What’s Reddit?
It is a multilingual social news platform founded 11 years ago on June 23, 2005 in Medford, Massachusetts, by Steve Huffman, the current CEO, and Alexis Ohanian, the executive chairman. The Reddit community has the potential to drive a huge amount of traffic to your website and become a great source of leads for your business. However, first you should learn how to use it to its fullest potential.Some Major Stats About Reddit
Reddit calls itself the “The Front Page of the Internet”; and this seems like an appropriate name because: Reddit is currently home to 234 million unique users and collects about 8 billion page views monthly. It is the 9th largest site in the US. The average visit on Reddit lasts 13+ minutes with users casting 25 million votes a day. …right. What’s more, Redditors are exceptionally loyal to the platform and to other fellow Redditors. These facts seem astonishing, and the best part is—numbers don’t lie!Some Details about Reddit
Redditors – Who Are They?
Kind of convinced? Now you understand that you can’t ignore an opportunity like the one Reddit is offering. Reddit is a unique spot for various people – the Redditors – who are connected by similar interests and gather to discuss and curate the best content on the web. So the community consists of a wide range of persons who literally spend tons of hours there, hanging out: reading, posting stuff, commenting, upvoting, etc. The standard user profile would be described as follows: Redditors are mostly males between the age of 34-45, with a yearly income of $25,000 – $50,000. What’s more, the most active Reddit users come from the US and have a bachelor’s degree or a higher college education. This website is the most popular in San Francisco and Toronto.Subreddits and Reddiquette
Topics on Reddit are quite varied; you can find subreddits with news, science, gaming, movies, music, books, fitness, food, image-sharing, and much more. And just to make things clear, subreddits are like topic categories. You can’t just enter this community out of nowhere either. Redditors can be a tricky crowd, so learning the “reddiquette” and following its specific rules is in your best interest. For example, the priority of the Android subreddit is to post content that benefits the community. This can be anything from news, rumors and discussions. They even have a table of basic rules located in the margin.Karma
And then there is the karma score. Karma shows your activity and profile status. How can you improve your Reddit karma? Karma points are collected by user engagement; the more valuable comments you post or upvotes you give, and the more engagement your content generates, the higher your karma becomes. On the other hand, actions like spamming Reddit with low quality content will downgrade your profile karma, because other Redditors will downvote it.Getting Started with Reddit
There are a few things you need to be aware of before you get started with Reddit. First and foremost, your name should be chosen wisely, as you won’t be able to edit it in the future once it’s registered. What’s more, remember that everything you post on Reddit – all your comments and upvotes – will be stored permanently in the archives of your profile page. And the karma points you get can’t be moved to any other account.How to Use Reddit
In this section we will discuss how you can incorporate Reddit into your marketing strategy in order to drive traffic to your site. I’ve analyzed many subreddits owned by popular brands and identified some repetitive patterns that bring them buzz and loyalty. “Remember one fundamental thing about Reddit, it’s a place to interact with people.”Breathe Life into Your Reddit Presence
Become active on subreddits that you create and be authentic. This means posting unique and actionable content that raises important questions and replying comprehensively to user comments. Upvoting is also important. Upvote all relevant conversations that you participate in and comments you agree with (or just those that entertain you). Create a subreddit – or a few subreddits – related to your business and make them engaging. Spotify, IKEA and Top Gear know how to use Reddit to their advantage and are good examples to look at. They have a well-established presence, a massive following, and high user engagement If you moderate a subreddit, you should be active on it and lead it in a creative way. Doing so will create a sense of community among the followers and help turn fans into real brand advocates.Engage and Entertain Redditors Like Spotify Does
Spotify has mastered the skill of engaging Redditors and is worth mentioning. For instance, once a month they organize contests like This November Playlist Competition that usually last the whole month. The rules are beautifully simple, clear and user engagement comes naturally. November’s contest involved creating a themed playlist of about 8-12 tracks on Spotify and adding the link in the comments of the thread. Other users could listen and upvote their favourite choices every day. The winner was chosen on November 28th and now he is going to choose the theme for the next contest. Pure fun!Keep Redditors Happy
All successful brands on Reddit provide customer service; so don’t hesitate to follow in their footsteps. Discuss with Redditors good and bad experiences with your brand; answer when they raise complaints and enjoy when they praise you. Take action to identify users’ problems, and provide helpful resources. Just try to keep them happy. And above all, remember that it’s much easier to retain an existing customer than acquire a new one. So if you put in the effort and show that you care about your customers, a satisfied and loyal following will ensue. Take a look at Xbox too. They’re widely complimented for their customer service on Reddit.Post about News and Updates
Keep Redditors updated on any changes: new products, improvements of existing products, rebrandings, discounts and anything that can potentially capture their interest. Relying on your subreddit for news will make Redditors follow it more closely.Host Reddit’s AMAs
IAMAs on Reddit get a lot of buzz, and this comes at no surprise since the subreddit currently has 13,845,530 subscribers. Even public figures like Bill Gates and Barack Obama have posted AMAs, but the truth is, you don’t have to be famous or have a huge company to post one yourself. You just need to have a good idea and play it right. Look at their current schedule: You can see that AMAs on Reddit reflect various topics, from those hosted by microbiologists at Harvard to Scientologists. Redditors often request AMAs too: [AMA Request] Queen’s Guard, [AMA Request] Someone who’s worked in a dim sum restaurant. Check it out! Maybe someone has already requested an AMA for You
