What is Reddit and should your brand use it?
Reddit is not often mentioned next to the “big”social networks, although it is one of the most influential. It boasts 420 million users – 20% more than the population of the United States – and gets more traffic than Amazon with over 1 billion unique visitors per month.
Reddit continues to grow in double digits every year, adding 25% more users in 2020 and 14% more in 2021. This growth, combined with the fact that 40% of Gen Zers are looking for information on social media rather than Google, makes Reddit a unique opportunity for brands.
But Reddit is not the best place for every company. It has a unique atmosphere, which this article will tell about.
Find out if Reddit marketing is right for you and how to get started on the self-proclaimed “front page of the internet.””
What is Reddit?
Reddit is a social network with a forum-style discussion structure. Users create posts in topical communities called subreddits and interact in comment threads. Every thread has an OP (original poster) who started it. Users can also vote other users’ content “up”or “down”the algorithm.
Reddit was launched in 2005 and sold to Conde Nast for US$10 million less than a year later. Excellent salary for founders who are recent college graduates, although Reddit is valued at $10-15 billion as of Q4 2022.
How does Reddit work?
Reddit is committed to community development by encouraging users (also known as redditors) to interact with each other.
Before the rise of modern visual platforms like TikTok and Instagram, we older millennials only had web-based text messaging forums to connect with others about common interests. (Rest in peace to Yahoo Groups.)
Reddit is a hybrid of a forum and a modern social network: subreddits are like separate forums, but you can participate in everything with one account, just like on a social network.
Another big thing that makes Reddit different is how their algorithm works: Popular posts with more votes get more exposure on the Reddit homepage and subreddit feeds. And downvoted content gets less attention.
Instead of using complex algorithmic tools to rank content, Reddit’s algorithm works based on votes. Simple and effective.
Redditors use the platform in a variety of ways, but the most common are:
- To ask for help with a specific problem, such as technical manuals (or big life crises)
- Subscribe to subreddits to keep up with your favorite topics
- Communicating with those who share their interests
- To learn something new (check r/IWantToLearn)
- For entertainment through memes, humorous subreddits, or to discuss TV shows or movies.
What is a subreddit?
Subreddits serve as mini-communities within the site – like Facebook groups, but public – and encourage user interaction around common interests. Subreddits have their own URL, for example the Star Wars subreddit can be found at www.reddit.com/r/StarWars.
People often go to p/ when they talk about subreddits. These days, the leading word r/ before the word is recognized as a Reddit community almost anywhere on the internet. For example, instead of saying “memes subreddit”, I would say “slash memes”.
Anyone can create a subreddit. As with any online group, most major subreddits have multiple moderators to keep the community up to date and spam free. To help with this, subreddits often have certain rules and posting requirements to follow, with consequences for not following them.
Make sure you read the rules before posting or commenting so you don’t risk breaking the shell of digital democracy.
You can find the subreddit rules on the right sidebar or on the dedicated Rules tab.
What is karma on Reddit?
A redditor’s karma is his pure score. Transparent as dirt?
Reddit users can upvote or downvote comments and posts, indicated by the up and down arrows on the left side.
Each “yes”vote counts as +1 to your karma, and each “no”vote is subtracted from it. Votes for – votes against = assessment of your karma.
A high karma score does not give you any special abilities, but serves as a general indication of how useful you are. This is a quick “trust temperature” that others can use to evaluate you.
You can see someone’s karma rating by hovering over their username.
What is flair on Reddit?
Flair is a feature that many subreddits use. There are 2 types of flirting:
- User flair
- postal flair
User flair is the text or “tag”icon that appears after your username in a particular subreddit. Sometimes you can choose it yourself, and in some subreddits only moderators can assign flair.
In the r/cats subreddit, you can select a cat breed as your user’s flair. This community also has achievement-based custom abilities that appear automatically when you reach those milestones.
The style of a post or link is similar to the topic tag or category that subreddits use to differentiate and filter content. They appear as multi-colored labels next to the message title.
Not all subreddits have custom talents, although most of them use post talents to keep things organized.
What is voting on Reddit?
Voting is equivalent to “like”on platforms like Instagram or Facebook. This means that someone likes your post or comment, or found it helpful, insightful, useful, etc.
You can see how many upvotes a post has, and as mentioned earlier, each upvote helps increase your karma.
6 Ways Companies Can Use Reddit
1. Market research
With so many highly specialized subreddits, Reddit is the perfect place to learn more about your target audience, from quick vibration checks to deep insights. Is it a bit stalkerish? Fur. Good marketing is always like this, right?
Use Reddit to find out what’s really important to your views.
For example, if you’re building an e-commerce delivery app, read the discussions to find out what users like and don’t like about their current provider, what features they need, or what will make them switch.
Obviously, a few comments won’t revolutionize your product strategy, so Reddit shouldn’t be your only marketing research source. But it’s an easy and free way to test or generate ideas, especially if you notice general feedback patterns. You can stay in stalker mode just by reading, or create a branded account to interact with users directly.
Efficiency Hacking: Do Reddit research along with all your other social networks inside Hootsuite with the Reddit app add-on. Set up automatic keyword searches and keep track of new posts easily.
For a more detailed walkthrough of the process, check out our Reddit market research guide.
2. Social listening
All the benefits of market research without having to do the research yourself. The joys of technology.
Social listening tools automatically capture mentions of your brand or other specific targeted keywords and measure sentiment over time. Basically, it’s about tracking what people are saying and thinking about your company across multiple platforms and presenting that data in a neat report.
A popular listening method on Reddit is Brandwatch, which is part of Hootsuite Insights and is available as a free app integration.
Find out more, including recommendations for other tools, in our guide to listening to social media.
3. Affiliate Marketing
Can you make tons of money with affiliate marketing, both as an individual and as a business? Hell yes.
Is spraying your affiliate links on Reddit and praying for people to click on them the best way to achieve this? Hell no.
Reddit’s official content policy doesn’t explicitly ban affiliate links, but it does warn that they shouldn’t be considered “spam”. However, it explicitly states that you cannot mask link sources, AKA uses shorteners or masking tools to purposefully pass off an affiliate link as organic.
In addition to link management, Reddit warns against spam:
- Posting only self-promotional content.
- Posting the same comment in multiple subreddits.
- Sending a large number of unsolicited private messages.
TL; DR? Use Reddit to make connections and be a really helpful person, not just to make money.
So how do you be sincere and make money at the same time?
- Follow the 60/40 rule: make sure at least 60% of your contributions are ad-free and useful to others.
- Insert a step between Reddit and your affiliate links: many subreddits don’t allow affiliate links at all. To get around this, make sure that the link in your post leads to a page on your website dedicated to the product or topic. From there, people can click on your affiliate links.
4. Advertising
Reddit ads can reach up to 50 million daily active users, but with the huge potential reach comes a huge potential waste cost.
Effective targeting is essential for any social media ad, but especially for Reddit. Remember that Reddit is basically a bunch of separate communities, also called subreddits?
This is key for advertisers: you can target your ads to specific subreddits. Wow.
For Reddit ads, don’t be afraid to be specific. For example, the members of r/Hiking are probably athletic people who love sports, right? The Vector ad wouldn’t make much sense in a general campaign, but it fits here.
You can also install Reddit’s Pixel on your website to redirect visitors to the web, as well as choose from standard targeting options such as location, interests, and more.
5. Create your own subreddit
If you’re ready to dedicate yourself entirely to Reddit marketing, create your own subreddit. It can be a brand with your name or a topic.
For example: r/dbrand is a company-focused subwoofer for the maker of cheeky tech skins, Dbrand.
Their community serves as a place for dedicated fans to learn about new collections and get fast customer service, either from the company or other Redditors.
Yes, if done right, your subreddit can allow your best customers to serve you for you. Now that’s social ROI to fall behind.
As a topic community, you don’t know at first that r/NewTubers is brand-driven.
The subreddit helps new YouTube creators grow and is run by Fetch, which helps smaller YouTubers monetize their videos before they qualify for the official YouTube Partner Program.
The key to a topic community like this is to provide value but not self-promotion. Mention your company, but not often.
Subreddit moderation can take a significant amount of time, so before you get started, make sure Reddit is right for your audience and fits in with your marketing plan.
6. Run an AMA
AMA or “Ask Me Anything”threads are very popular on Reddit.
There is an entire AMA subreddit, although I wouldn’t recommend posting brand information there. Instead, host an AMA on your own subreddit (if you have one) or partner with a popular subreddit in your industry.
Subreddits are always looking for valuable content to engage their members, and many are open to hosting AMAs with trusted experts (that’s you!). Many will ask for “proof”of who you are, like a picture of you standing next to Apollo 11 at work, to make sure you’re really a rocket scientist.
AMAs help you find out what your audience really cares about based on what they ask. And they can build trust in your brand by making real connections.
Not to mention getting tons of views – Carlos’ AMA above got over 4500 comments.
How to create a Reddit account?
1. Register
Go to Reddit and click Sign Up. Create an account with your Google account, Apple account, or email.
2. Choose a username
Reddit will fill in the (ridiculous) username for you. Choose your own and password.
3. Optional: Personalize your home feed.
Hooray, you have a Reddit account!
Answering a few questions about enrollment will help personalize your recommendations, or you can skip them. You must select at least 3 interests before you can skip.
Is reddit worth it?
Only you can answer this. Ask yourself:
- Does Reddit fit into our marketing plan?
- Which of our marketing goals is Reddit associated with?
- Do we have the time and resources to add Reddit to our content set?
If building a real community is your goal on social media, starting your own subreddit is a great way to achieve that. Or, if a subreddit doesn’t work for you, consider using Reddit as your advertising channel.
Last but not least, you can stay incognito and just use Reddit as your search engine for market research.
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