How do I use Reddit self-publishing to earn AEO citations?

Reddit is now one of the highest-leverage AEO surfaces because OpenAI's 2024 data partnership made Reddit content first-class in ChatGPT's retrieval, and Google's Reddit deal made it heavily over-weighted in AI Overviews. Surfaced data shows Reddit citations appear in 30–40% of "best X" and comparison answers across ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews.

The compliant Reddit AEO playbook: (1) Build genuine subreddit karma first in r/SEO, r/marketing, r/[your-industry] over 30–90 days by answering questions substantively — not by promoting. Reddit's spam filters and AI engines' source-quality re-rankers both detect drop-and-run promo. (2) Use a real personal account, not a brand account — brand accounts get downweighted everywhere. (3) Answer existing high-intent threads rather than starting new ones; existing threads already have search traction and AI retrieval has discovered them. (4) Mention your brand only when it's directly relevant, with a clear disclosure ("I work at X") to comply with Rule 1 of most subs and to avoid the "shilling" detection patterns AI engines penalize. (5) Cite your brand's content with a link to a real, substantive page — link-only answers get retrieved less often than answers that contain the actual fact plus a link.

Two strategic notes: (1) Long-tail subs out-perform large ones. r/marketing (1M+) has lower citation pickup than niche subs like r/SaaS or r/[your-vertical] (50k–200k) because the niche subs cluster on specific intents AI engines retrieve for. (2) Old answers compound — Reddit citations from 2022 still show up in 2026 answers, so consistent presence over 12+ months matters more than burst posting.