Exploring r/HubSpot’s Two-Pronged Moderator Strategy

Every year marketers debate which social platform will unlock that next wave of brand-led growth. 

Yet while TikTok trends dominate headlines and B2B stars fight for share-of-voice on LinkedIn, HubSpot has been busy on the platform most brands shy away from. 

They’re turning a modest corner of Reddit into a self-sustaining customer-success engine. 

The official r/HubSpot subreddit is small by Reddit standards. With just over 13,000 subscribers (less than 5% of HubSpot’s paying customers), the subreddit is becoming a powerful hub for product education, customer loyalty, and peer-to-peer support.

Most importantly, it’s having a positive impact on the brand: 

Over the past year, HubSpot has made some key changes to how it shows up on the platform, shifting from a hands-off presence to a two-pronged moderator strategy that blends grassroots advocacy with responsive, “always-on” support. 

Today, we’re going to take a closer look at why the new mod model works and what the shift tells us about HubSpot’s evolving approach to community management.

Let’s dive in. 

Exploring the r/HubSpot SetUp

r/HubSpot is a little unassuming for a community representing a billion-dollar CRM brand. Visitors are greeted by an icon, a simple branded banner, and a short mission statement about how they can “Grow better with HubSpot.” 

Other simple touches reinforce the professional tone:

• Pinned community highlights discussing product updates, integrations, and best practices 
• A community guide with links to HubSpot Academy, the Knowledge Base, and the Partner Directory
• Simple subreddit rules that prioritize respect and no-spam (a must for SaaS forums)
• Recommended subreddits like r/marketing, r/CRM, and r/CustomerSuccess

This simple sidebar setup isn’t the flashy, sexy marketing that we often talk about, but it’s a very effective bridge between “owned” and “earned” real estate. It’s also a great way to passively earn high-intent traffic. 

For instance, say a Redditor stumbles across the sub and reads this post about favorite HubSpot automations. They quickly realize that they need to level-up their knowledge. The “HubSpot Academy” link is right there in the community bookmarks waiting for them. 

But subreddit setup is just one chapter of the growing Reddit marketing guide for brand success in 2025 and beyond. 

HubSpot’s Two-Pronged Moderator Strategy

Reddit typically describes the moderators of their subs as volunteers who are passionate about the topic and willing to put in time to oversee community discussions. As the size of a sub increases, more volunteers are required. At least, that’s the case for many subreddits. 

But subreddits dedicated to a specific product or company, especially those that are officially run by said company, typically use a mix of volunteers and current employees for community oversight. 

The subreddit is currently moderated by just two user accounts:

• u/RyanGunnHS – a HubSpot enthusiast who answers power-user questions in granular detail like an embedded coach.
• u/HubSpotHelp – an account overseen by ~6 HubSpot employees that troubleshoots, runs AMAs, and funnels feedback to product teams.

Both accounts are under a year old, signalling that HubSpot is aware of the rising influence Reddit has on brand perception, reach, and community building and have made adjustments to build a more productive presence on the platform. 

Now we’ll take a closer look at how these two key accounts represent the brand and drive community engagement on Reddit.

Making a Product Expert and Enthusiast the Face of the Subreddit

Ryan Gunn is a fascinating pick as moderator. While he’s not an employee of HubSpot (his LinkedIn clearly states he is a volunteer moderator), his professional experience and future trajectory is directly tied to this CRM. He’s even launched a newsletter dedicated to the platform called Hubsessed.

In his time at the head of r/HubSpot, Ryan has used both Aptitude and HubSpot-branded accounts, most recently switching to a u/RyanGunnHS account. 

Picking Ryan as the moderator may seem odd at first, but it’s actually a genius move for a couple of reasons: 

• He has demonstrated experience on the vendor side, seeing the most common pain points for HubSpot users
• He’s not a direct employee of HubSpot, so he’s able to engage more authentically with Redditors
• He’s a clear product enthusiast who has a vested interest in the success of the platform

Basically, he’s the perfect bridge between the company and its users. He’s both an advanced practitioner and a subreddit moderator. That dual role lets HubSpot put an expert in the room without relying on a fully corporate voice. 

Let’s take a look at how he uses his role as moderator to operate in a number of capacities that benefit both himself and HubSpot.

Fully Transparent Product Announcements

Case in point: in one of his top posts under his previous u/Aptitude8 account he announced the public beta of HubSpot’s new multi-step forms. But instead of painting an overly-rosy picture of the feature, he mentioned that they had “not included some features that [he] would consider table stakes…”

He goes on to say that his LinkedIn post on the same topic got the attention of HubSpot Product Managers who encouraged him to keep an eye on upcoming releases. Basically, he helped influence the direction of the product for the benefit of the HubSpot user community. 

Expert-Level Product Comparisons 

Experience, expertise, authority, and trustworthiness (EEAT) are just as important, if not more, for success in Reddit as they are in the SERP. 

Why? 

Because you can BS a search engine with keywords and domain authority, but the same isn’t true in niche forums. That’s why, with a decade of marketing experience and a depth of knowledge in the CRM space, Ryan is perfectly positioned to weigh in on high-intent product discussions. 

When a Redditor asked r/HubSpot about experiences migrating from Salesforce to HubSpot, Ryan weighed in with a detailed response that highlights his own: 

• Extensive experience working with both HubSpot and Salesforce CRMs
• Up-to-date knowledge of key products and features added to HubSpot 
• Understanding of the personnel required to run CRMs and migrate from one to another
• Willingness to help walk the Redditor through migration (and likely pitch Aptitude8)

Having your Reddit strategy in place gives companies a chance to participate in these discussions without getting left behind. But it takes knowledge and expertise to shine through.

That’s why genuine niche expertise is an invaluable asset for B2B and SaaS brands using Reddit to drive results. 

Productive Pushback on Criticism

Having a third-party product expert as a moderator also comes in handy when dealing with the negative sentiments that inevitably end up in the feed of any branded sub. There are times when a canned “sorry to hear you’re experiencing that” is warranted, but there are others where pushing back against the criticism is warranted. Even educational. 

Ryan has built up enough credibility as a HubSpot expert that he can correct trigger-happy Redditors without coming across as defensive. 

See for yourself. A Redditor recently posted in the sub to take issue with HubSpot’s Content Hub pricing. 

Ryan responds with valuable context explaining why the Content Hub platform is such a valuable tool for marketers (AI-generated CMS pages based on CRM data) and how users can access the platform more effectively through a bundled offering. 

Handling criticism and negative press is one of the biggest fears brands have when they first consider planting their flag on Reddit. 

Authentic Engagement Across Subreddits

Some brand accounts stick to their owned sub, while others venture across Reddit to take part in wider discussions. 

As a semi-branded account, Ryan can engage more effectively across a number of industry-related subreddits, like r/customersuccess, r/marketing, and r/CRM. Here he’s able to build trust and demonstrate his expertise to Redditors who aren’t necessarily HubSpot users. It’s also a great opportunity to seed positive sentiment about the CRM in other communities. 

Another benefit of having this type of semi-official relationship with HubSpot is that Ryan can use his own voice and opinions when engaging across related subreddits. It comes across in a much more authentic way than someone who is constrained by internal guidelines. 

Take this comment about unpopular marketing opinions where Ryan critiques HubSpot’s main audience pillar in an insightful, nuanced, and, most importantly, accurate way. 

The fact that he got 28 upvotes in r/marketing while taking all of marketing (including himself) to task is the perfect example of the type of discourse that Redditors gravitate towards. 

The Takeaway: The Product Expert Moderator

With Ryan’s role covered, let’s shift to the other half of HubSpot’s Reddit strategy. 

Turning Customer Support into a Community Management Asset

Having a dedicated customer support account for your branded subreddit is best practice after the community reaches a certain size. 

Your users are searching Reddit for troubleshooting information and advice regardless, so you might as well have accounts set up to engage with them directly.

HubSpot is still in the early days of rolling out their Reddit strategy (Ryan has only been in the mix for about a year), and their support team is even newer to the game. In early February 2025, the u/HubSpotHelp account was officially announced as part of the moderator team: 

Jointly run by half a dozen HubSpot staff, this support account operates exclusively inside the walls of the branded sub to: 

• Provide simple answers to questions directly in the comments
• Share links that direct Redditors to solutions pages on the HubSpot site
• Kickstart customer success flows through Direct Messages

Customer support is a key part of maintaining a branded presence on Reddit, but it’s just one of many use cases. Like 1Password’s Reddit-based approach to customer retention, HubSpot uses this channel to discuss their product in a number of different ways. The only difference is HubSpot does it through a single branded account. 

Here are a few examples.  

Facilitating AMAs with Internal HubSpot Teams

Ask Me Anything (AMA) threads are a staple of Reddit engagement. The tactic was first popularized on the “front page of the internet” and is now used across social media channels. 

Typically it’s a larger pre-planned event including a notable figure like some sort of celebrity, an executive, or an influencer, but HubSpot uses it as an opportunity to start discussions between different business teams and Redditors. 

In just over 4 months since Ryan announced the second prong of HubSpot’s moderator strategy, u/HubSpotHelp has facilitated 4 AMAs that tapped various internal departments, including:

• How AI is transforming meeting prep featuring Product and Product Marketing 
• Brand readiness and the future of AI search featuring Product Marketing and Developer Relations
• Customizing the HubSpot App experience with UI extensions featuring Product, Engineering, and Developer Relations
• How to use the Breeze Prospecting Agent featuring Product and Product Marketing 

To be clear, these haven’t driven major engagement yet. So far these sessions bring in a handful or so of comments from users. The important thing is that they are actively building out processes for connecting various product and marketing teams with Redditors. 

Voice of Customer Feedback on Product

One of the most underrated aspects of Reddit for businesses is how effective it is as a feedback loop between companies and customers. Particularly when it comes to experiences with products and features. Those discussions often pop up organically as users come up against roadblocks, but brands can also actively foster them. 

This is exactly what the u/HubSpotHelp account does. 

Just a few months ago, the account prompted members of the subreddit to share challenges they’ve experienced while using HubSpot at a growing business. 

The thread provides key information for the HubSpot Product team about user dissatisfaction with everything from the product interface to feature pricing strategies. Many of them have to do with key features being placed behind costly paywalls: 

• Essential features like custom reports, workflows, extra pages, and styling are restricted to costly Pro and Enterprise accounts.
• SMBs are squeezed by rising prices, “core seats,” and enterprise budgets, with many considering cheaper CRMs like EngageBay, Pipedrive, GoHighLevel.
• Large accounts struggle with inflexible menus, notification overload, line item controls, and multi-currency reporting without heavy workarounds.
• The ‘Business Units’ feature doesn’t have strong permissioning and reporting, making multi-brand setups hard to run cleanly.
• Staging environments for developers and serverless functions are gated to the Enterprise tier, forcing smaller IT teams to find external workarounds.

This is exactly the type of information that Product teams can take to their counterparts in RevOps to try and find more user-friendly solutions. Though most users aren’t holding their breath from the sounds of it. Still, valuable context to have and it all comes from a simple Reddit post. 

Sparking User Engagement and Empowerment

The 4 E’s of Content don’t just apply to blogs on your company site or brand-building posts on LinkedIn. Entertaining, educating, empowering, and engaging are key on Reddit. After all, you’re building a community, not just a secondary support channel. 

HubSpotHelp outsources engaging and empowering content to the r/HubSpot community with questions that prompt users to share the coolest thing they’ve done with the platform or the most recent wins they’ve experienced. 

These posts are great for building up connections between the members of the r/HubSpot community and showing newer users exactly how much can be done with the platform. 

The post above about cool HubSpot use cases generated dozens of comments from Redditors showing off their favorite projects, including:  

• Using basic JavaScript to let customers buy single items and subscriptions, add gift options, and track affiliate discounts.
• Creating a custom “Character Sheet” to run an entire tabletop game right in the CRM, complete with storing stats, spells, and story notes.
• Setting up tasks, timelines, and dashboards in HubSpot to save their business about $10k a year on other apps.
• Syncing LinkedIn DMs directly into HubSpot so new messages trigger follow-up tasks and feed open and replay rate data. 

Encouraging Redditors to share their wins and celebrate each other is more about community building than customer support. But since HubSpot is still in the early stages of revamping its subreddit, using the support account to wear multiple hats is a smart way to strengthen the community vibe that users already value.

Takeaway 2: The Official Support Channel

Take Part in Your Community on Reddit (It’s Happening Either Way)

HubSpot’s Reddit success demonstrates that thoughtful community management can transform a small subreddit into a powerful customer success engine. 

Their two-pronged approach—combining authentic expert advocacy with strategic support—creates sustainable engagement that drives real business value. 

Ready to build your own Reddit community strategy? As the leading Reddit marketing agency, Foundation helps B2B brands navigate the platform’s unique culture while driving meaningful results. From moderator strategy to brand protection to community growth, we’ll help you turn Reddit into a competitive advantage. 

Get in touch with the original Reddit marketing agency today to discuss how we can amplify your brand’s presence on the front page of the internet.