One of the most important tools any marketer has in their arsenal to drive sales, generate traffic, and increase conversions, is through the use of social media.
The most popular platforms used by marketers are Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest.
Now, what most people don’t know is that, if used the right way, Reddit can also be an efficient resource to drive traffic and grow your business.
In this article, I’m offering a complete guide and tutorial on how to use Reddit to boost your marketing strategy.
These are the areas I’m covering in this article:
- Why Reddit should be part of your marketing strategy
- How Reddit works
- How to market on Reddit
- How to improve your brand’s presence on Reddit
- Examples of businesses killing it on Reddit
- Reddit tools to know
Why Reddit should be part of your marketing strategy
If you ask a marketer which platforms they use for their social media marketing campaign, you are most likely to hear Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. Reddit is a highly underutilized platform.
To increase your brand reach, Reddit should be an important part of your marketing strategy.
Let the stats speak for itself:
Compared to most platforms, Reddit has one of the most engaged and active users.
What makes Reddit standout is its strict no spamming rule. There are moderators in each subreddit to ensure that any spam is deleted from the platform.
Reddit is solely focused on content
Reddit ensures that only quality content gets to the top of the homepage. Your aim should be to create quality content that your target audience would find useful.
With millions of users on the site daily, your content getting to the homepage of Reddit would generate a ton of engagement and drive traffic to your site.
Before we dive in, let’s take a look at some of the important Reddit terms you need to know.
Glossary of Reddit terms
Subreddits
These are specific boards or groups that are based on a particular topic or niche. You can find a subreddit for almost any topic you can think of. When you join the platform, you can join any of the trending communities already there. The subreddits begins with a lowercase “r” with a slash.
To join any platform, you just have to search and click on the green button to subscribe.
Votes
It is through voting that Reddit ensures that only the best quality content gets to the homepage. What makes Reddit stand out is their upvote and downvote system. When a user likes a post, they click on the up arrow to upvote and click the down arrow to downvote.
The more upvotes a post has, the more Reddit’s algorithm pushes it to the top of the homepage. The higher a post is on the homepage, the more engagement it receives. The system also works the same way for comments on the posts.
Posts
It is really easy to share posts on the platform. You can share anything you like on the platform, from links, videos, and pictures. The thing to note is that each subreddit have their rules and guidelines you have to follow before posting.
Reading
If you are not in the mood to write posts, you can easily read on the platform. A ton of content on the platform is in the form of links to other sites. You don’t even need to leave Reddit to read the posts on the site, you can do it all on the platform.
(This link was opened directly on the Reddit app without having to go to a browser.)
Karma
When you are active on the platform and follow the guidelines, you would be rewarded with an increase in Karma. The more Karma you have, the higher the engagement you would get on the platform.
Reddit Gold
This is a premium version for Reddit users. For extra features like customized themes and avatar, access to subreddits for only gold members, turning off ads, etc, you would have to sign up for Gold membership at $3.99 per year or $29.99 per year.
Here are other terms you’ll encounter:
- TLDR which means “too long, didn’t read”
- IRL which means “in real life”
- NSFW which means “not safe to work”
- FTFY which means “fixed that for you”
- TIL which means “today I learned”
- AMA which means “ask me anything”
How to build your Reddit marketing strategy
When I first joined Reddit, I spent most of my time bombarding the subreddits with links from my site. I did not care to read the guidelines or interact with the communities. I didn’t last a week before I was banned from the platform.
First, understand that Reddit is a community. If you are more interested in just distributing links, pay for an ad instead.
Reddit users are very quick to notice marketers or brands who are attempting to use the platform to advertise their product or service. They loathe it and would be quick to downvote your post to the bottom of the page.
To succeed on the platform, don’t treat it like a directory to dump your content. Instead, try to do the following:
Be a user: There is nothing shadier than an account that has just links to their sites. To enjoy your marketing efforts, you would need to be a user first. Engage with the community, leave comments, upvote on posts, and make use of the share button. When you engage with the community, they would do so in return.
Give value first: Reddit gives preference to content that has a ton of value. You should follow the 80/20 rule. You should give value 80 percent of the time, and ask for something in return for the last 20 percent. When you are viewed as an authority in a particular topic, users would be happy to click on any link you post later on.
Post original content: I said earlier that Reddit wasn’t a dumping ground, and I meant it. You need to upload original content to the platform to differentiate yourself from other brands and marketers. When you post insightful and engaging content, you can easily grow a loyal fan base.
Don’t try to be sneaky: Redditors are smart! They know when you are trying to game the system. You would only hurt your karma points if you try any of the following things:
- Using fake accounts
- Undisclosing a paid sponsor, or
- Making use of link cloaks.
Follow the guidelines of the subreddit: When you follow the guidelines, you wouldn’t have any problem on the platform. The moderators are strict and kick out rule-breakers. Some subreddits do not allow links, while others allow only images. Doing anything to the contrary would allow your content to be downvoted, deleted, or gets you banned completely from the community.
Redditors are quick to punish anybody who breaks the rules of their communities. Obey these rules, and you are good to go.
How to improve your brand’s presence on Reddit
After following the rules above, these are strategies that you can use in growing your brand’s presence on Reddit:
1. Build a credible account
Opening an account is very easy, the problem is making it look credible. To grow your brand’s presence on LinkedIn, your account must look credible and authoritative.
Redditors are quick to ignore any account that looks promotional or belongs to marketers. This is what makes Reddit different from Twitter or Facebook.
Marketing on Twitter and Facebook is more direct than on Reddit. Redditors need you to engage with them before you can sell them anything.
You would first need to create an account that shows that there is an individual operating behind first. Building credibility is also very easy. All you need to do is leave useful comments and posts that give value.
Creating value increases your karma points. The more points you garner, the more visible your profile would be. This would lead to more engagement, increase lead generation and drive sales to your brand.
The rule I follow is that before I post any of my content to the platform, I build my karma to 1000 points. You can only be successful at Reddit marketing when the community trusts you.
2. Target the right audience
The first step to any marketing campaign is targeting the right audience. You have to choose subreddits that are relevant to your brand or product to receive any value from your efforts. There is no point in giving value to a community that would not make use of your service.
For example, if you are a marketer, you would have to join a subreddit like r/marketing. Contributing to the platform would help you build your authority instead of contributing to a subreddit for health professionals.
You can make the mistake of joining a subreddit like r/politics because they have millions of subscribers.
It is better to be more active in a subreddit that is related to your niche even if they have fewer subscribers. Your conversion rates from this community would be more significant.
While you might generate more traffic from a subreddit with millions of followers, your engagement and return on investment would be significantly lower.
They are certain instances when you won’t find a suitable subreddit (although this is very rare), you can create your subreddit and grow it. The most important thing to note is that your content is getting to the right audience.
3. Do not spam the platform
The reason why Reddit works for marketing is that the leads generated from the platform are of high quality. This is because the content is heavily moderated.
The subreddits have their rules and guidelines. Failure to comply with any of these rules would get you penalized. The rules on the platform are here to help differentiate real users from marketers.
To grow your brand’s presence, you need to give value and avoid spamming. Avoid sharing the same content to different subreddits, this can also be seen as spamming.
Whatever content you add to a subreddit, should be original and tailored for that exact community.
4. Make use of the share button
Do not just upload content and just leave it alone. Make use of the share button. Share your content with your friends, followers, and on other social media platforms.
Sharing your content to other platforms is especially useful when you are just starting on the platform. A retweet here, an upvote there, can be valuable in your growing initial traction.
5. Consistency matter
To build your network and authority, you would need to be consistent on the platform. You need to consistently offer value to any subreddit that you join.
Ensure that you are active in your community. Look for questions that are being asked, and give the most in-depth and insightful answers. Redditors would appreciate your efforts and engage with you regularly.
6. Create an AMA session
An AMA stands for “ask me anything”. Allow your followers to ask you questions and offer them a ton of value.
An AMA session is one of the most effective ways to build trust, build engagement and position yourself as an authority in the niche. An advantage of an AMA is that it helps you understand your audience better and what kind of content would work best.
When you offer actionable solutions, your audience would be happy to make use of your services or products whenever you plug them.
7. Make use of Reddit ads
Apart from delivering value to the users, you can also make use of Reddit’s advertising solutions to get your content to your target audience faster. You can tailor your ads so that they appear on selected subreddits, or on the whole platform.
There are two types of ads that can be used on the platform.
- Links ads: These ads would redirect Reddit users to a particular page or website. These ads are very valuable to increase traffic to a site. You can make use of promotional offers to entice people to click.
- Text ads: These ads direct users to a particular post on Reddit. This post can now contain more links and text. This type is useful in increasing engagement.
8. Ask for feedback
Redditors love honesty. Instead of using schemes to get people to use your products, ask questions to understand what your desired audience needs.
Ensure that the questions you ask are honest. Asking questions on the platform is a good way to build brand awareness. You would be able to know if your product is fulfilling the needs of your audience, and if they are areas you can improve.
Customer feedback is a very important tool to ensure the profitability of any business. Asking questions concerning your business on Reddit can help you do quality assessment of your audience so that you can serve them better.
9. Create a calendar
You can use a calendar to remind your audience of an event related to your business that is coming up. You can use this calendar to build up anticipation towards the launch of a new product or service.
Football brands use this calendar to update their fans on upcoming events, game schedules, and leaderboards. A good example is Phillies’ subreddit.
Calendars are a useful strategy to improve the participation of an audience with a brand. It is useful in building a community and increasing engagement.
Examples of brands making good use of Reddit
Audi
Audi hosted an interesting live stream using the Reddit platform. Celebrities sped around a track at high speeds while answer questions from Redditors during an AMA session.
Most AMAs are usually text-based and can become boring fast. Audi puts an interesting twist on it. Instead of reading a long thread, readers would be more interested in watching an action-packed live stream.
This kind of content would see more engagement than just pictures or text. Even if you aren’t on Reddit, you can host something similar using Facebook or Instagram live.
Lemonade Inc.
Lemonade is an insurance app. They promoted a fast-food subreddit. In the video, they showed how insurance cost as much as fast food items. The only difference is that insurance can help your cover property loss in the future.
The ad works because Lemonade shows fast-food fans how much they can save if they invest the same amount of money they spend on food
Ally Bank
Ally bank decided to promote the PlayStation subreddit. They were very creative in making a banking ad resonate with video game lovers.
The tag for the promotion was, “You wouldn’t settle for a 1-star controller, so why settle for a 1-star bank?
No gamer would want to buy a controller that is not notch. This ad would make them wonder why they haven’t invested in a good bank also. When next they want to make a banking decision, you can be sure that Ally bank would come to mind.
These are just a few examples of brands being very creative with their Reddit marketing efforts. You can also take a cue from them.
While you can make use of Reddit on its own, there are tools that you can use to help optimize your efforts.
3 Reddit tools to know
Reddit Enhancement Suite
This is a handy chrome extension that gives you some of Reddit’s gold features for free. Some cool features include keeping track of users you come across frequently and making use of color-coded tags.
Reddit Insight
Reddit insight allows you to keep track of your post in real-time. You can monitor the comments and the amount of Karma points generated per post, in real-time. This tool allows you to do analysis very easily.
Reddit Later
You can schedule posts to upload at any time of the day. This tool would help you be more productive with your marketing efforts and ensure that you are visible at all times.
In conclusion
Reddit is an amazing tool for creating content that can help bring visibility to your brand. All you have to do is follow the tips in this guide.
Do you already have a Reddit account for your business? If you haven’t started, what is stopping you?
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