Sonos, Customer Backlash, Reddit, and a Guy Named Keith
I interviewed Keith Nieves, the Social Media Program Lead at Sonos, about how he has built goodwill during such a tough time for the brand.
It’s been a tough few months for the speaker company Sonos. A redesign of their app in spring caused outrage from consumers and major headaches for the brand. So when a friend tipped me off to the r/Sonos subreddit filled with 261,000 angry people, I braced for impact. Yes, I found the expected complaints—but I also noticed that the community really like an employee named Keith.
KeithFromSonos is a Sonos employee who is very active in the r/Sonos subreddit and has somehow won over customers in a particularly tumultuous time for the brand. It’s hard for me to not use jargon here, but he shows up as a customer and not like a brand mouthpiece. When it was announced two months ago that Sonos had a big round of layoffs, someone commented “KeithFromSonos - you still around?”, he replied with a Weekend at Bernies GIF. It was upvoted 788 times. (He, of course, then posted a thoughtful note.) And when Keith isn’t solving user issues, he might be recommending his favorite A24 movies or writing paragraphs about why he loves the r/Sonos community.
Importantly, the r/Sonos community loves Keith back. One comment that stuck out was, “Keith- you’re amazing, and I’m sure it isn’t easy showing up here on the regular. We- well, at least I, have been pretty openly hostile about your employer. It isn’t easy to face that for your job, and you do it well.” The nice comments about Keith are essentially surrounded by the most blazing roasts of a company you’ve ever read.
Two days ago the White House announced it was joining Reddit. As TechCrunch reported, the account will release information about the work the federal government is doing. The decision was also driven by a need to meet “more people where they are.” It’s clear that Reddit is one of the most productive social networks to disseminate information and build trust. For a long time, Reddit discouraged brands and organizations from participating. Finally, after too many years, the platform seems to be welcoming them. Sonos (and Keith) is by far the best example I’ve seen of how a brand can show up on Reddit.
For today’s newsletter I interviewed Keith Nieves a.k.a. KeithFromSonos, Social Media Program Lead at Sonos. We talk about why he thinks of Reddit like a café (“You are a guest in this community built space”), what it’s been like working with the moderators of the r/Sonos subreddit, and how he’s been able to build so much goodwill during a such a tough time for the brand. Even though our conversation was brief, it’s clear why Keith is so good at his job. As he tells me, “Don’t act in service of the brand, be in service of the community member.” Let’s dig in.
Rachel Karten: First, can you tell me about your current role and any previous social (or not!) roles you've had?
Keith Nieves: Happy to! My role as Social Media Program Lead, focuses on Reddit through the lenses of the Customer Success & Experience team at Sonos. This really just means I engage regularly on the r/Sonos subreddit with the intention of being a brand ambassador/insider while, first and foremost, being a member of the community. When I first joined Sonos back in 2017, I was a Community Specialist, focusing on moderating the Sonos Support Forums.
Previous to my return to Sonos, I worked a few years in the AAA video game industry working as a UXR Project Manager—like Playtest Operations at Electronic Arts and as a Digital Media Coordinator at Infinity Ward (one of the studios behind the “Call of Duty” series).
RK: What is your social media philosophy?
KN: Be real and authentic, even if it makes you(r boss) uncomfortable at first.
In a world with things like AI, I feel now more than ever we need real, human connections and genuine communications. This is especially so in community-run spaces like Reddit. When representing a brand, being authentic and genuine needs to be at the top of the order. We build relationships in social media, and that requires things like fearless transparency and an organic human touch. Don’t act in service of the brand, be in service of the community member.
RK: Can you talk me through the brand’s Reddit strategy?
KN: I was super lucky to be given the reins on our Reddit strategy from the get go. My first order of business was to get on a call with the subreddit admin who asked for the Sonos presence to begin with. By making them stakeholder #1, the strategy more or less wrote itself. We now have monthly-ish zoom calls to touch base and see how things are going.
In terms of daily strategy, it's all about not touching every opportunity. Music is made of sound and silence.
Better yet—think of the subreddit as a bar or cafe, you are a guest in this community built space.
Be friendly, don’t go from table to table shaking hands and getting involved in conversations. The Reddit community “regular” of the subreddit comes first. Not every engagement needs to be “how can I fix your problem or sell you a thing?”.
RK: Got it! That’s interesting. So the brand isn’t a moderator of the r/Sonos subreddit?
KN: Sonos does not moderate or run the r/Sonos subreddit. While the sub has always had employees lurking, the official involvement with the sub came by way of an email from the subreddit admin directly to our CEO Patrick Spence.
Once I was brought on board to lead the Reddit efforts for Sonos, I reached out to the subreddit admin to set up semi-regular video call check-ins and to coordinate on sticky posts (updates, news, etc). We’ve built a great relationship over the last year and a half.
Sonos has no intention of trying to take over the space or try to change what’s kept it alive and buzzing for over 12 years. It’s frankly not our place.
RK: When did you start seriously engaging on Reddit? How has your strategy changed or evolved?
KN: On May 9, 2023 the r/Sonos subreddit admin introduced me in a post that laid down the ground rules. You can check it out here.
The idea here was to be the emissary for the brand and for our customers. While I have technical chops, I am not official support. First and foremost—I’m Keith who happens to be from Sonos.
After the intro period, I focused on behind the scenes content (office photos of prototype products), marketing/brand beats, video content, etc. Additionally, I started to write software update posts and then publish them on the subreddit. Our Reddit audience is definitely technically minded so posting an official update post, users can voice their concerns and feedback—while the team can monitor emerging situations.
This opened the door to more casual engagements like the monthly Office Hours, where I’d do a monthly AMA usually on the final Friday of every month. Whether the question was valid and in good faith or a trolling attempt, I’d do my best to respond to the top voted questions and comments. This was great for settling misconceptions about a product or about a recent update, and also worked as a funnel of feedback for our internal teams.
Change is inevitable with the growth we’ve seen on r/Sonos. When I started it was about 212k subscribers, currently we are at 261k. The strategy has worked for now, but I have a few friends that may be joining me in the coming weeks. Social is never stagnant, and neither is a good strategy.
RK: I have to ask about #fixingtheapp. Can you talk me through your strategy specifically in this moment? It was amazing that you brought the CEO on to answer questions.
KN: Talk about serendipity…
When we started to see the sentiment go negative and began to understand the gravity of the situation, it became more and more clear that I would need to leverage those support skills from my previous life at Sonos. No longer were people interested in prototype players or how Trueplay worked. Their app was busted and they needed help.
Switching tone, while still keeping that authenticity was big on keeping relevant and useful. I had built that social credit that I’m there to help—not to play damage control or to police the situation.
This means increased calls for transparency. I already had a bit of internal freedom to reply as needed, but once we started reading people’s calls for accountability from leadership to the situation—it became evident what we needed to do.
Patrick, the CEO of Sonos, slacked me directly and said (paraphrasing) “I need to be in there—let’s figure out how we make this happen”. I dove into what I had been doing with the Office Hours and how it’s been steadily growing in engagement. Now with the new app out—those Office Hours have become a place for users to get answers. He was keen to get in as quickly as possible and to “face the music”. Fun fact: those were his words at our go/no-go before announcing. Things were getting real, real quick so I felt compelled to put that in the announcement copy.
Since then we’ve brought on Nick, our Chief Innovation Officer, to dig into the technical nuance in bug fixing and how we prioritize things and have many more guests in the pipeline. We’ve seen this format really work in terms of communications and with the help from the subreddit admin—these engagements are then pinned to the top of the subreddit for the month until the next one.
Between the Office Hours, the Trello board, and the added detail in our release notes—we’re really doubling down on transparent communications wherever we can.
RK: You've been able to build a lot of goodwill and respect from an audience that is clearly frustrated with the brand. What are some ways that you've been able to do that?
KN:
Tenure. Get in yesterday. Understand that there will be a time where your brand may be under the microscope, and that’s okay. Building relationships and trust takes time. The sooner you get in, the quicker you are earning that social credibility and notoriety. Tough times will come (expected), and your time tending that community garden will pay off.
Accountability. Keep showing up. When you start showing up in this space, you need to close the loop where you can. There will be tough calls to make, tough feedback to give, and times where you need to be the user’s champion. That’s the charge of the position. Through thick and thin.
Authenticity. The final piece to building trust. Show up as yourself. Be real. Sometimes a GIF will suffice for a response as long as it’s real and relatable. This can be tricky at times—but trust yourself, trust that you know your community. My top comment ever on Reddit is a Weekend at Bernies GIF.
RK: Reddit has traditionally told brands to not get involved in subreddits. Yet, your presence seems quite welcomed. What advice would you give brands hoping to start engaging on the platform?
KN: TBH they told us the same when we were starting off. But I’m very lucky to have leaders and partners that trusted that I’d be able to deliver on what we wanted—real interactions and engagement.
Bring someone with valuable knowledge that can augment the space you want to be in. Take off the Marketing Hat (just for a minute), put on the Customer/User Experience Hat and find out where the brand can uniquely make an impact in the community. Your presence will be the marketing.
To that point, again, be real and a member of the community first. There are recurring jokes, certain users that frequent the space, etc. You need to be in tune with the community, before you can offer something they may be lacking—product education, insight, etc.
RK: What do you love about working in social media?
KN: I love how seriously unserious it is. The landscape is always changing. Rooted in the same fundamentals of communication with a thin candy shell of pop/internet culture. Whether I’m explaining something about audio signals or talking about my favorite A24 movie, at the end of the day I’m building connections with people about the stuff we both love. That’s a pretty cool thing.
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This is a really interesting and encouraging read, it reminds me that even when things go wrong in your organisation/industry, you can at least control your own interactions and people's experiences of *you*.
there is a clear difference between sonos/keith acting as an emissary in the brand's *community found/moderated* subreddit, and the white house thinking it is a good idea to join reddit. just this week jill fucking stein did an AMA on reddit and it was a DISASTER. just like jill stein thinking she can do an AMA and come out victorious, the white house having their own account is going to be an absolute mess -- the trolling and rage baiting will be unmatched.
meeting people where they are is not something the white house reddit account can achieve.