What is karma on Reddit?

Karma is the point score a Reddit account earns from upvotes on its posts and comments. It reflects how much a user has contributed and acts as a trust signal — many subreddits require a minimum karma to post, and low-karma accounts are scrutinized for spam.

A subreddit is a topic-specific community on Reddit, written with an r/ prefix (for example r/marketing). Each has its own moderators, rules, and audience, and is where posts and comments about that topic live.

What does shadowban mean on Reddit?

A shadowban is a hidden block in which a user's posts and comments are invisible to everyone else while the user still sees them normally. Reddit gives no notification, so shadowbanned accounts often keep posting without realizing nothing reaches an audience. It is a common penalty for spam-like behavior.

What is the Reddit 90/10 rule?

The 90/10 rule is Reddit's informal self-promotion guideline: no more than about 10 percent of your activity should promote your own product or content, while at least 90 percent should be genuine participation. Crossing this ratio is one of the fastest ways to get flagged as a spammer.

What does OP mean on Reddit?

OP stands for Original Poster, the person who created a post or thread. Replies often address OP directly. It can also mean Original Post when referring to the content itself.

What is an AMA on Reddit?

An AMA, short for Ask Me Anything, is a Q&A-style post where someone invites the community to ask them questions and answers in real time. AMAs are popular for founders, experts, and public figures, with r/IAmA as the dedicated home for them.

ELI5 means Explain Like I'm 5 — a request for a simple, jargon-free explanation of a complex topic, as if explaining to a young child. The subreddit r/explainlikeimfive popularized it.

What is a cake day on Reddit?

Cake Day is the anniversary of the day a Reddit account was created. Reddit marks it with a small slice-of-cake icon next to the username, and commenters often wish each other a happy cake day.

Reddit Glossary: 35+ Reddit & Marketing Terms Defined

Reddit basics

Subreddit: A subreddit is a topic-specific community on Reddit, written with an r/ prefix (for example r/marketing or r/SaaS). Each subreddit has its own moderators, rules, and audience, and is where posts and comments about that topic live.
Upvote / Downvote: Upvotes and downvotes are how Reddit users rate posts and comments. An upvote pushes content higher and signals approval; a downvote pushes it lower. The net score (upvotes minus downvotes) determines visibility in a subreddit's ranking.
OP (Original Poster): OP stands for Original Poster, the person who created a post or thread. Replies often address "OP" directly. It can also mean Original Post when referring to the content itself.
Crosspost: A crosspost shares an existing Reddit post into another subreddit while keeping a link back to the original. It is the legitimate way to reuse content across communities, unlike spamming identical new posts, which moderators treat as spam.
Permalink: A permalink is the permanent, shareable URL for a specific Reddit post or comment. Because Reddit threads are indexed by search engines, a permalink can keep driving traffic for years after it is posted.
Lurker: A lurker is someone who reads Reddit regularly but rarely or never posts or comments. The vast majority of Reddit users are lurkers, which is why view counts on popular threads dwarf their comment counts.
RES (Reddit Enhancement Suite): RES, or Reddit Enhancement Suite, is a popular browser extension that adds power-user features to old Reddit, such as inline image expansion, comment navigation, user tagging, and night mode.

Karma & accounts

Karma: Karma is the point score a Reddit account accumulates from upvotes on its posts and comments. It roughly reflects how much a user has contributed and is widely used as a trust signal — many subreddits require minimum karma to post, and low-karma accounts are scrutinized for spam.
Cake Day: Cake Day is the anniversary of the day a Reddit account was created. Reddit marks it with a small slice-of-cake icon next to the username, and commenters often wish each other a happy cake day.
Flair: Flair is a small tag or label attached to a username or a post. User flair (set per subreddit) can show a role or affiliation, while post flair categorizes a submission, for example tagging it as a Question, Discussion, or Showoff.
Gilded / Awards: Gilded means a post or comment received a Reddit Award (historically Reddit Gold) from another user as a sign of appreciation. Awards are a visible badge of high-quality or well-received content.

Moderation & enforcement

Mod (Moderator): A mod, or moderator, is a volunteer who runs a subreddit. Mods set the rules, approve or remove posts and comments, ban users, and configure automated tools. They decide what counts as acceptable promotion in their community.
AutoModerator: AutoModerator (often called AutoMod) is Reddit's built-in automation bot that moderators configure to enforce rules automatically. It can remove posts that match certain keywords, filter low-karma or new accounts, and post sticky comments — frequently the first thing that removes a promotional post.
Shadowban: A shadowban is a hidden block in which a user's posts and comments are invisible to everyone else, while the user still sees them normally. Because Reddit gives no notification, shadowbanned accounts often keep posting for weeks without realizing nothing reaches an audience. It is a common penalty for spam-like behavior.
Brigading: Brigading is when a coordinated group floods a post, comment, or subreddit with votes or replies to artificially boost or bury it. It violates Reddit's rules and can get the participating accounts and communities penalized.
Astroturfing: Astroturfing is faking grassroots support — for example using multiple fake accounts (sockpuppets) to praise a product or push a narrative as if it came from genuine, independent users. Reddit's anti-spam systems actively detect and ban it.

Marketing, SEO & lead generation

90/10 Rule: The 90/10 rule is Reddit's informal self-promotion guideline: no more than about 10 percent of your activity should promote your own product or content, while at least 90 percent should be genuine participation. Crossing this ratio is one of the fastest ways to get flagged as a spammer.
Self-promotion: Self-promotion is sharing links to your own product, service, or content. Most subreddits restrict it heavily, allowing it only in designated threads or within the 90/10 ratio. Contextual, value-first mentions survive; repetitive link-dropping gets removed.
Buying intent: Buying intent is a signal in a Reddit post or comment that someone is actively looking to purchase or evaluate a solution — phrases like "what tool do you recommend for" or "alternatives to X." Detecting buying intent is the core of finding sales-ready leads on Reddit.
Social listening: Social listening is monitoring online conversations — across subreddits, for example — to track brand mentions, competitor discussion, and customer needs. On Reddit it powers both brand monitoring and lead discovery.
Lead generation: Lead generation is the process of finding and attracting potential customers. Reddit lead generation specifically means surfacing users who show buying intent in subreddit discussions, then engaging them with helpful, contextual replies rather than cold pitches.
MCP (Model Context Protocol): MCP, the Model Context Protocol, is an open standard that lets AI assistants like Claude connect to external tools and data sources. Linkeddit exposes Reddit research and lead-finding tools over MCP so an AI agent can search subreddits and surface buying-intent leads directly inside the assistant.

Post types & community formats

AMA (Ask Me Anything): An AMA, short for Ask Me Anything, is a Q&A-style post where someone invites the community to ask them questions and answers in real time. AMAs are popular for founders, experts, and public figures, and r/IAmA is the dedicated home for them.
TIL (Today I Learned): TIL stands for Today I Learned, a format (and the subreddit r/todayilearned) for sharing a single interesting, verifiable fact someone just discovered. It is one of Reddit's most recognizable post conventions.
ELI5 (Explain Like I'm 5): ELI5 means Explain Like I'm 5 — a request for a simple, jargon-free explanation of a complex topic, as if explaining to a young child. The subreddit r/explainlikeimfive popularized it.
Sticky / Pinned post: A sticky (or pinned) post is one moderators fix to the top of a subreddit so it stays visible above the normal feed. Stickies are commonly used for rules, weekly self-promotion threads, and announcements.

Formatting & tags

Markdown: Markdown is the lightweight text-formatting syntax Reddit uses for posts and comments — for example **double asterisks** for bold, asterisks for italics, and > for quotes. Understanding Markdown is essential for writing well-formatted, readable Reddit content.
NSFW tag: NSFW means Not Safe For Work. Tagging a post NSFW blurs its thumbnail and warns readers that it contains adult or graphic content. Many subreddits require it, and untagged NSFW content is removed.
Spoiler tag: A spoiler tag hides content (such as plot details) until the reader chooses to reveal it. In text you wrap it in >!exclamation marks!< and Reddit renders it as a clickable blurred block, while posts can be marked as spoilers at the thread level.

Turn Reddit terms into Reddit leads

Now that you know the language, put it to work. Linkeddit monitors subreddits for buying-intent posts and helps you write subreddit-aware replies that respect the 90/10 rule — so you find customers without getting shadowbanned.

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