{"id":11000,"date":"2018-06-29T14:16:49","date_gmt":"2018-06-29T19:16:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thinkerventures.com\/article\/\/"},"modified":"2018-06-29T14:16:49","modified_gmt":"2018-06-29T19:16:49","slug":"reddit-marketing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thinkerventures.com\/reddit-marketing\/","title":{"rendered":"To build your brand on Reddit, learn the culture"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"\"Reddit is the largest untapped resource social media source in marketing.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is home to more than 1.7 billion monthly visitors<\/a> and yet you’ll find precious little on how to build your brand in the Redditor realm. Many of those who have tried have been shouted down because Redditors hate shills. It takes a special skill to build your brand in Reddit. I call it karma-driven marketing. <\/span><\/p>\n

What is karma-driven marketing? I wrote about it earlier this month<\/a>. Here are some concrete tips and tricks to put it into action.<\/span><\/p>\n

Provide authentic <\/span>value to the community, don’t pitch<\/span><\/h3>\n

On Reddit, as in advertising, audience matters. After all, no matter how incredibly helpful your comment might be,<\/span>\u00a0it won\u2019t make much of a sound\u00a0if you post it on <\/span>an<\/span> inactive thread<\/span>. <\/span><\/p>\n

There are reams of data available on timing your posts,\u00a0<\/span>and once you get around to running a campaign, that inf<\/span>ormation might be worthwhile. In general, <\/span>it\u2019s simpler to use <\/span>reddit\u2019s built-in sorting<\/span>. <\/span>Reddit\u2019s algorithm defaults to <\/span>\u201cHot,\u201d which shows you the posts with the most recent upvotes, but <\/span>by the time a post hits the top, it\u2019s unlikely that you could <\/span>add anything new \u2014 or <\/span>even <\/span>get noticed if you did. <\/span>Instead, sort the subreddit by <\/span>\u201cRising<\/span>,\u201d and<\/span>, if you find a post in your wheelhouse with a relatively high number of comments, look through the top few comments in the thread for opportunities to contribute. <\/span><\/p>\n

The ideal situation is when the original post contains a question and, despite everyone chiming in with an opinion, nobody\u2019s fully addressed it correctly. Upvotes don\u2019t matter nearly as much, although they\u2019ll contribute to long-term visibility, but you want your most valuable contributions to be on threads where everyone\u2019s reading the comments.<\/span><\/p>\n

Over time, by providing legitimate value to the community in highly visible situations, you\u2019ll build the <\/span>familiarity with Reddit culture <\/span>required to market your brand more<\/span> openly (more on that later). <\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>Perhaps the most <\/span>powerful way to raise your profile<\/span>, <\/span>however<\/span>, is <\/span>to periodically post long, thorough guides to some aspect of your field. Offer consistent quality on a regular schedule, and within a few months you\u2019ll have built a name for yourself as a subject-matter expert. If you\u2019re going to invest that much time, though, you\u2019ve got to pick the right topic.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>I\u2019d recommend keeping a running file of commonly asked questions, misunderstandings, or debates \u2014 new users are constantly coming along, so more focused subreddits get the same questions all the time<\/span>. Any of those that haven\u2019t already been addressed \u2014 check the sidebar and \u201c<\/span>stickied<\/span>\u201d posts atop the subreddit for resource guides \u2014 are likely to be a productive topic for a <\/span>post<\/span><\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Participate in threads that aren\u2019t exactly on-message for your brand<\/span><\/h3>\n

Honest participation in a community means engaging with all sorts of <\/span>Redditors<\/span>, including those who may, rightly or wrongly, be critical of you or your company. <\/span>Ironically, <\/span>though, <\/span>the most positive impressions are often made by handling negative attention openly, calmly and honestly.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

Consider <\/span>the brand experience of <\/span>Psyonix<\/span><\/a>, the developer of<\/span> the popular game<\/span> <\/span>Rocket League<\/span>. <\/span>Psyonix<\/span> developers, clearly identified in their usernames, have been active members of the game\u2019s subreddit from the start. They respond to discussions of persistent bugs, listen to user complaints about design decisions, and\u00a0<\/span>clearly communicate the community\u2019s concerns to their team; issues that arose on the subreddit are routinely addressed in subsequent patches. <\/span>As a result, <\/span>Psyonix<\/span> has a phenomenal reputation as a responsive developer \u2014 one of the good guys \u2014 and, in return, fans not only offer their continued loyalty, they\u2019re much more tolerant of server issues, bugs or PR missteps<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/span> <\/span>You might think that, as a brand representative, it\u2019s best to remain <\/span>refined<\/span> and polished, always careful to avoid <\/span>controversy, opinion or casual asides<\/span>. <\/span>It\u2019s not. <\/span>Across social media, we\u2019ve seen brand ambassadors rewarded for showing their human side. Right after the University of Maryland-Baltimore County, a No. 16 seed in the NCAA tournament, upset top-seeded Virginia last March, its Twitter account went viral for how it spent the entire game brutally roasting a commentator who\u2019d ruled them out too soon<\/a><\/span>. There is power in acknowledging your mistakes, bluntly addressing criticism and admitting that you don\u2019t know when a problem will be fixed. You speak for the character of your brand, so be authentic, and<\/span> human, and real<\/span>. <\/span><\/p>\n

Design campaigns to account for Reddit\u2019s unique culture<\/span><\/h3>\n

All that\u00a0<\/span>isn\u2019t <\/span>to say <\/span>it\u2019s impossible to run <\/span>conventional <\/span>marketing on Reddit. It\u2019s not. Lenovo, Maker\u2019s Mark and Spotify all <\/span>found success there. <\/span>And once you\u2019ve gotten a sense for how the community works, so could you, because successful campaigns on Reddit almost always revolve around community engagement. In designing a Reddit-specific campaign, keep a few ground rules in mind. <\/span><\/p>\n

First of all<\/span>, <\/span>any campaign you run on Reddit <\/span>should aim to generate discussion, interaction and creativity. <\/span>While Spotify ran monthly playlist competitions<\/span>, <\/span>Lenovo<\/span> <\/span>asked Reddit to create an 8-bit version of a satirical game\u00a0<\/span>whose objective was to <\/span>destroy Lenovo computers. The challenge immediately engaged entire subreddits in a shared creative enterprise \u2014 which not only generated serious publicity, it guaranteed that users would feel personally invested in the campaign\u2019s result. <\/span><\/p>\n

Which brings us to my next point: D<\/span>on\u2019t be afraid to subvert Reddit\u2019s hatred for marketing by using irony, humor or, as Lenovo did, self-deprecation. <\/span>To <\/span>paraphrase Tyrion, the <\/span>greatest marketer <\/span>in all <\/span>Westeros, <\/span>if you make <\/span>a shield of your weakness, it can\u2019t be used <\/span>to hurt yo<\/span>u<\/span>.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

Finally<\/span>, don\u2019t promise something you aren\u2019t willing to deliver. While the British government thought it wise to ask the Internet to name its new polar research ship<\/span>, it backed off calling the $287 million investment \u201c<\/span>Boaty<\/span> <\/span>McBoatface<\/span><\/a>.\u201d This was the most foreseeable result in the world, surprisingly only in how adorably tame it was<\/span>. Whatever power you offer <\/span>Redditors<\/span> over your brand, make sure you\u2019re willing to accept their decision.<\/span><\/p>\n

One way around this problem is to craft your campaign explicitly around content or choices specifically designed to appeal to <\/span>Redditors<\/span>. That\u2019s the approach Maker\u2019s<\/span> Mark took in its \u201cLet It <\/span>Snoo<\/span>\u201d campaign, which ended up as a textbook <\/span>example of <\/span>successful <\/span>Reddit marketing<\/span>. The campaign named for Reddit\u2019s alien mascot\u00a0<\/span>was funny, designed specifically for <\/span>Redditors<\/span>, <\/span>and <\/span>offered a <\/span>contest whose conceit \u2014 generating fake, bourbon-related Derby-horse names \u2014 was<\/span> unique<\/span>, <\/span>compelling<\/span>\u00a0and designed to <\/span>generate fun, compelling <\/span>discussion<\/span>s<\/span>. <\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>But Reddit didn\u2019t make an exception for Maker\u2019s Mark, Lenovo or <\/span>Psyonix<\/span>. Those brands, and<\/span> others like them<\/span>, <\/span>succeeded because they invested enough time <\/span>to understand, embrace and speak to Reddit\u2019s community instead of treating <\/span>users as resources to be mined. <\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m not so sure that <\/span>Redditors<\/span> are <\/span>intrinsically hostile to marketers<\/span>\u00a0so much as\u00a0<\/span>they\u2019re hostile toward<\/span> people who don\u2019t know anything about Reddit. <\/span>Strangers<\/span> <\/span>in the neighborhood<\/span>, as it were<\/span>. <\/span>Not you, though. You\u2019ll craft <\/span>your marketing strategies<\/span> <\/span>around the importance of<\/span> community<\/span>, <\/span>buy into <\/span>the site\u2019s organic experience<\/span>\u00a0and,\u00a0<\/span>before long, you and your brand will be reaping the benefits of a larger audience, a more-engaged userbase, <\/span>and a better online reputation <\/span>than ever before<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reddit is the largest untapped resource social media source in…<\/p>\n

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