on. what your audience looks like.
Chris: Thanks, Bear.
Chris: That's fair. Yeah, fair. And hey, beside the point, there's so many channels we can really be looking at too. I mean, and dialing in. You know, and that was my point. Exactly. It's not it.
Chris: It's not. in In my... In my take, it's not going to perform the same. And so if you're going to put an invest all that time and budget into it. and expect it to perform like that. It's just not going to. It's strictly a brand awareness play. in you know.
Chris: That's the way I look at it.
Chris: Yeah. Okay.
Chris: Yeah, sure
Chris: Go for it. Most definitely. Yeah, I think it's just going to happen for a long time as we're going through this cycle. And um I think, you know, not to keep this conversation going on too much longer, but I think there's a lot of behind the scenes things we don't. No, yet.
Chris: or no either like business decisions and ah deals being made behind the scenes, you know, who owns what data, who can have rights or or buy into data. Um,
Chris: I think there's a lot of that happening. that It's just not. public enough for everyone to understand but i certainly could see why that would happen i mean why would Why would Google allow chat GPT to ride on its back? uh of the 30 years that it's been building it. to just get all its data for free and overtake them. you know So there's just a lot behind it, in my opinion.
Chris: Yeah.
Chris: That's right. Yeah.
Chris: oh yeah
Chris: Yep.
Chris: Yeah. im No. Well... It's surprising. To hear, although. The first thing that you said, I think that everyone should own it now.
Chris: It's a team effort. I definitely... I definitely work toward enrollment, you know, during my time in higher ed. And it was a goal that I had, you know, and it was the whole team's goal. um those enrollment goals were there on purpose and we all work toward them now the part that I took was.
Chris: To your point. We need volume and quality or... I mean, but both of those would be amazing, right? Like a lot of leads and really good. um But yes, but if we can have Quality, that's great too. Um,
Chris: And so... What? The reason why I bring it up is because. What my part was is I need to understand. what that was looking like like what attribution was looking at like through the whole entire uh journey of that
Chris: prospects so like Everything from if there's a call center involved, to admissions advisors, to financial advisors, and into enrollment, and to start. And then even looking at attrition, like did they drop? Did they stay? Did they graduate? Because I wanted to understand what channels were actually driving. The best.
Chris: uh the best students you know and the best the best outcomes and there was actually a lot of data around that and so i was able to take a lot of that data and look at it from a channel perspective and say well this channel does great with uh pushing uh prospects through and then graduation and there there are some channels that weren't as good um but Here's the million dollar question. And it it came down to, well, what ads are actually driving those results? Not just channels, but like what ads are actually driving enrollments and or starts? And let's do more of that. And so.
Chris: My take was I needed to learn that. And then. bring it back so you everyone knows like google ads and gclid and just kind of understanding and following that you know tagging essentially tagging a lead and having that follow the lead all the way through and then Passing that tag offline conversion back up to Google so Google can actually go find more of those prospects just like that. So there's a lot around that. Yeah.
Chris: Yep.
Chris: Yep.
Chris: Yep.
Chris: Bye.
Chris: Yep. I agree. All right. I'm with you. I mean, that's what we did too. I think just there's so many steps along the way. And if you could measure it all, you actually see where the breakdown is. But then it's a whole team effort.
Chris: um you know to align to that enrollment i mean you've got like what the contact rate you've got appointment set rate appointment show rate application rate uh mean there's all these different things that you could start measuring along the way per person like you just mentioned and you could see who needs training and you know what we could do to actually maximize that because again Most of our leads cost money and we want to maximize that and do the best we can with those. And there's just going to be some things that obviously.
Chris: you know are outside our our control we all know that um there's a big percentage of uh leads that just don't pick up their phone and one way or the other whether it's the ios 26 update that happened last year and now that everything's everything's blocked or or something else But.
Chris: Those things just happen. But again, I think it's just worth measuring everything. Everyone owns it. Everyone backs into the same. enrollment and has that understanding marketing owns the enrollment from the marketing perspective like i mentioned and admissions owns it from the admissions perspective and We come together.
Chris: Yep.
Chris: That's right.
Chris: Yeah, right? Number two.
Chris: Yeah.
