Recently in the headlines for its role in destroying Wall Street’s short-selling of GameStop, Reddit has a mixed reputation amongst the general public and business community. Catering to a wide range of niche communities, from economic investments to craft tips, businesses have an opportunity to build a community with their target audience by utilising this platform. 

What is Reddit?

Reddit is home to thousands of communities, endless conversation, and authentic human connection. Whether you're into breaking news, sports, TV fan theories, or a never-ending stream of the internet's cutest animals, there's a community on Reddit for you.

Founded in 2005, this platform has remained consistently popular for fifteen years as one of the top 100 websites in the world. Reddit is most used in the United States of America, which accounts for 47.82% of its total traffic. Its next largest audience is from the United Kingdom which makes up 7.6% of users, which is a large margin of difference. However, unlike the last platform we put under the microscope – Tumblr – there is greater diversity amongst the age of its users with the largest age demographics being the 18-29 and 30-49 ranges. 

Unlike other platforms we have explored in this series, content on Reddit isn’t curated by an algorithm; rather it is circulated through up and downvotes and moderated by community volunteers. Characterised as a social news platform, Reddit supports a range of media uploads (including images, videos and audio) and offers advertising packages for businesses. 

After joining Reddit, users follow communities which are centred around certain subjects. Their dashboard also shows the most popular recent posts from all Reddit users, which have the most upvotes. This gives users the opportunity to see content from a wide range of users; not just the accounts or communities they follow.

How Can Reddit Help Businesses?

Reddit can generate lots of traffic to your website and social media accounts, both advertising packages and free engagement with the community. Diving into the community is the most effective way to utilise Reddit and the more time you put on the platform, the more you will get out of it. 

In addition to its marketing potential, Reddit is also a useful customer engagement tool and you can use its communication functions to provide customer services. This is useful for small businesses who don’t have a fully developed website, as subreddits can be created for specific problems, advice and products. Another advantage of this is that other customers can add their advice to these subreddits. 

How to Utilise Reddit

Ready to take the plunge? Follow Squideo’s top five tips to get started on Reddit and utilise it for your business. 

1. Market Research

Use communities to find out what your customers want, don’t want, like and don’t like. It is easy to find your customer base due to the existing niche communities and subreddits on the platform. Ask questions on existing posts and upvote content you like. The better your Reddit karma, the better your chance of getting upvotes on your posts and reaching other users’ dashboards. 

2. Befriend Your Audience

Like Tumblr, the best way to succeed on Reddit is to lean into the uniqueness of the platform. Transparent marketing campaigns work best, instead of content shaped around trending content and hashtags – which performs better on sites like Instagram and TikTok. Generic marketing campaigns can often get downvoted because the creator is seen as being unengaged with the community – and community is the most important part of Reddit! 

3. Learn From Dashboard

When it comes to trending content, don’t look at Google Trends, look at your Reddit dashboard. See what has got the most upvotes and try to replicate possible reasons for its success. Did it include video content? Does it use a bright colour palette? Maybe the content is humorous or educational? Learn from your dashboard and use what you see to improve your performance on the platform. Let it inspire you – but don’t copy it. That will only earn you downvotes and damage your Reddit karma. 

4. Build a Community

When content is posted to Reddit, it takes on a life of its own as other users can up and downvote and add comments of their own. This allows existing customers of your product or service to contribute feedback and guidance, helping shape the perspectives of potential customers. Always engage with comments left on your posts. Each of these comments can be upvoted and has the potential to become more popular than the original post. You don’t want to be left out of the conversation, especially if it's attracted a lot of people to the table. 

5. Host an AMA

AMAs stand for “Ask Me Anything”. Host an AMA on Reddit regardless of how big a following you have. If gives you an opportunity to tap into your community and answer questions you wouldn’t think to ask on a routine FAQ page. 

Get Started with Video Marketing Today!

Hopefully, you found this installation of Have You Considered useful. Follow our blog to stay tuned while we explore other underutilised platforms and find ways to make your brand stand out. And speaking of standing out, check out our portfolio! 

If you want to discuss how animated explainer videos can benefit your business, get in touch with the Squideo team today.