Does Reddit Marketing Work For Online Businesses?
If you’re into online business, chances are you’ve thought about using various different backlinking strategies and all that other boring, complicated stuff. Most of that stuff doesn’t matter, but if there’s minimally effective marketing that you can do to boost traffic to your site – and more importantly, get more customers – then it’s worth trying.
I’ve been playing around with Reddit for the past few days. I’m trying to work out how to use the site for marketing my various ventures. I’ve had some success and some failure, and I thought I’d create an article about what I’ve learned so far.
Please Note: This isn’t going to be a spam article or whatever. If you’re going to post to sites, post to them responsibly. Etc.
What’s Reddit, And Why Would You Use It?
Reddit is a massive site, that essentially operates like any other internet forum. The difference is that it is one of the biggest sites in the world, and literally millions of people use it every day.
One of the best things about Reddit is that the site splits into subreddits – internet forums based on specific subjects.
Most forums on the internet are pretty niche in terms of their scope, in which case they have few members and little traffic, or very general in which case they have traffic but you can’t exactly promote a niche product on them.
Reddit is the best of both worlds. It has huge traffic, and the subreddits range from massive topics, like /r/television, to really niche communities, such as subjects discussing how to grow mushrooms in buckets and things.
The nature of the site means that you will probably find a community that is interested in whatever it is you’re writing about. That makes it a good place to promote your site without being a spammer.
However, there are caveats to this.
The Big Problem With Reddit Marketing
As I’ve mentioned a couple of times, (I know, I’m boring) I don’t really spam. It’s counter-productive and I prefer to work on my writing rather than spend endless hours posting to sites which are going to delete my stuff immediately anyway.
As such, I try and follow the rules of the site. For Reddit, that’s, “contribute as part of the community”, “don’t spam your link” and “Only downvote if something doesn’t add to the conversation – not if you disagree.”
The problem with Reddit is that following these rules absolutely doesn’t work.
Here’s a story: For another project I’ve been working on, I have created a neat little website with a solution to a problem. Now, this solution is pretty awesome. It’s cheap, effective and it doesn’t require the massive amounts of time and money that people usually spend on fixing this problem.
I can’t think of a direct analogy, but imagine that you had back pain, and most people told you you’d need to have surgery to replace your spine. Instead, I propose a solution that involves five minutes a day of stretching. It’s that sort of thing. That’d be great, right?
Not on Reddit.
Reddit works by popularity contest. That means that if you have something that’s outside orthodox, be it a product, opinion or philosophy, expect to get hammered into oblivion by readers.
Of course, criticism is good. However, what you get a lot of on Reddit isn’t criticism; it’s more people who think that they’re really smart downvoting everything that disagrees with their own orthodoxy. Also, the moderators are pretty bad as well. For a site with hundreds of millions of users, it is incredibly cliquey.
Still, if you can’t do the above, what do you do?
So, How DO You Use Reddit?
Really, and sadly, I’ve found that the way to use Reddit is to basically ignore the community aspect of it.
What I mean by this is;
- Find relevant sub-reddits. Post your (relevant) link to them.
- Don’t engage with trolls or “really smart people” in any way. If they disagree… let them.
- If you have to contribute, just echo the hive mind, and preferably stick to replies like, “Cool!” “Great article!” and the like.
Eventually, people who are interested or curious when it comes to your site, product or opinions will eventually seek you out, and then you can talk with them like human beings, or answer their questions in a friendly and non-confrontational manner.
Final Thoughts
This article might seem tongue-in-cheek, but it really isn’t.
I find it a bit irritating that a site with so much potential to help all sorts of people with such niche problems devolves so quickly into petty group rivalries and weird in-group thinking. Still, we work with what we have.
If you ignore the above, then Reddit is a good source of traffic, and it’ll help you connect with like-minded people who are interested in what you have to say.
It’s probably better the way it is; if the site worked as intended, then it’d be tempting to spend all day Reddit marketing, and that’d be a detriment to your business and brain!