Reddit, for marketing, is a powerful tool. There’s just one problem. Redditors hate marketing. If you go on Reddit and act like a marketer, you will not be successful. There are ways to be successful on Reddit, but is it worth the trouble? What’s so special about Reddit?

As social media platforms go, Reddit is fairly unique. More than any other channel, its users spend time online because they are passionate about a particular topic. This is an incredible opportunity for marketers.

However, this also poses certain challenges. Unlike Facebook or Twitter, you can’t simply post content and hope for the best. Rather, you need actually to provide something of value to users.

Here’s everything you need to know about marketing on Reddit.

What is Reddit?

What is reddit graphic
There are many misconceptions out there about Reddit. Image credit: ProfileTree

Reddit is a social news and discussion website where users can post links to articles, images, and videos. Other users can then vote on the content and leave comments. Reddit is divided into thousands of communities, called subreddits, each dedicated to a specific topic. Reddit is one of the most popular websites worldwide, with over 430 million active users.

Reddit for marketing featured image

Why are Reddit statistics important?

Reddit statistics can be used to understand the demographics, interests, and behaviour of Reddit users. This information can be used to develop more effective marketing and SEO strategies. For example, businesses can use Reddit statistics to identify their target audience, determine the best times to post their content and track the performance of their content.

Here are some specific examples of how businesses can use Reddit statistics:

  • A business that sells video games could use Reddit statistics to identify the most popular gaming subreddits. This information could then be used to target their advertising and marketing efforts to those subreddits.
  • A business that sells pet supplies could use Reddit statistics to determine the best times to post their content on the r/aww subreddit. This is because users of this subreddit are more likely to be interested in pet-related content during certain times of the day.
  • A business that sells clothing could use Reddit statistics to track the performance of its content on the r/fashion subreddit. This information could then be used to refine their content strategy and create more engaging content.


What is Reddit?

Reddit is a social news and discussion website where users can post links to articles, images, and videos. Other users can then vote on the content and leave comments. Reddit is divided into thousands of communities, called subreddits, each dedicated to a specific topic. Reddit is one of the most popular websites in the world, with over 430 million active users.

Why are Reddit statistics important?

Reddit statistics can be used to understand the demographics, interests, and behavior of Reddit users. This information can be used to develop more effective marketing and SEO strategies. For example, businesses can use Reddit statistics to identify their target audience, determine the best times to post their content, and track the performance of their content.

Here are some specific examples of how businesses can use Reddit statistics:

  • A business that sells video games could use Reddit statistics to identify the most popular gaming subreddits. This information could then be used to target their advertising and marketing efforts to those subreddits.
  • A business that sells pet supplies could use Reddit statistics to determine the best times to post their content on the r/aww subreddit. This is because users of this subreddit are more likely to be interested in pet-related content during certain times of the day.
  • A business that sells clothing could use Reddit statistics to track the performance of its content on the r/fashion subreddit. This information could then be used to refine their content strategy and create more engaging content.

How do I use Reddit statistics to my advantage?

There are several ways to use Reddit statistics to your advantage. Here are a few tips:

  • Use Reddit demographics to identify your target audience. Reddit provides demographic data about its users, such as age, gender, location, and interests. This information can be used to identify your target audience and develop more effective marketing and SEO strategies. For example, if you’re a business that sells women’s clothing, you might want to target your marketing efforts to the r/femalefashionadvice subreddit.
  • Use Reddit traffic data to determine the best times to post your content. Reddit traffic data shows when users are most active on the platform and which subreddits are most popular at different times of the day. This information can be used to determine the best times to post your content to reach the largest possible audience. For example, if you’re a business that sells video games, you might want to post your content on the r/gaming subreddit during the evening hours, when users are most active.
  • Use Reddit engagement metrics to track the performance of your content. Reddit engagement metrics, such as upvotes, downvotes, and comments, can be used to track the performance of your content and see how it is resonating with users. This information can then be used to refine your content strategy and create more engaging content. For example, if you’re a business that sells pet supplies and you post a video of a cat playing with a toy on the r/aww subreddit, you can track the number of upvotes, downvotes, and comments to see how users are responding to the video. If the video receives a lot of upvotes and positive comments, you know that you’re creating content that users are interested in.
  • Use Reddit marketing tools to automate your Reddit marketing activities. Several Reddit marketing tools can help you automate your Reddit marketing activities, such as scheduling posts, tracking analytics, and identifying relevant subreddits to target. These tools can save you time and help you to get more out of your Reddit marketing efforts.

Should You Use Reddit for Marketing?

Reddit is called “The Front Page of the Internet”. Things tend to go viral on Reddit before they do anywhere else, making Reddit the trendsetter of the social media world.

Part of what makes Reddit so appealing is the same thing that makes it a difficult marketing platform. Redditors are passionate about the site and the content they see. Threads are posted in subreddits.

Registered users can read and contribute to the subreddits. They can also vote them up or down. The most popular content will be shown at the top of the thread. You can filter the content based on categories like hot, new, and rising.

Platforms like Facebook essentially only show your content to those following you already. This can make it difficult to gain traction, especially if you don’t have a large advertising budget.

Reddit allows your posts to be seen by anyone who passes through, which gives you a much bigger shot at going viral. When a post becomes very popular in a subreddit, it can reach the front page.

There’s a phenomenon called the “Reddit Hug of Death”. This is when a Reddit post becomes popular and drives so much traffic to a website that it crashes.

Reddit Stats

Reddit has 5 billion page views every day and 2 million visitors each day. This is a huge audience if you can successfully tap into it. You can also access a worldwide audience, as Reddit is used in 196 countries.

With 6,000 active subreddits, you should be able to find one that pertains to your business. It is important to note that young men are the largest demographic on Reddit. Men are twice as likely to use Reddit as women, and most users are between the ages of 18-29.

If this is the demographic you are targeting, it is well worth being on Reddit.

Reddit for marketing stats
More than 50 million people use Reddit every day. Image credit: Oberlo

Reddit’s Growth and Usage:

Reddit has over 430 million monthly active users as of January 2021, establishing itself as one of the most popular social platforms globally. Over 50 billion comments have been posted, with hundreds of thousands added daily across over 100,000 active subreddits. The vast scale and engagement make Reddit influential for trends, ideas, and online conversation.

Demographics and Interests:

According to Reddit’s 2020 survey, nearly half of users are between 18-29. 69% are male. Popular interests include gaming, sports, news, science, TV shows, music and other entertainment topics. The platform sees global reach, with nearly 50% of desktop traffic from the US, followed by Canada, Australia and Great Britain.

How Reddit Works:

The Reddit homepage surfaces the most popular posts across communities through an algorithm. Upvotes lead posts to gain visibility, while downvotes decrease rankings. Subreddits feature posts related to that topic, where users discuss, ask questions and share links and media. Users can build karma and reputation in specific communities through highly upvoted content and interactions.

Advertising Options:

Reddit offers Promoted Posts and Display Ads. Promoted posts appear in feeds like organic content. Brands average CPCs of $0.75 and CTRs up to 2%, depending on targeting. Display ads achieved up to 5.7% CTR based on community relevance in a 2019 case study. Effective ads align with community interests versus direct selling.

Best Practices for Reddit:

The most effective way for brands to leverage Reddit is by engaging in relevant subreddits. This builds awareness, credibility and evangelists organically. Be transparent about involvement, provide value to the community, and follow each subreddit’s rules. Don’t overtly self-promote. Successful accounts mix useful insights, humour, AMAs, and communication.

Reddit
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The Rules of Reddit Marketing

Before you begin posting on Reddit, you’ll need to know the rules, both written and unwritten. It is extremely easy to get banned on Reddit, and your website may be completely banned as well.

If it seems you are spamming the site in any way, you will get banned. You can also get banned from subreddits, even within the Reddit rules, because individuals moderate subreddits. You can get banned for:

  • Only posting links to your blog,
  • Posting duplicate content on different subreddits,
  • Asking for upvotes,
  • Posting someone’s personal information,
  • Illegal activity.

Beyond these official rules, there are several things you’ll need to know to market effectively on Reddit. Here are some of the key points.

Do Your Research

Before you begin posting on Reddit, you’ll need to do your research. Find a subreddit that fits your business and lurk for a while. See what kind of content the Redditors in the thread-like.

When you do post, you need to be sure that it is interesting and fits the theme of the thread. Your first posts should be about building an audience instead of making sales.

Be a Redditor

This is key to being successful on Reddit. Of course, you want to post your content but don’t just post your content. Be a regular Redditor more often than not. Posting interesting content will gain your karma points and a good reputation on the site.

You should only post links to your own site once every few weeks. It can be tempting to see an increase in traffic and want to post several links to your site, but it will likely backfire. You should only post a link to your own site in one out of every ten posts.

They will check your post history to see if you are simply trying to promote your site.

Get On Their Level

Redditors are a more intellectual crowd than you will find on other social media sites. They will quickly see through anything that isn’t genuine, and they appreciate smart content.

Tactics that work well on other sites, like click-baiting, will get you downvoted off Reddit quickly. Appeal to their intelligence, and you will build a loyal following.

Have Fun

Reddit users are intelligent, but that doesn’t mean they are always serious.

There are plenty of funny threads on Reddit, and you shouldn’t be afraid to show your sense of humour. Witty or tongue-in-cheek humour performs well but fails, and other types of hilarity are also popular.

Titles

Titles also perform differently on Reddit than on other sites.

Longer informative titles get more views than shorter ones on Reddit. This lets people know what your thread is about. Reddit users want to feel like they are engaging with real people, and an informative title can make them feel more connected to the poster.

Reddit title length stats
Your title length on Reddit is critical. Image credit: Foundation Inc

Upvotes

Since upvotes have so much control over your Reddit fate, you may consider creating fake accounts just to upvote your posts. This doesn’t work.

You need authentic active accounts for an upvote to stick for more than a few hours, so creating fake profiles wastes time. It will also get you banned if caught, and you most likely will.

Upvotes can change your links from do not follow links to dofollow links. The threshold seems to be five upvotes, but it may vary slightly from thread to thread. Links posted in comments work this way as well.

A link post is simply a link to an external site. Link posts are the best way to gain more traffic.

Text posts are a post that is text that you write. You can make the post as long as you wish. Generally, you’ll want the post to be an in-depth resource. It should have dofollow links and be interesting enough that people want to read it. Text posts will result in more links.

Subreddits

To be successful on Reddit, you should be posting in two different types of subreddits. First are the ones that are highly relevant to your business. However, the more specific the subreddit is, the fewer active users it will have.

These people should be interested in your posts, but there won’t be nearly as many views as in a larger subreddit. That’s why you should also post in some larger subreddits.

How to Market on Reddit

Next, it’s important to think about what you want to get out of marketing on Reddit. There are two key opportunities here for marketers:

  1. Finding great content ideas,
  2. Distributing your content effectively.

Let’s take a look at each of these in turn.

Audience Research and Content Inspiration

Ask any marketer, and they’ll tell you that one of the biggest daily challenges they face is coming up with great content ideas. The more technical or niche your industry is, the harder this becomes.

Effective content marketing always revolves around information which solves your customers’ problems. When you can create an information resource which solves these problems, everything else falls into place.

In other words, any time someone asks a question relating to your industry on Reddit, you’ve found yourself a potential blog article or piece of video content.

Once you’ve established yourself as a trusted Redditor, you can even directly ask your audience what they’d like to see you publish content next.

User Generated Content and Viral Marketing

As we noted earlier, one of the great opportunities of Reddit for marketing is that its users are highly interested in specific topics. You can use this to your advantage with both user-generated content and viral marketing.

Engage with trusted Redditors in your niche, asking them to review, demo or mention your products. People tend to trust the reviews of their peers more than marketing messaging, so this is an incredibly effective way to distribute your marketing content.

Reddit is also one of your best opportunities to go viral, as this is often where online trends and memes begin. However, it’s important to be careful here, as this strategy can easily backfire and create negative online PR.

Reddit: FAQs

Q: How many active users does Reddit have?

A: Reddit has over 430 million active monthly users as of 2021, establishing itself as one of the most popular social platforms.

Q: What are the demographics of Reddit users?

A: Nearly half of Reddit users are ages 18-29. The majority are male at 69%. Interests span gaming, TV, sports, news, music and more.

Q: How does content gain visibility on Reddit?

A: Content gains visibility through upvotes, which increase rankings on subreddits and the homepage. Highly upvoted content rises to the top.

A: Some popular subreddits by subscribers include r/AskReddit, r/gaming, r/aww, r/funny, r/pics, r/todayilearned, r/worldnews, r/videos.

Q: How can brands leverage Reddit?

A: Brands can advertise or focus on organic community engagement in relevant subreddits. Be transparent, provide value, and follow guidelines.

Reddit: Conclusion:

With over 430 million users, 50 billion comments to date, and influential reach across interests, Reddit has become a key platform. Understanding its engaged communities, karma system, advertising options, and best practices for organic engagement enables brands to effectively leverage Reddit for awareness and discussion of their products and content.

If you’d like help with any aspect of your digital marketing strategy, contact ProfileTree today.

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