How brands can harness the power of Reddit in their digital strategy
Kait Richmond is a writer, producer and contributor to the M.T. Deco Blog
Reddit is a great place for brands to be - if you know how to use it.
A lot of people are mystified by Reddit, but millions more are not. There are 70 million daily active users (Redditors) who are a part of more than 100,000 active communities (Subreddits). Redditors are smart, savvy consumers who can sniff out promotional B.S. faster than your average social media user, so while it can be a tricky platform for brands, the communities there can make it worthwhile.
It’s not exactly thought of as traditional social media, but it has been on the periphery of that conversation as long as it’s been around. Started in 2005, Reddit was built to be “the front page of the Internet.” It does, in some ways, resemble a newspaper, being very text-heavy with a lot of photos. Here’s how it works, according to Sprout Social:
Reddit’s algorithm is designed to rank content based on what’s Hot and Best, guided by key signals like:
The number of upvotes, downvotes and total votes it gets. Reddit uses votes as a signal to determine post relevance.
Recent posts gain more traction and visibility. If you’re marketing on Reddit, ensure you consistently post valuable content.
The types of comments it gets. For example, a comment with nine up-votes and two down-votes will rank higher than a comment with one-up votes and no-down votes.
What makes Reddit attractive for brands is the communities of passionate users. The beauty brand Laneige tapped into that this year, seeing opportunity in Subreddits like r/SkincareAddiction, which has 2.5 million members.
“We knew the beauty communities on Reddit are so strong, and that they have a strong affinity toward beauty and skin care,” said Shrija Pandya, senior manager of growth and performance marketing at Laneige, told Glossy. “From a media perspective, we were trying to understand what we could do that was new and innovative and how we could build upon the channels where we have untapped new audiences.”
Laneige partnered with Reddit to use promoted posts and videos across multiple Subreddits with the goal of “promoting brand awareness, purchase consideration and intent.” According to Glossy, Laneige succeeded “with a 50% higher click-through rate than Reddit’s beauty vertical benchmark and a 42% higher video completion rate than Reddit’s beauty vertical benchmark for six-second videos.”
The communities to tap into are endless and although Redditors are not always fans of brands selling directly on the platform, there are plenty of places that drive purchase, like r/BuyItForLife, where there are 1.8 million members.
There’s a lot of white space, which means a lot of brands are skeptics - and rightfully so. In the early days, Reddit was a bit more lawless and had problems with things like hate speech. That has improved, and will likely continue to as the company works toward an IPO. Reddit has also remained incredibly relevant, particularly with the finance community and even more niche ones that tend to grab big headlines, like those interested in the Supreme Court.
We know what you’re thinking: you’re intrigued, but not sure where to begin. The first step is to start checking out Subreddits dedicated to your own interests. If you decide to explore further for your brand, here are a few thought starters:
Begin with social listening, because this will further help you learn how Reddit works while gathering useful information along the way. Find the Subreddits where your brand plugs in, and get to know what the Redditors are talking about. This alone will help you understand what customers want in your product, what’s working for competitors and how you might be able to use Reddit in a bigger way. Bonus: you might come across some positive chatter about your brand that you can spin into UGC content.
Reddit is not friendly to salespeople, but if used the right way, it can be friendly to customer service reps. In a blog on how to market on Reddit, Sprout Social put it best: “Arguably one of the best ways to approach marketing on Reddit is to prioritize support over selling.” Once you understand the conversation, you’ll start to find ways in, such as suggesting a solution to someone having trouble with your product, or offering up your services when people are discussing what a competitor lacks.
If you have a Redditor on your team, let them handle the account. Profiles show post and comment history, so if you’re making a brand new account and automatically jumping in, other users will see that and could downvote your content if they think you’re only there to sell your brand. Just make sure that Redditor has a brand-safe history!
Looking for advice on what not to do? Check out r/HailCorporate. And for the many people trying to figure it all out, there are some great conversations happening in r/Marketing. This thread is a couple years old, but has some great takeaways to consider as you think of how your brand can show up.