To anyone not familiar with Reddit, it looks like an outdated website from the early 2000s in need of a face-lift. That's the beauty of Reddit—it' a machine. If you doubt the power of this site, consider these points:
- Reddit is ranked as the 6th most visited site in the United States and 17th globally.
- The average user engagement time is 11:29 minutes.
- It gets more daily traffic than Twitter.
- 59%of users are between the ages of 18-29.
Reddit's key is finding niche markets and building a genuine connection with the communities related to your product. If you fake it or try and immediately sell your services, members will call you out. To know how to use Reddit to your advantage for marketing your course, read the information below.
How does Reddit work?
Reddit is known as the "front page of the internet," focusing on social news, making it part internet forum, part news site. The site is broken into thousands of communities for users to post in and subscribe to. People up vote and downvote content users submit. Popular threads rise, causing them the first seen when someone looks at a thread. Each user's homepage is catered to the communities they care about in which they can discuss, argue, answer, and vote on posts.
There are two types of posts on Reddit. The first is direct link posts, which link to external sites. These are the best for boosting traffic for a business, as it takes people to the site, blog, video, or podcast. The second type of post is text posts; these are great for promoting dialogue and discussions.
How to market on Reddit
Do not, I repeat, do not go on Reddit and post, "Hi, I'm Johnny, a personal trainer who is passionate about helping people with diabetes regain their lives. I have a new audio course for only $15 to change your life on eating, building healthier habits, and working out with diabetes. Don't be held down by your disease."
No one will like you.
Instead, try this: Post on your own: 80% contribute, 20% self-promote (varies on the community). The general theme is to help others more than yourself. Sit down and be quiet; do not walk into a community and start asking questions or promoting. You need to engage with and listen to the members who are currently in the group. Figure out the flow of the community. Know the inside jokes. Make your username known. Post original content, no one wants fluffed up stuff. Outsiders will be found. Respect the process.
Depending on your product, the calendar feature could be useful for showing when you have events. For example, baseball teams post the days and times for games for users to see.
Tips for posts that get a lot of upvotes:
- Cats or dogs
- Gifs
- Video– link to video in comments but put gif in the main post (videos take a while to load)
- Pictures
- Text– thought-provoking discussions
- AMA– "ask me anything"
Reddit is about playing the long game to build rapport in the communities related to your audio course, but once you engage with the right people and give back more than you promote, you will have a dedicated following. You might even find other avenues to take your audio course for future endeavors.
Account Set-up:
1. Sign up for an account using your email
2. Pick a username that has a brand keyword or personal name to help people form an association between the two—more authenticity.
3. Make your account feel real
4. Find communities that fit your market and will allow you to integrate in
Extras:
- It can be overwhelming to break down, Reddit into manageable chunks to process all the information on it. A solution to this is to use Feedly to filter subreddits.
- Gain karma (what happens when your posts and comments get upvoted by other users) to show much you have invested in the Reddit community.
How to find a Reddit group that fits your audio course
When looking for communities, your content might fit Reddit, go through subReddit's, and explore what is being discussed. Is anything relevant to your course or market? If so, follow the trail and see where it leads. Check out the community; it might lead you to another one, and so on. Another method is to explore industry keywords. For instance, if your course were "Marketing for Moms," some keywords would be "moms," "marketing," "small business," "kids," and "sales." The odds are high that someone in those words is in a community based on those topics and would be interested in your course.
The rules for Reddit
- Don't oversell (be aware of how much you promote your material). The ration for posting on your own vs commenting on others should be 1 to 10.
- Don't ask for upvotes
- Don't post illegal content
- Don't share the private information of others
- Don't submit the same content over and over onto multiple subreddits
5-Day Plan for a Reddit Newbie
Spend10-20 minutes a day on building your Reddit community—you won't regret it.
- Day 1: Sign up for a Reddit Account and follow 2 communities related to your course
- Day 2: Comment on 3 posts, explore other accounts
- Day 3: Comment on 3 posts, explore other accounts
- Day 4: Comment on 3 posts, and follow 2 other communities
- Day 5: Post #1
