We all know the social media giants and how they help businesses big and small reach their audience – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and so on. These are all handy platforms to have if social media marketing is a big asset in promoting your company. Today, though, we thought it’d be worthwhile to talk about a platform that doesn’t seem to get as much recognition: Reddit.

What is Reddit?

To some, Reddit is a particular social media platform where engaging with others is on a more casual level – a place to hold a conversation or accept “challenges” which have been accepted and turned into video content on YouTube. It’s also an unlikely resource for communicating with people you might not have even considered reaching to before, such as teenagers and adults between ages 18 to 35. If this is the demographic you’re looking to target, then by all means, sign up for a Reddit account!

But is Reddit Worth It?

Reddit’s effectiveness in your social media marketing plan will really depend on your type of business and, most of all, your sense of humour. Because Reddit is technically a gateway to things such as memes and humour-based content, one could imagine that it’s less of a marketing strategy and more of a “time-waster” as some people unfamiliar with Reddit may put it.

You couldn’t be more than wrong. As of this year, the number of users on Reddit is approximately 542 million – with 342 million of those users being unique visitors – and to date it’s #7 on the most visited website in the US and #22 around the entire world.

Wow! So now that we’ve looked at the numbers we can’t help but think that Reddit is one of the most underused and undervalued social media platform by business owners. Think of all the people you could actually reach out to, an audience you wouldn’t have even dreamed of – and if reaching out to younger demographics is one of your company goals for this year, there’s no better time than to boot up an account.

How to Use Reddit for Marketing – the Positive Way

One of the best ways to navigate through the many, many pages on Reddit is via their “subreddits”. These are the communities surrounding certain topics – to borrow an example, we will use /r/nanaimo again, which is in fact considered to be a subreddit – and they vary from board subjects such as Vancouver Island or incredibly niche such as the subreddit for World of Warcraft players. There’s no end to the topics – food, music, gaming, books, science – you name it, there’s probably a subreddit on there.

With this in mind, it’s great to test out the certain niches you’re looking to target and then become a contributor to that subreddit – only if, however, you are considered to be an expert or enthusiast about the topic. People on Reddit are highly aware of others looking to make a quick buck. You can also create your own subreddit and encourage others to visit it.

What’s most important while you’re on Reddit is to share content via links. If no one shared anything, Reddit would not even exist. Bear this in mind whenever you’re having a conversation with someone on the website – check out their questions and see if you can either address them or contribute your answer to them. Don’t just stick a link to your website and hope for the best – if it has nothing to do with the conversation at hand, other users are more than likely to figure out you’re only on Reddit for the sake of profit. And who wants to meet someone like that?

At the end of the day, Reddit is basically a hub for people to meet up and communicate with one another, similarly like Facebook. That’s it, really. The best way to get attention is to act casually and chat with your friends, and make new ones along the way. If you keep that approach in mind, not only will you have fun on Reddit but also you may reach out to an audience you may not ever have dreamed of, thus increasing potential interest in your company.

Still stumped on using Reddit? Not sure if social media is worth your time? You could be missing out on communicating with your audience! Contact us at V3 Media and we can give you a free examination and price quote on your current social media marketing strategy – who knows? Maybe Reddit is just what your company needs.