Reddit 101: Leveraging the Internet’s most Popular Alien

When stepping into development of any social media marketing strategy, there can be an overwhelming plethora of options for where your content can make it’s home. Sure, you’ve heard of the more traditional networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and others – but you may not have taken as deep a dive into the powerful enigma that is Reddit.

What is Reddit? 

Believe it or not, Reddit is one of the original social networks, dating back to their initial launch in 2005. What once started as more of a social indexing site has rapidly evolved into what’s known as “the front page of the internet.” Now boasting as many active users as Twitter, the once niche site is now giving the mainstream powerhouses a run for their money with overall engagement rates.

Reddit is a social network that operates on a fairly straightforward system of content sharing, commenting, and ranking. But don’t let the simple design fool you, this unique network is a traffic powerhouse jam-packed with it’s own nuances and opportunities.

Organization

At first glace, Reddit’s UI can seem a little daunting. There is a lot of content in one place, with over 11 million posts being submitted each month. Content on Reddit is organized by “subreddits,” all which serve as a sort of group organized by topic. Subreddits exists for everything you could possibly think of; from coffee to cricket and everything in between.

If you don’t see a community for your interest, you can also create a new subreddit. Plenty have – Reddit has more than 140,000 active communities thriving on a daily basis! Popular content across all subreddits is populated on “r/all,” which serves as a default homepage for users.

Types of Content and Actions

Content on Reddit is submitted by a singular username, not a brand page or business account like the more segmented networks such as Facebook and LinkedIn. Similar to other networks, posts can be submitted in the form of a text-only post, an image or video, or a direct link to an outside website.

Posts on Reddit are ranked in a more user-driven method than some of the other, more algorithm-based networks. Users can “upvote” or “downvote” any pieces of content, which will effect how high it will appear on both subreddits and r/all. Each post also has the ability to receive comments, which are organized by threads. Users can comment directly on the content itself, reply to other Redditors’ comments, and rank comments by upvotes and downvotes.

Upvotes and downvotes on posts also affect the original poster’s “Karma” number, which is the total number of net upvotes the user has received on all posts and comments with their account.

So, how does this fit in to your marketing efforts?

There are a number of ways Reddit can be leveraged for your brand and social marketing strategy. First and foremost, it is important to keep in mind that Reddit as a community will quickly and ruthlessly push out overt self-promotion and marketing attempts. Strategies on this site must come from much more of an organic and conversation nature, building a baseline of authenticity.

The first thing you should do, no matter what, is create your account and begin to amass some karma. Seek out subreddits relevant to your brand’s interests and begin to contribute commentary and genuine content. Remember, you are posting as a person, not a brand. Engage in conversations, share interesting content that the subreddits will find valuable, and establish your authenticity

This is not at all to say that you can’t submit direct links to your own website too. Quite the opposite in fact, but make sure those posts are amongst a majority of non-branded content. As Reddit themselves puts it “it’s perfectly fine to be a Redditor with a website, it’s not okay to be a website with a Reddit account.”

If your brand falls into an interest category that doesn’t exist already and/or justifies it’s own dedicated space, you can also create your own subreddit community. Through doing this you can channel your most relevant users and build a vibrant community of conversation surrounding your brand’s niche.

Finally, you can look to run promoted ads on Reddit, much like on other social networks. These ads can serve as fantastic event reminders and product promotions to the most relevant communities. Stay tuned for a deeper dive on Reddit paid ads platform in the near future.

Get Redditing!

Leveraged correctly, Reddit can be a goldmine of gathering community information and learning what makes your target base tick. By engaging in an authentic way with relevant subreddit communities, you can learn a lot of unfiltered information to drive your social marketing strategy. It can also serve as a fantastic traffic platform for relevant branding pieces and a discovery tool for valuable content to share on your other networks.