The recent buzz surrounding the investment app Robinhood and the skyrocketing of GameStop stock put the Reddit platform in the spotlight and left many marketers wondering if this vehicle should become a component of their digital marketing. This blog outlines the opportunities available on Reddit so you can determine if it’s the right fit for your business.

Reddit is a social sharing website that is built around users submitting text, images, and videos that users can vote on, sending popular content to the top of the chain (called “upvotes”) and pushing unpopular posts further down the chain so they get less views or none at all. Reddit claims to be “the front-page of the Internet.” The platform most recently added livestream content through its Reddit Public Access Network. Reddit’s popularity is a result of the fact it’s free and it fosters open sharing among users. The parameters are loose – so you’ll see just about anything and everything on the site. According to stats from Ignite, most Reddit users:

• Are males between the ages of 35-44 (although 25-34 year-olds are not far behind)
• Have annual income levels around $25,000-$50,000Have a bachelor’s degree or some college education
• Are from the U.S. (in particular San Francisco and Seattle) with Canada (Toronto) a close second

What to Know Before You Reddit

There are two ways businesses can use Reddit: advertisements and posts. Buying an ad on Reddit is pretty straightforward, so I’ll focus on how you should approach posting to Reddit to try to market your business. First and foremost, you cannot post anything that blatantly looks or sounds like an ad. That is strictly forbidden. In fact, before you even think about trying to market on Reddit, you really must read the guidelines for each Reddit community. 

Even though Reddit is a massive sharing community, it’s not for the meek and the mild. You can’t just put anything up on Reddit and wait for the marketing magic to happen. Reddit users can spot marketers a mile away. You must know how to provide content of interest and of value or you just may get banned from the platform. Reddit users can be brutal and will ensure you’re never heard from again if they don’t like what you’re posting.  To help you overcome this potential pitfall, here are subjects that are extremely well received on Reddit that work for businesses:

• Only Share Content People Will Actually Want to See – Don’t post anything else.
• Include Links In Your Posts – The links don’t have to be ones you created, in fact it’s best if you don’t just post your own content. You want posts that you think Reddit or subreddit users will find interesting, valuable, insightful or funny.
• Tell Personal Stories That Come From the Heart – Talk about how you overcame challenges, beat the odds, survived the impossible, etc. 
• Share Unusual or Obscure Facts – Reddit users like to learn little-known facts about a variety of topics, products, movements, diseases and any other topic you can think of that has interesting facts surrounding it that are relevant to your business. 
• Post Interesting Videos, Photographs and Art – Videos generate the most upvotes.
• Talk About US and Global Politics Related to Your Business Vertical 
• Share How You Use Technology to Benefit Your Customers
• Include Topics On Science, Fitness, Music, Comics and Food As Relevant

Content that is unique, progressive, or simply just eye-catching tends to do very well on Reddit. This platform is no different from other social media sharing sites – each has its own underlying feel. Tap into what that is and post content related to that feel, and you will be rewarded with favorable results. Reddit users are trendsetters.

Another advantage of Reddit is that it is divided into smaller communities called “subreddits.” A subreddit is a board dedicated to a certain topic, which is great news for marketers! Each subreddit begins with “reddit.com/r”, such as reddit.com/r/entrepreneurship, which would potentially put your posts in front of entrepreneurs on Reddit. 

Reddit also enables you to reverse engineer your messaging by giving you the ability to do a search to see which posts have done well on Reddit for the subreddit group you’re looking to target. To Go to the search bar in Reddit and type in “Site: DomainName.com.” What you enter for “DomainName.com” will be the website address for a business that you think is generating lots of likes in a Reddit community you’re looking to target. Doing this will show you all of the Reddit posts that were most successful for the searched site. This is really helpful for marketers who are new to Reddit.

Reddit has a bit of a reputation of being the ugly stepsister, so many marketers dismiss it. However, if you are looking to target certain niche markets and you are open to user’s potential criticism, Reddit is the best place for you. And consider this: If your competition is passing on Reddit, the market is wide open for you.

Before you make the move though, make sure you’ve thoroughly educated yourself on all things Reddit. If you need any help figuring out if Reddit works for your business, let’s talk. Good luck!