Over 200 million visitors flock to Reddit each month, making it the 33rd most popular website on the internet.  An increasing number of businesses and marketers are harnessing Reddit as a content marketing engine. Those smart marketers have found ways to divert some of the platform’s vast traffic to their websites, products, or services.

Reddit is known as the place to go to tell your tale if you’ve published a book, starred in a movie, or orbited Earth in a space station. But on a higher level, Reddit is a place to share deep thoughts, experiences, and expertise. You’ll be hard-pressed to find a subject that doesn’t have a Reddit community, or subreddit, dedicated to it.

This article will lay down the fundamentals of an effective Reddit marketing strategy.

This article is divided into 2 sections, both of which contain information vitally important to your success as a champion Reddit content marketer.

  • Part 1 – 3 secrets for success in using reddit for marketing
  • Part 2 – Step-by-step instructions for getting your Reddit account up and running.

So let’s get started!

reddit marketing strategy

3 secrets for success in using reddit for marketing

Unfortunately, most marketers fail on Reddit because they don’t take the time to learn how Reddit works, or understand the users who populate and power the platform. 

Unlike many other social networks, where you can create an account and figure things out as you go along, in Reddit you either sink or swim. That’s why it’s important to do your research and learn the rules before you become active on the site.

1. Be Genuine

It sounds kind of hokey, but it’s true. If you want Redditors to believe that the content you share is worth reading, or the product you recommend is worth trying out, they need to trust you. And in order for that trust to develop you need to just be yourself.

Join subreddits that interest you and participate in conversations about your hobbies. Talk about books, movies, your favorite vacation spots, or your newest phone apps. Let your fellow Redditors get to know you as a person and become a part of the community.

If you do this regularly, when other users visit your profile to learn more about you (which they will do) they will be greeted with a list of interesting comments and contributions from your history, which will help give you authority and prove that you are active on the site.

marketing strategy for reddit principle 1 be genuine

Bandholz is the founder of Beardbrand and these are the results that I see when I click on his username. It looks he’s a pretty active member who often shares valuable content.

2. Become one with Reddit

To really succeed on Reddit you have to become a Redditor yourself.

You want to understand how Redditors think and communicate so that you can interact in the same manner and share content that will be well received. So before you create your Reddit account, just spend some time on the site visiting the different subreddits and reading the submissions and comments.

You will notice that many Redditors have a certain sense of humor and sometimes the comments themselves will take on a life of their own. If you can adopt this style you will do very well here.

A word of warning: While it’s helpful to mimic the funny and irreverent style of commenting that’s popular on Reddit, don’t forget that you are here as a professional. This means that you need to be more restrained in your conversation than the average Redditor. So stay classy and don’t say or share anything that you wouldn’t want your boss or clients to read.

What kind of content do Redditors like to read and share?

Well, take a look:

Top 4 Reddit posts of all time

#1

example of reddit marketing strategy 2

#3

content markeing strategy for reddit example

#4

reddit digital marketing example 4

#5

Barak_Obama_AMA reddit content marketing example 5

Redditors enjoy sharing content that entertains, educates or kicks off a good discussion, so be creative and see if you can find ways to present your content in a way that will appeal to the Reddit community.

3. Provide value

If all you do is share links to your website or try to make your product the topic of every conversation, you will pretty quickly make a bad name for yourself. This can lead to all of your contributions being downvoted, and you may even be outed as a spammer by other Redditors. In order to avoid this from happening you need to ensure that everything you share on the site will provide value to your fellow Redditors.

key activities for building relationships and creating trust:

  1. Offer tips and advice on topics that you are knowledgeable about, without asking for anything in return.
  2. Share links to interesting articles that aren’t your own.
  3. Share detailed information about how your business achieved successful results in various activities. Beardbrand gained Redditors respect by sharing a post on r/Entrepreneur detailing how they built their brand and the resulting profits.

And now, young grasshopper, you are ready to begin your Reddit journey.

How to start content marketing on Reddit (step-by-step)

Reddit happens to be my favorite social media platform and I love sharing with other marketers (or anyone that will listen, really) the various tips and tricks that I’ve picked up throughout my years as a Redditor. If you’ll listen, I’d love to share some tips I’ve seen work time and again.

1. Open an account and pick a username

Choose your username wisely because once created it can’t be changed. It’s a good idea to pick a playful name that reflects you or your business, but without giving away the fact that you’re here as a marketer. You can simply use your own name or initials but you’ll score more points from your fellow Redditors if you show some creativity. 

If you are running a paid ad campaign then using your company name is acceptable because you are openly representing your brand. Some examples of this are XboxModerator and redbullESPORTS. Feeling uninspired? Try this username generator.

2. Join subreddits

When you create a Reddit account you are automatically added to 50 default subreddits, which you can view here. Go through the list to see what’s there, unsubscribing to any groups that don’t interest you or aren’t relevant to the audience that you want to reach.

start content marketing on Reddit example unsubscribe_from_reddit

You can also take a look in your sidebar for a list of all the subreddits that you are subscribed to. The content from these subreddits will show up on the front page of your Reddit account.

start content marketing on Reddit reddit_sidebar

Next, start joining subreddits based on topics that do interest you. A good place to start is by doing a search. Do you like food and cooking? Search for “cooking. ” The results will show you subreddits about cooking, food, and various diets, as well as discussions about cooking that have taken place in the past.

start content marketing on Reddit cooking subreddits

Pay attention to which subreddits those discussions took place in since it may give you ideas of other relevant groups that you can join.

To view discussions and links shared on all of the subreddits, click the “All” button at the top of your page. This is a good way to discover new subreddits that may interest you.

marketing on Reddit All button

If you’re in an experimental mood, try clicking on the “Random” button in the navigation bar. Do this is a few times and you will likely discover a whole world of subreddits that you would never have thought to look for. (Disclaimer: I accept no responsibility for where you may end up. But enjoy the ride.) 

The 10 most popular subreddits at this time:

3. Start socializing

There are four main interactions that you can take part in on Reddit:

  1. submitting a link or text comment
  2. commenting as a response to someone else’s submission to a text comment
  3. upvoting
  4. downvoting

Participating in these activities will not only help you integrate into the Reddit community but they will also gain you points, or “karma.” The more karma you have the better your standings.

Commenting:

to leave a comment simply enter a subreddit and look through the discussions there to find one that you feel you can contribute to. If someone likes your comment then they may click on the up arrow by your comment, thereby upvoting you and gaining you some comment karma.

Submissions:

your ultimate goal may be to submit articles from your own website or blog but for now, limit yourself to sharing content from other sources. Begin by reading the reddiquette so that you are familiar with the basic guidelines for participating on Reddit. Each subreddit also has its own set of rules for posting and basic etiquette, which you should read as well. These can be found in the sidebar.

Next, take a look at the content other members are sharing so that you can get an idea of the type of articles or links that are appreciated here. 

If your submission is well-liked then it will get upvoted, gaining you Link Karma. If it gets enough upvotes it may make it to the Front Page, where it will receive more views and will likely be shared on other social media platforms.

If you’re a regular reader of Mashable you will probably notice that many of the news items that they share are originally from Reddit. 

In addition to sharing links, you can also create a text submission, which means you would actually need to write some content in a provided text box, in order to generate a discussion or share information.

Some subreddits will only let you share these types of submissions, though this can be an excellent way to showcase your expertise on a subject and lead readers back to your website where they can find more information of value to them.

3. Upvoting/Downvoting:

When you see a comment or submission that you like or agree with, give it some love and upvote it. This will give the submitter some much-appreciated karma.

On the other hand, if you come across a submission or comment that you disagree with, or which you feel is not appropriate for the subreddit, you can go ahead and downvote it. Don’t go overboard with your downvoting though, because nobody likes a troll.

4. Grow your karma

It takes a bit of time to build up a nice amount of karma, and once you become familiar with Reddit you will probably discover your own tricks for growing your stash.

This particular Reddit strategy is one that I use often to grow my comment karma:

  1. Pick a popular subreddit that covers a subject that you are knowledgeable about, or which covers a variety of topics. Subreddits like AskReddit or TodayILearned are good options.
  2. Go into the subreddit and click on the “Rising” button in the group’s navigation bar. This will show you the recent posts that are gaining traction but aren’t yet overwhelmed with comments.
  3. Pick a question that you feel qualified to answer and leave a comment.
  4. Upvote the question to help it become more popular
  5. Check back later to see how this post is doing. If it does become popular then your comment on it will have been noticed by everyone who came afterward, making it likely to be upvoted (or maybe downvoted, but that’s a risk you have to take).

Another option is to submit your original question or comment to one of these popular groups and if it gains traction, go back a short time later and leave a comment. This way you will gain both comment karma and link karma if your post does well.

Now go off and make some Reddit magic!