Marketers should stop being fearful of Reddit — here’s why

The following is a guest piece by Geoff Gates, creative director, social strategy and content, for Boathouse. Opinions are the writer’s own. 

Few social platforms are met with as much unreasoned trepidation as Reddit. After a powerful IPO, Reddit has continued to over-deliver, reporting a 48% increase in revenue in its first quarter of public trading. The platform boasts 73.1 million day by day energetic users (DAUs) and greater than 100,000 energetic subreddits. This audience is a highly engaged one and isn’t afraid to precise opinions.

So where does the fear to activate on Reddit come from? Why are so many marketers missing out on what it has to supply? I’d argue it’s so simple as a scarcity of knowledge of the opportunities it presents to those that are looking in the proper places.

Here are some of the potential advantages of being on Reddit, together with a spread of ways you should utilize it to assist your organization or your clients.

The Opportunities

Community engagement

The community could also be small, however it sure is mighty. Reddit users are posting a mean of 1.2 million posts per day; they’re an energetic group. Reddit is fertile ground for constructing relationships with people. But check your brand hat on the door, additionally they sniff out promoting a mile away. Come in with a real point of view or word of advice — don’t hit them over the pinnacle with a sell.

Amplified reach

Reddit has 267.5 million weekly energetic users, which is about half of what X reports on a monthly basis. The audience on Reddit is a voracious one which creates and consumes content as much as or greater than audiences on other platforms. When content resonates, the up-voting system takes over and has the flexibility to thrust content into increasingly more feeds. But before you post, do your research and lean into what people on the platform are already talking about.

Market research

While Reddit did suffer its own API-gate, as of today third-party platforms are still in a position to access its API. This signifies that the platform will be scanned by social listening tools, which I personally think is one of the most useful things you possibly can do with Reddit. If you’re wondering what’s being discussed in a specific industry, look no further. Reddit is incredible for gleaning industry insights and opinions that will help form your content and even your product strategy. Scans will be utilized in upfront research or consistently as ways to get a feel for what individuals are talking about.

Feedback and innovation

Listen and innovate. Reddit users post their feelings and experiences with services and products ceaselessly, and a few of what they are saying will be helpful so that you can hear. Take into consideration their feedback where it is sensible. You wouldn’t ignore a customer in the event that they got here right into a brick and mortar to talk, would you?

Partnerships

There are plenty of well-established presences on Reddit. Explore the choice of partnering with someone who has a well-established audience to get you off the bottom on the platform. Having the backing of a trusted source will do wonders.

Levels of Reddit use

Still undecided what to do with all of this? I like to recommend selecting one of three levels of Reddit use: The creator, the engager or the listener.

The creator

This approach actively creates content for Reddit. This would require probably the most work, resources and knowledge, but has the potential to bring you probably the most value. Create your channel and start to post, but don’t forget to have interaction with community members and subreddits. If you’re not able to be less “brand” otherwise you’re not able to dedicate some creative resources to it, this feature might not be best for you.

The engager

This approach doesn’t create content in the best way we typically think of content, but engaging with users is nonetheless a form of content creation. This approach could have you living in subreddits becoming an energetic member with a POV, the final word goal of which is so as to add value to Reddit users.

This is the right in-between approach for corporations that need to have a presence without having to dedicate as many resources to content creation.