How posting on Reddit can help you grow your social media community 

It’s very likely that you or your employees spend their commute or lunch break scrolling through social media – and often that means the vast, informative and sometimes weird library of subreddits that interest them.

Created in 2005, Reddit is a community driven social platform where users can engage on specific, and sometimes niche, topics. From storytelling to simple queries, there is a subreddit for everything.

For many years, businesses have been wary of investing time into building their Reddit following, but with Reddit threads dominating Google’s rankings, there’s a real opportunity for B2B companies to build brand awareness and engage with their target audience in a meaningful way. With search habits evolving, there’s never been a better time to focus on community marketing.

But where do you start?

Here are a few of our recommendations for utilising Reddit as a tool for growth on social media.

Join the conversation

Reddit is broken up into millions of subreddits (community-driven forums) that are dedicated to specific industries or topics. Brands can use these subreddits to engage in conversations, by sharing expertise and valuable insights.

But the most important thing to bear in mind is that authenticity is key. Subreddits are the virtual equivalent of a conversation with like-minded people. It’s about pushing the conversation forward by sharing knowledge, providing helpful answers or offering advice. Posts that are overly promotional will be quickly flagged by other users.

How do you find the right subreddits for your industry?

To give your content the best chance for meaningful engagement, search for subreddits to your industry, e.g r/fintech, r/marketing, or r/technology.

You can also look for subreddits that focus on specific tools or technologies that your company currently offers. This can a useful way of seeing what customers like about your offerings and see the concerns they may have.

Before joining a subreddit, you can view its content and the size of its community to make sure it aligns with the topics that you want to discuss and that the members are active.

Participate in an Ask Me Anything (AMA)

A format popularized by Reddit, AMA or Ask Me Anything, gives company executives, product developers and industry experts the chance to speak directly with their community.

Famous examples of business-related AMAs include:

• Bill Gates, Founder of Microsoft
• Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, SpaceX and other companies
• Steve Wozniak, Co-Founder of Apple

AMA’s give you the opportunity to answer questions related to your products or services, give more context on your brand, showcase thought leadership and build credibility within your community.

Like other engagement-heavy formats, you need to announce your AMA in advance to get the best turn out and make sure you’re offering value to your audience with your answers.

Create educational content

Reddit is a hub for high-quality discussions and creating educational content is where brands can really provide value.

Like content marketing on other platforms, this could include:

• Case Studies: Share customer success stories of a specific business problem that your product or service solved.
• How-To Guides: Provide step-by-step guides on key areas of your industry.
• Industry Trends: Explore emerging trends and important changes that might affect your clients.

By focusing on sharing useful, relevant insights rather than promoting a product, potential and existing customers will be more likely to engage with your content.

On Reddit, like other platforms, engaging with comments or questions is essential to establishing your brand’s reputation as an authority within your field.

Network

With over half a billion users, Reddit can be another great environment for networking. But unlike a platform like LinkedIn, which is built for networking, it can be quite difficult to locate the types of people you want to connect with.

The two simplest ways to engage with other professionals within your field is to join discussions and directly message them.

By participating in discussions about industry challenges, future trends and new innovations, you will identify industry experts and thought leaders that could become valuable collaborators, partners or customers.

Once you’ve built rapport with these people, you can use Reddit’s direct messaging platform to further connect with potential leads or collaborators.

Research the market

The nature of Reddit as a community-driven forum means that it can provide brands with invaluable insights on how their products and services are being perceived, as well as their competitors’.

This could mean surveying relevant communities by posting questions on new features or products, or by monitoring conversations surrounding your competitors to better understand how you can differentiate your offerings.

The communal aspects of Reddit make it uniquely suited as a market research tool for B2B brands.

Create your own subreddit

Once you’ve got to grips with Reddit, by finding relevant communities and engaging in interesting conversations, creating a company-specific subreddit could be the next step.

By creating a dedicated place for you to engage with your community, you can share company updates, host AMAs, provide resources and foster direct interaction with your audience. For it to be successful, it must provide value to users.

However, brands should be mindful that creating a successful subreddit requires nurturing, through posting, community management and moderation. So, for some, contributing to established subreddits might be the best approach.

Best Practice

Here are three tips that B2B brands should follow when using Reddit:

• Be Authentic: Reddit users value authenticity. Be transparent, and focus on adding value to the community rather than just pushing your product.
• Follow Reddit’s Guidelines: Each subreddit has its own rules. Familiarise yourself with the specific guidelines of the subreddits you’re participating in to avoid being flagged or banned.
• Avoid Posting Spam: Reddit has a strict anti-spam policy. Avoid overly promotional posts and engage in ways that are authentic to the platform.

Though Reddit might not be your first choice for brand awareness and generating leads, it can be a powerful tool if used strategically. By engaging in conversations with customers and like-minded industry leaders, offering educational content and providing value to potential and existing customers, you can forge meaningful, authentic relationships with your audience.

Not sure where to start? Get in touch on hello@isolinecomms.com.