Reddit can be a hairy place for marketers.
For many people, the thought of trying to drop a link in a community, even tangentially, can make them a little apprehensive.
Or at least, that’s how I feel.
I’ve talked to quite a few marketers who feel the same. Even when we’re honestly just trying to be helpful and not necessarily plug anything at all.
Thankfully, I recently connected with a fellow IndieHacker Fed who created the tool GummySearch, a Reddit social listening tool, on how to do Reddit marketing properly.
The good news that Fed shared with me is that you can ‘market’ on Reddit, but you have to do it in a way that communities appreciate.
💼 Forget Company Accounts
The first thing out of the gate that Fed made clear is that you need to have a personal account.
It’s kind of a hook phrase, but I like it. He mentioned that you need to be a Redditor who has a business, not a business that has a Reddit account.
Using a company account, (in my words, not his), is basically just asking for it on Reddit.
🙋 Don’t Post, Help Publically
Now for the meat and potatoes on how you’re gonna actually do any marketing on the platform at all.
👉 Don’t post.
Posts are heavily regulated, and rightly so because Redditors want to keep their communities free and clear of anything that even slightly smells like spam.
In fact, I’ve heard stories of marketers who honestly were just sharing things that they learned and had a tangential link to some of their own projects in the post. These were of course met with a tidal wave of cynicism.
So let’s not go there as beginners.
Also, it makes sense as the groups themselves prohibit self-promotional posts. Almost always.
The key Fed explained was in winning the most useful comment on relevant posts.
Not any helpful comment. The most.
Honestly, Redditors are just like us and nobody wants to be sold to. But we all really do want useful information, especially when we’re asking questions to a community.
So the idea is this: You provide the most useful information in your comment, and a relevant link that gives them more help about that thing, meanwhile you get natural exposure to the community for your product.*
*Note also the requirement of relevance here. We can’t just ram in your link if it’s not related.
It’s got to be natural and relevant.
But otherwise, the beauty in this technique is not necessarily that you get a direct conversion from the person commenting.
Instead, people who are reading the post and interested in the same topic become aware of your content or solution. It’s that communal exposure you’re getting for your links and products.
🚀 The Perks of Being The Most Helpful
While it is a commonly known principle, I think this is a really good example of using win-win arrangements.
👉 The communities themselves get to be free of promotional links and spam, and users get the help they need with questions they have by optimizing your responses to be the most helpful.
In turn, you get a bit of exposure for your product or links because you are providing relevant value to the conversation as a follow-on. Not the meat and potatoes.
There is a saying that ‘marketers ruin everything,’ but if we keep this type of principle in mind, then perhaps there is room for everybody.
🎙️📝 I hope you found this roundup summary of a long discussion I had about Reddit marketing useful.
Personally, I’ve been implementing this technique and I found it a lot of fun.
I actually enjoy engaging in the Reddit communities in general and it only takes about 10 minutes per day.