Many business owners overlook Reddit as a
social media marketing channel, but recent changes to the platform should have
them all reconsidering. A complete overhaul has modernized the look and feel of
Reddit’s various niche-focused forums. As a result, community members are
engaging even more frequently than ever—with both posts _and_
ads.
According to Reddit’s Zubair Jandali, their VP
of brand partnerships, the platform has been engaging users at a rate three to
seven times higher compared to before the redesign. Interestingly, ad response
rates have also been rising. “Advertising didn’t play a role in the redesign
per se,” Jandali told Marketing Land
, “but
we’re seeing much stronger engagement on ads by virtue of the fact the core
organic experience is more engaging.”
Businesses have opportunities to engage
directly with community members in ways that build brand awareness and
relationships. However, they have to use the right strategy. Reddit notoriously
fights against forms of intrusive marketing, and especially accounts that fail
to be transparent about their business affiliations.
If you can play your Reddit marketing cards
right and treat the community with respect, you can improve your brand image,
open new lead sources, and subtly promote your offerings to an audience of
millions.
What Is Reddit, and How Does It Work?
Reddit is a social media platform with a dedicated community of 330 million monthly active users
and over [542\\
million monthly visitors](https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/reddit.com)
. That’s a bigger community than
Twitter and enough traffic to make Reddit the No. 5 most-visited U.S. site as
of August 2018.
The structure of Reddit combines an old-school
forum format from the early 2000s with user-centric social media features of
today. Posts are centered around text-based topics of conversation or links to
popular content. Users have the option to “upvote” posts they like.
Upvoting increases the chances of a post making
the front page for a particular niche forum, a “subreddit.” If a post gets
enough traffic or upvotes within its subreddit, it can end up on Reddit’s
homepage. The Reddit homepage aggregates posts across a staggering range of
topics, which is why the company refers to it as the “Front Page of the
Internet.”
After a post is made, anyone can reply with
comments, and individual comments can be voted up or down to increase their
visibility. Someone who says something clever or interesting, for example,
might be upvoted to the top of a post. Someone who makes a bad joke or responds
in a rude way to other users will get downvoted, burying their post and
sometimes even leading to it getting hidden from view.
When users violate the rules repeatedly,
they’re likely to catch the attention of moderators. Mods can ban users from
specific subreddit forums or even have their DNS address blocked, preventing
them from making new accounts. Each forum has its own set of moderation rules.
Rules commonly discourage asking for upvotes, posting promotional comments or
links too often (spamming), and posting content that’s irrelevant to the
subreddit topic.
Individual users get notifications when they
get replies to their comments or posts. They also get points based on how many
votes they get, which are called “karma.” Users generally respect other users
who have high levels of karma or who are regularly seen contributing
interesting posts and responses.
In sum: Reddit is a place where people go to
see interesting links and engage one another in productive conversations.
Community members are not only highly enthusiastic and engaged, but they also
take action when they see something they don’t like. This quality separates
Reddit from social media channels like Facebook, where your experience is at
the mercy of the platform and the sometimes nasty users that visit it.
Why Is Reddit a Good Social Media Marketing Channel?
Reddit has a reputation for its tight-knit,
informed community. It remains distinctive by using community-led moderation to
cut down on all the noise other social platforms create. People who don’t abide
by etiquette (“reddiquette”) guidelines get “downvoted” into oblivion. This
tendency prevents trolls and spammers from stealing attention or derailing
conversations.
For marketers, Reddit provides an opportunity
for authentic interaction with people interested in your industry niche. There
are over a million different subreddits
for every conceivable community out there. You’ll find professionals like
photographers exchanging advice, dedicated hobbyists like golfers sharing
links, and fans of just about every pop culture franchise under the sun
conducting spirited debates on opinions and theories.
Business owners have two main opportunities
when trying to reach communities related to their industry vertical:
1. Advertising in relevant subreddit forums
, ensuring that every ad impression reaches someone who cares
about that niche
2. Participating
as a user to answer questions, share links, and generally engage with the
community
The first strategy runs through Reddit’s
advertising platform, making it a business activity like any other. The second
strategy poses more complexity and much greater risk of alienating your
community. But when brands or employees conduct themselves well and remain
transparent about their affiliations, they can reap substantial rewards.
How to Not Get “Flamed” for Marketing Through Reddit
There is an inherent risk with using Reddit as
a marketing tool: the community could revolt against you and ban you so fast it
will make your head spin.
“Redditors are a particular community,” writes the Dreamgrow blog
. “If they
suspect you’re there because of marketing reasons, things can quickly turn
bad.”
You may wonder: “If marketers get chased off
the platform with torches and pitchforks, then why would anyone bother
marketing on Reddit?” Well, the truth is that the community isn’t opposed to
marketing outright.
In fact, you could easily argue that tons of
subreddits are nothing but a grassroots marketing campaign. There’s an Olive
Garden subreddit ( r/unlimitedbreadsticks
)
with 8,600 members. The [r/blackfriday\\
subreddit](https://www.reddit.com/r/blackfriday/)
has over 31,000 subscribers and is dedicated to
giving people alerts about deep holiday discounts. r/gaming
,
one of the biggest subreddits at 18 million members, is wholly dedicated to
discussing products people buy.
What separates the things these communities do
from the more loathed version of marketing? A few things:
1. Product-focused
communities are built around the fans’ needs, not the needs of a company
that wants to make money.
2. The
actual companies represented in these subreddits understand they have a
very delicate relationship with their community.
3. Companies
and their employees must always be transparent with their affiliations.
Reddit users don’t like to be deceived even more than they don’t like
being forced to participate in marketing schemes.
Each one of these principals reveals an
important reality that businesses interested in Reddit marketing must come to
grips with. Looking at No.2 above, the lesson is that moderators run the
subreddits, not brand employees. The brands themselves only show up to answer
questions or reveal information people wouldn’t find anywhere else.
If Patagonia has just started a huge ad push
for their new jackets, r/CampingGear probably doesn’t need the company to make
a new post telling them what they can already see on TV. Similarly, if people are asking opinions on the Patagonia brand
,
then Patagonia should be really careful about having someone go in and post
“Yeah! The jackets are great!” without disclosing their relationship to the
company. People _will_
dig through your
account to find proof that you are a “corporate shill” after all.
On the other hand, if a Patagonia rep sees the
above thread and notices someone has a question about their repair policy, then
they can declare “I work for Patagonia, and here’s how we repair things…” and
receive a positive reception. Or, if someone wants to let people know that
there’s a sale on specific high-demand items at a particular retailer, the
community might appreciate the head’s up.
It’s all about thinking from the user’s
perspective. If you are transparent and provide some valuable information or
entertaining content, then people will warm up to you. If you try to trick them
or post nothing but spammy promotions, they’ll quickly find ways to keep you
from coming around.
Reconsidering Reddit Marketing in Light of the New Platform Improvements
Now that Reddit has improved its interface in
ways that keep the community engaged, it’s definitely worth a look. You can
depend on the platform to build audiences, generate traffic, create leads, and
generally elevate your brand image in the eyes of users. You can also advertise
under specific, relevant subreddits to earn clicks from people who are eager
about your niche.
Be a good user, keep people’s feelings in
mind, and always strive to provide value—that’s the key to building a community
in Reddit that thinks you deserve all the karma you can get.