In this episode of Actionable Marketing In Minutes we talk about the front page of the internet: Reddit!
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Problem
Have you considered integrating Reddit into your marketing strategy? But then hesitated? We understand. Reddit is very different from all other social media platforms. It even has its own unique vocabulary. And, though it takes a little while to understand both the community and its etiquette – or retiquette – if you stick with us for a few minutes, we are confident we can lay to rest all of your doubts and concerns.
Briefly, Reddit is an open-source forum-based site that allows its members – or redditors – to share any type of content on any one of its thousands of categorized boards – or subreddits. Redditors can even start their own subreddits. Each subreddit is its own sub-community, with its own rules, within the global Reddit community.
If a user finds your content interesting, they will upvote it. But, here’s the rub – if they don’t like what you have to say, they have the ability to downvote it as well, leading to shame-filled downward spiral into the abyss of oblivion. Well, maybe not that bad… but this is a major concern of many businesses.
Solution
Let me give you some stats. Reddit averages over 230-million visitors monthly, there are 36 million user accounts, over 850K Subreddits, and more than 21 million votes per day cast… All of this adds up to suggesting now might be a good time for you to learn how your business can successfully participate. We’ll offer five guidelines to help get you started:
1. Follow first: get to know the lay of the land. You will want to register so you can receive karma for your actions, but choose your username wisely since you will not be able to change it once it has been chosen. Click on ‘what’s hot’ to see what is trending. Follow a few Reddits. Browse some subreddits that have at least 10,000 subscribers, that seem to be used by your target market segments and that allow external links. Leave comments and vote to start building your karma.
2. Ramp up the good karma:
a. With content: first, upload your interesting photos, articles or videos to Instagram, Flick or Imgur (pronounced image-er/im-ij-er). Be sure to upload material related to what is trending. If you don’t have any original material, share someone else’s interesting content, after checking that it has not already been shared (using a site like Karmadecay.com). Then, share it to an appropriate subreddit. If you don’t know the most appropriate one, use a tool like Metareddit.com to help you select the best option. Oh, and by the way, your self-promotional posts should not be more than 20% of content uploaded.
b. By voting: search for good Reddits and give them a boost. Or, find good comments and +1 them. You can also find questions that give you the opportunity to comment by submitting stories or appropriate detailed life experiences. All of this produces even more good karma, resulting in increased visibility to your profile.
3. Avoid negative karma: be sure you thoroughly understand the retiquette for each subreddit you participate in. Some avid Redditors suggest that if you receive between 3-5 downvotes, delete the post. Since many people browse
only the most recently posted content, you can usually know this in about the first ten minutes. Also, it is suggested that business-related content will receive the maximum amount of upvotes if posted on business days before noon ET.
4. Simplify your life with the right tools: Find the appropriate Reddit tools which will make your engagement much easier. I’ve mentioned a couple above, but you may want to do your own search for the tools most helpful to you.
5. Give first and mostly give always: Keeping in mind that all redditors can see anyone’s activity just by clicking on his or her name, be mindful of all your activity – including your comments and submissions.
Benefits
Although Reddit is quite a bit different from other social media sites, once you learn the ropes, you have the opportunity to experience great success. We like the advice of super user Brent Csutoras: Spend one month learning, lurking, reading, and participating in comments prior to ever submitting or executing Reddit marketing tactics. Take the time to really use the site as a regular subscriber first. We thoroughly agree with that advice.
We hope you’ve found this information helpful. Please connect with us on Twitter @DirectiveGroup or on LinkedIn. Let us know what you think and what you’d like to hear about next. And if you like our podcasts, please share with your networks using hashtag #actionablemarketing. Join us next time for more actionable marketing in minutes.
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