How to use Reddit in a Content Marketing Strategy?

Nowadays, more and more companies are using content marketing through several tools in order to promote the content of their websites

Today, I’m going to talk about Reddit: a community network that is becoming more and more important in the digital world and especially in the field of content marketing

Indeed, the statistics of this network show that underneath its facade, which may seem a bit disjointed, is a place where you can find very useful information, conversations and more than 430 million monthly active users.

• What is Reddit?
• Why use Reddit?
• And how do you use Reddit in a content marketing strategy?

These are some of the questions I am about to address in this article.

Chapter 1: What is Reddit and content marketing?

It is true that we will talk a lot about Reddit, but it is first and foremost a tool that you will use in your content creation strategy

For that, it is quite normal to understand what content marketing is.

1.1) What is content marketing?

Content marketing as we know it today first appeared in the United States in the 19th century

Content marketing is a set of techniques based on the creation and transmission/propagation of valuable, useful and informative content in order to communicate with a clientele and optimize the visibility of a website

The image below gives you a small overview of what a content marketing strategy is:

Thus, the content marketing aims to attract like a magnet attracts iron, visitors to a website

It transforms them into consumers while basing itself on impeccable technique and meaningful content

In short, it helps optimize the visibility of a site to the audience, in search engines and social networks

Content marketing has a lasting impact on your business. Unlike unlike traditional advertising, its impact does not disappear at the same time as the investment

Indeed, when you publish articles based on a content marketing strategy, you should not think in the short term. It will take a few months depending on the size of your website to see results.

Let’s take as an example theexample of the campaign of “Idelec plus, a French general electricity company. After launching its content marketing campaign, this company boosted its performance over 11 months.

Indeed, in this time interval they generated :

• More than 5000 organic visits;
• More than 1000 referred visits;
• A growth in the rate of leads of +2150%.

The following image summarizes this performance.

Content marketing has a long-term effect as long as your content remains on your website. The content marketing has a considerable impact on your company’s SEO strategy.

This technique also helps website owners to efficiently manage a large part of their budget Through the production and distribution of valuable content you influence the behavior of potential consumers and optimize the visibility of the entity’s website

By linking your content to a set of marketing strategies aimed at increasing traffic, you can follow the gradual and continuous transformation of your of your prospects through your sales channel

Also, you will be able to generate leads that you can engage via email through marketing to move them down the sales funnel to increase your customer base.

In this logic, it is important to include the use of social networks and Reddit is one of them.

1.2 What is Reddit?

Created on june 25th, 2005 by Steve Huffman, Alexis Ohanian and Aaron Swartz, Reddit is an open source community platform that is very well known in the United States as well as around the world

The following image shows the distribution of Reddit’s traffic according to countries around the world:

As you can see, Reddit is mostly popular in English-speaking countries. But should we neglect it when we are in France? No, and you will know why.

One year after its creation, its audience starts to grow considerably and allows it over the years to become one of the most visited networks

Reddit quickly becomes a critical social community that thanks to its operation has influence on many people:

Reddit is a community in which users discuss various social and non-social news and share links

It describes itself as “the front page of the Internet” and consists of several forums, also called subreddits, which are created and named by the redditors.

Generally, these subreddits have names that are in the form of /r/NOMDUFORUM and are places where several information related to a distinctive topic can be found

It can be about:

• Concerns;
• Requests for help;
• Information articles
• Photos;
• Videos.

Here is an example of a subreddit name framed in red:

Reddit is thus a mixed salad ofimplausibility and social news that is appropriate for any type of website that wants to stand out from the others by giving more fame to its brand in the eyes of visitors and also wants to give their opinions.

Unfortunately, we have to admit that many business owners neglect this powerful community that is undeniably a reference channel on the net

If you’re looking for an amazing community and don’t mind criticism, there’s no better place.

Chapter 2: Why use Reddit and what are the rules to follow?

There are a multidude of reasons why you should consider using Reddit in your strategies. Here are the most important ones I’ve noticed:

2.1. Sharing links

Reddit allows its users to submit links: This is in most cases links redirecting to a newspaper article, an encyclopedic article, or to multimedia content such as an image or a video

Thanks to this link sharing system, reddit users have the possibility to discover several brands, tools and contents related to their fields.

2.2. Voting

Users (redditors) through an annotation of upvote (favorable vote) or downvote (unfavorable vote) can vote for or against a link in order to judge its relevance

Depending on the number of upvotes/downvotes and the time since the publication, a score is given to your publication. This voting system is an advantage, because it allows you to know what people think of your content.

An old publication has very little chance to end up on the frontpage of a subreddit, unless the subreddit in question is not overflowing with content

2.3. Visibility and demographics

Reddit is a community network with nearly 330 million active users per month with over a billion native views per month. As a result, it is a great propaganda tool that allows its users to reach a lot of people.

Moreover, Reddit is mostly composed of mature people, so you can easily make yourself understood and have mature discussions

According to a study by We Are Flint42% of U.S. redditors are between the ages of 18 and 24:

2.4. The tools of Reddit

2.4.1. Karma

Voting on Reddit allows users to obtain scores that constitute karma

Thanks to the latter, redditors reward the dedication of users who post appreciated content. A user’s Karma is visible on their profile and is viewable by the entire community.

As an example, I found an image of idealtick which shows the location of karma on a Reddit profile:

2.4.2. Reddit Gold

Reddit through its paid system “Reddit Gold” allows any user to reward publications or comments of other users

Generally, this award is for a special post whether it’s an incredibly good pun, a review or an act of kindness

With Reddit gold, lucky users can take full advantage of the site’s features over a period of time.

Both gold posts and comments are usually more visible, and sometimes multiple users reward the same post at once

This wonderful community is an important marketing channel for all businesses due to its youth and large population

This community platform is therefore an inexhaustible resource for marketers, as it provides them with the best content published for its millions of visitors

When properly leveraged, Reddit lends unimaginable effectiveness and efficiency to any content marketing strategy.

2.5. Reddit rules and vocabulary

2.5.1. The rules of Reddit

Although reddit is a community network open to the general public, it operates on the basis of certain important rules still called Reddiquette. The violation of even one of these rules is severely punished.

The following image gives you a small preview of what happens when you violate the reddiquette.

So, before you take any action on Reddit, take the time to get to grips with these rules, because the community doesn’t think twice about banning a user

Some of these rules include:

• Never submit the same comment multiple times to different subreddits (especially quickly);
• Don’t submit links only to your website;
• Do not ask for upvotes;
• Avoid illegal content;
• Don’t share anyone’s private information;
• Don’t be too promotional;
• Real-life rules of conduct and laws apply on the Internet as well;
• Moderators should evaluate contributions based on their quality, not their opinion;
• You should always try to link to the original source
• The Doxing (publishing third-party data) will result in exclusion
• Comments should always contribute to the discussion;
• Instead of being upset about spelling or crossposting (a post that appears in multiple subreddits), you should vote and move on.
• Etc.

Here is a small list of rules to follow when you are on Reddit. Obviously, it’s not exhaustive and there’s nothing better than taking your first steps on the platform to get an idea of how to accommodate yourself.

2.5.2. The jargon of reddit

Thanks to its tags, Reddit allows redditors to be notified about the type of post they are making.

Source r/CrossStitch

This option of reddit, allows you to sort publications according to their types. It is then good to use it even if there is no real need

Below, you’ll see a small but not exhaustive list of tags that many redditors add to their posts:

• OC “Original content”: Used to notify that you are publishing your own work;
• Becquet: Used to inform other users that the content of the post might surprise those who are not familiar with the subject;
• AMA “Ask Me anything”: As you might guess, used to let other users know to ask anything;
• Crosspost: Tells redditors that this content has also been posted on another relevant subreddit;
• ELI5: Allows you to ask someone to make something more explicit;
• DAE: Used by a redditor when he sees that someone else is plagiarizing;
• FTFY: To correct a previous comment;
• TL or DR: Used when making a short summary of a long article;
• OMI: Used by redditors when expressing their views;
• NSFW: To mark explicit content that people won’t want to see in public places.

Nice jargon, isn’t it? Let’s see how to use this social network to boost your content marketing strategy.

Chapter Three How to use Reddit in a content marketing strategy?

More than a social network, Reddit is, due to its multiple assets, a real ally for content marketing. Thus, there are a multitude of ways to use Reddit in a content marketing strategy

Here are some of them:

3.1. search and join relevant subreddits

Join relevant subreddits. In other words, join subreddits that are thematically relevant to your business

You can easily find subreddits by typing a keyword describing the type of subreddits you want to join in the Reddit search bar, and then join them using the “join” button.

The following image shows subreddits discussing marketing

The red boxed area will allow you to enter your keyword and the yellow boxed area will allow you to join the community you want.

3.2. build trust

When you publish content on your subreddit, consider reading the comments generated by your post. This way, you can answer users’ questions and find out what they really think about your post

Show that you value the community you belong to. By doing this, you build trust between you and your audience.

Keep in mind that most research shows that it is the trust a customer places in a sales rep that can lead them to buy or advertise a product.

3.3. create content that helps people

In subreddits, there are contents that are meant to help people create or improve their businesses. Of these contents, the best ones are placed at the top of the subreddit posts.

When you’re looking for the kind of content you could produce and post on Reddit, think about the concerns people are asking experts in your field

If you’re a web writer, for example, post articles in your subreddit that will help young writers in their careers

If you’re in the cosmetics business, share tips through your posts that could help people take better care of their skin or body.

The goal is to make yourself known by posting articles that your audience would really like to read and share.

3.4. Create quality content

The content you post on Reddit will actually aim to increase traffic to your site and generate more leads for you by optimizing your positioning in your subreddit.

Poor quality content will permanently affect your reputation, which is so difficult and delicate to build. In other words, the worse your content is, the worse your marketing achievement will be

I hope I can make you understand the importance of publishing quality content with the following infographic :

So, feel free to put content on your pages while taking care to make sure it’s high quality.

3.5. Covet content ideas

Take advantage of subreddits related to your field to find unanswered questions to use them to produce content

Don’t be afraid to produce your content around the unanswered questions. This way, you can get ranked for searches against these questions

This will give you content that is relevant to related questions that other users are asking.

On the other hand, the community site that is Reddit allows you to take a look at publications that have already worked and generated a lot of comments

You can build from these publications original ideas to create content that will attract a lot of traffic to your site.

The goal is to generate many leads by allowing Reddit search engines to display your content.

3.6. Make the discovery of new site

On the web, there are websites in all fields that capture the attention of Internet users or that represent a significant resource

You can check out these sites to see how the competition is doing Reddit offers you, through its subreddits, the possibility to know the blogs currently in vogue in your field

These recommended websites are listed in the sidebar of your subreddit:

source Shivar Web

3.7. Use RedditAds

Today, social networks, thanks to their “Ads”, offer various advertising services to companies. Reddit although being a community network has an advertising service “RedditAds” which allows it to help businesses that are struggling to deploy.

It promotes a URL and a title at a very affordable costThe unique thing about Reddit is that you can target people who are subscribed to a subreddit category

Companies use RedditAds to keep their audience informed about events or information that are relevant to their brands.

To create and manage your advertising campaign on Reddit, you can go to this page Redditinc.

3.8. Use a calendar

In addition to RedditAds, using a calendar is a very clever way to notify your audience about future events of your business. Calendars are widely used by soccer club subreddits

They use them to broadcast match schedules, standings, etc.

For example, take a look at the January 2020 events calendar fromEmpires and Puzzles

3.9. Use Reddit to address customer service issues

Create a subreddit to which you will direct your audience in order to maintain a permanent contact with them. In this subreddit, customers will be able to ask you their concerns and hope to get an answer.

Let’s take the example of the Xbox 360, which directs customers to a subreddit dedicated to solving their problems, as quickly as possible:

Here are the 9 different ways to leverage Reddit for your content marketing strategy that I’ve identified.

In summary

Reddit is a gold mine that is largely under-exploited by web marketers. It showcases its content through positive/negative votes, and the best content manages to perform better.

Content marketers should think about incorporating Reddit into their content marketing strategies to make it more rewarding This community is very large and it is not easy to leverage its multiple assets.

However, in this article, I have given you several ways or alternatives to optimize your content marketing strategy through Reddit.

Exploit them while following the various rules established by the platform to avoid being penalized.

See you soon!