Introduction

Thank you for signing up at MarketersGuideToReddit.com. You have taken the first step to becoming a successful Reddit user.

The purpose of this short eBook is to teach you the fundamentals of Reddit marketing by highlighting the common mistakes made by businesses. These are mistakes that we see businesses making over and over again, yielding no results and sometimes damaging their reputation. This eBook will show you how to avoid making these mistakes and build a solid foundation for a successful Reddit marketing campaign.

Soon we will be emailing you a few important stories that will get you excited about Reddit and show you how others have been successful on the platform.

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Thinking of Reddit as a single community

MISTAKE #1

Reddit is actually made up of individual communities called “subreddits”. Each subreddit has its own unique rules, culture, and demographics. For example, while the majority of subscribers to the Gaming community are likely men, there is a community called TwoXChromosomes that is undoubtedly dominated by women. According to Reddit, only 53% of Reddit users are men, which goes against the myth that women do not use the platform.

While the general demographics of Reddit matter, it is more important to find the subreddits that are specifically related to your niche and focus on becoming a contributing member in those communities. When you focus on a niche community, it will be much easier to engage the community and share your relevant expertise.

Key TakeawayDon’t ignore smaller subreddits. Every business should start with the most relevant niche communities and build up to larger, more general subreddits over time.

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Overestimating the greatness of their product

MISTAKE #2

This is a common thought businesses have when considering marketing on Reddit:

"Our product is amazing, our content is great, redditors will love it. Let's submit a link to our website and we will generate traffic."

Here is an actual Reddit post by “Mindfiremedia”, a firm based in the UK, that shows the above thought in action:

All they have done is link to the homepage of their website. There is no explanation on where the link goes or how it is relevant to the community and they have made no attempt to contribute value with their post. This submission created no results and could have been flagged as spam.

The only way to create long-term success on Reddit is to focus on how you, as a business, can contribute to the communities you engage. This is done by spending time in the communities, looking for opportunities to help, and capitalizing on those opportunities.

Key TakeawayDon’t expect Reddit to automatically see the greatness of your product. Instead, find ways to contribute value and demonstrate your relevance to the community.

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Ignoring the other things Reddit has to offer besides traffic

MISTAKE #3

Reddit has the ability to generate traffic and sales for a business, but it is extremely difficult to actively achieve those results in a direct way. Redditors are just too good at sniffing out marketing attempts. The good news is that those types of rewards will eventually come and in the meantime, Reddit has other things to offer.

A subreddit can serve as a focus groupSome businesses spend thousands of dollars on focus grouping. If you ask for feedback the right way, redditors are more than happy to share their thoughts with you for free. Their responses will help you learn more about your target audience, improve your product, and revise your marketing material.

Reddit is a networking platformBy getting involved in a community on reddit, you will engage smart and dedicated enthusiasts who can become valuable assets to your business.

Instead of thinking of Reddit as a pool of potential pageviews, think of them as a group of educated consumers and thought-leaders who can provide valuable referrals and collaborative opportunities.

Reddit can be used to validate a business ideaHoney is a Chrome browser extension that automatically applies coupon codes to your shopping cart when checking out online. In effort to expand their offerings, one of Honey’s co-founders had the idea to integrate their application with Bitcoin, the popular digital currency.

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To validate this idea, he posted to the /r/Bitcoin community on reddit to see what they thought of the idea.

This post received a huge response from the /r/Bitcoin community. It was upvoted by ~93% of voters and received over 500 comments that overwhelmingly supported the idea. For Honey, this was the validation from their target audience to go forward and develop the Bitcoin integration feature.

Key TakeawayReddit can provide more than just web traffic. There is a diverse group of influential users who can help you grow your business.

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Making and sharing bad contentMISTAKE #4

Reddit is a battleground for content and the competition is very high. If your post does not deliver substantial value, it will not be upvoted or seen by the community and could potentially be removed as spam.

You can improve your chances of creating content the community will love by getting to know the community and becoming an active member. Here are a few prompts for how you can deliver value to a subreddit:

• Solve a problem you know they have. Find a discussion thread surrounding a specific problem or ask the community what problems they have.

• Tell the community about an opportunity that they can take advantage of. This could be a special (and exclusive) offer or discount. It could be an invitation or other piece of information that community members can utilize.

• Give Redditors access to your expertise or authority that is missing from the community. Demonstrate your expertise by answering their questions and being helpful. Demonstrate your authority by sharing a decision you made that affects the community.

• Tell a story they can relate to (and haven’t heard before). Tell them all of the details in an exclusive story that teaches a lesson or provides insider information.

“A Beard Shop” Posts to /r/BeardsIf you are in the beard-related business, then /r/Beards is a community you want to engage. “A Beard Shop” did just that with their post about beard oil.

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This post did very well in the /r/Beards community because it provided relevant value and generated an in-depth discussion. The moderators of /r/Beards thought the post was so valuable that they linked to it in the sidebar of /r/Beards under their “Bearding Guides” section. This means a link to the post will show up in the sidebar on every page of the subreddit.

You can also see that the post was tagged “Vendor/Sponsor”, signifying that the user “ABeardShop” is in the beard business. While many businesses think Reddit will downvote their posts if they submit under their business name, this post proves that redditors respect brands that contribute valuable content.

While ABeardShop did not link to their website in the post, they were able to share their website through natural engagement in the comments section.

Key TakeawayGo the extra mile to create and share unique content that provides exclusive value to Redditors.

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Not using text or "self" postsMISTAKE #5

There are two types of posts on Reddit – link posts and text posts (also called “self” posts). Link posts can send redditors directly to your website, but they also make redditors more skeptical of your post and can even cause it to be removed as spam.

We suggest you give up on the idea of sending reddit traffic directly to your landing page and focus on contributing valuable content in the form of a text post.

How to share a blog postThe most common error we see is businesses sharing their blog posts as link posts. Redditors are much more likely to read a blog post if it is copied to reddit as a text post. If you are submitting quality content, redditors will not mind if you add a link to the end of the post that credits the original source.

In the last chapter, we saw how “A Beard Shop” contributed value to the /r/Beards community with a text post. If they had instead linked to a blog post on their website, the moderators would have likely removed the post as spam, even if the content was exactly the same.

Key TakeawayDon’t force redditors to leave Reddit unless you absolutely have to. Share you content in a text post so redditors can easily consume it and then decide if they want to navigate to your website for more.

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Not monitoring RedditMISTAKE #6

Many brands are not paying attention to what is being said on Reddit about themselves and their competitors. Before you decide to join the conversation on Reddit, you should setup keyword monitoring. This automated process will alert you when any relevant conversations are happening on Reddit.

If mentions of your brand are happening on Reddit, these discussions could be extremely valuable places for you to contribute as a representative of your business. Just be careful to make your contribution to these discussions productive and positive.

It is also important to monitor keywords that are related to your expertise so you can join those conversations and contribute value.

Note: Monitoring keywords on Reddit is easy with tools like TrackReddit.com.

Key TakeawayMonitor Reddit for mentions of your brand and related phrases. Listening to communities can be a powerful way to learn from redditors and it provides opportunities to join the conversation.

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Focusing on what they want vs. what the community wants

MISTAKE #7

Almost every business falls into this trap when approaching Reddit. Maybe you want to promote the launch of a new product or you want to announce a special promotion. What you want to talk about may be important to you, but it is not necessarily what redditors care about.

One of our best pieces of advice is to listen to the community. Answer their questions before you answer your own. Provide solutions to their problems, not solutions to your marketing problems.

You will get further on Reddit by providing value and contributing content that solves problems explicitly stated by redditors. Listen to them and contribute based on what you are hearing. A quality contribution that is not directly related to your business goals will take you further. Also, the more loosely connected your contributions are with your business goals, the more Redditors will appreciate your contribution and allow for mentions of your brand.

Key TakeawayStart by figuring out what redditors want, then figure out a way to give it to them in a way that necessitates mentioning your brand.

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Conclusion

Now that you understand the common mistakes made by businesses on Reddit, you are in a great position to create a successful marketing campaign. Your next step is to actually spend time on Reddit and become a true redditor.

The best resource we can offer to help you do that is our comprehensive book on Reddit marketing: Understanding Reddit for Your Business. This two-part book first walks you through the process of becoming a redditor then helps you setup a Reddit marketing strategy that will generate results for your business.

Learn more about Understanding Reddit for Your Business here

Thanks for taking the time to check out our book and for reading our content. We look forward to sharing more content about Reddit marketing with you.

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