Three ways company blogs can harness the power of Reddit

Enter Reddit.

Reddit has positioned itself as a powerhouse of the modern web by marketing itself as “the front page of the internet.” Relying on user-submitted content, Reddit’s reputation has skyrocketed since the days of being known as “the next Digg” or a repository for funny cat videos.

It's used by average consumers, but it's also used by business owners and business decision markers. If you target carefully and work thoughtfully, you can connect with a B2B audience.

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Instead, Reddit has become one of the most visited sites online, boasting millions of unique monthly visitors (for example, the “Ask Reddit” section alone has over 12 million subscribers). Reddit also has nearly 900,000 subreddits. The appeal of Reddit for users is three-fold:

• Content is user-generated and therefore timely and topical; meanwhile, the upvote/downvote system works to ensure that the “best” content rises to the top
  
• The user-base of Reddit thrives on transparency and can easily downvote or erase anything that seems spammy
  
• Through subreddits, the site is able to target just about any niche and cover incredibly specific topics (for example, there are subreddits dedicated to anything from entrepreneurship and “shower thoughts” and beyond)

Alright, so Reddit gets tonnes of traffic and appeals to a wide variety of readers. What does this mean for your blog?

In short, you’re inevitably competing with Reddit to some degree. What reason does a potential customer have to visit your company’s blog or dig through the SERPs when they could quickly scroll through a related subreddit? Such users want fast, unbiased information minus the sales pitch. Can your blog deliver that?

Marketing guru Neil Patel stresses the importance of dominating a niche when you create your own blog, regardless of its scope or size. Whether you’re an in-house business blogger for a multi-million dollar company or a small business blogger working from a coffee shop, the blogosphere is laser-focused on finding specific, specialised information. Therefore, niches are crucial when it comes to being found online.

Chances are, there are multiple subreddits related to your company’s niche. Likewise, users on such subreddits are your potential customers and traffic. How can we possibly reach these users? How can we use Reddit’s platform to drive traffic to our own blogs?

Know your audience

Since Reddit’s users generate crucial questions and answers regarding topics within your niche, monitoring subreddits related to your business is a fantastic means of researching your audience. Obviously, you'll be focusing on business-related subreddits. Whether or not you eventually decide to interact with redditors yourself, consider how keeping an eye on subreddits can help you. You need to understand:

• The real problems and concerns faced by real people within your industry
  
• What your users like and dislike in terms of products and marketing
  
• Trends within your industry, including what sort of content users are consuming and who they see as influencers

Understanding this information can therefore assist you in coming up with fresh blog ideas or tweaking your marketing strategy. For example, a business tech blog may see users in a gaming subreddit debating whether or not to buy a wireless keyboard that was just released. That same blog could do a comprehensive review of that keyboard (and how it benefits everyone in an office setting), or perhaps create a post comparing it to similar models. Such a post would be incredibly valuable to the subreddit and create value for the blog.

While redditors shouldn’t be the sole source of information regarding what users in your space are thinking, the transparency of Reddit’s user-base gives you an unfiltered look at what users really want.

Remember, you have the authority (So use it!)

While there are plenty of praises to sing when it comes to Reddit, one obvious advantage of user-submitted content is the anonymity that comes behind it. In short, just about anyone can say anything without the need to backup their claims unless called out by other users.

If you feel that your blog has useful content for Reddit, you should most definitely share it. In this instance, your blog has the authority to be seen as a true influencer in your space.

However, bloggers should tread lightly before they begin posting links on a subreddit for fear of looking like a spammer or amateur link-builder. What should bloggers do prior to linking to their own content on a subreddit?

Remember, Reddit represents a community; therefore, build trust by becoming part of the conversation and answering the questions of users. As you answer questions, avoid using links to your own site at first, at least until you’ve garnered a significant amount of upvotes from users.

Once you’ve built trust and actually have relevant posts to share, then you may begin advertising your own blog. To best appeal to redditors, skip the sales pitch and just be honest in regard to the fact that you’re sharing your own content.

Spot the influencer

It’s not uncommon for businesses and marketers to frequent Reddit; on the other hand, many of the top influencers on your subreddit may simply be offering their insight with no other motives. You can approach influencers on Reddit (think: frequent posters with lots of upvotes and high-comment threads) as you would any other candidate for blogger outreach.

For example, you could approach influencers for a guest post exchange (assuming they have a blog themselves) or offer up some of your content to see if they’ll help you boost it in exchange for a link to their site. If an influencer in your space doesn’t have link-building potential, you can still pick their brains for questions and answers regarding content ideas and marketing, treating them as a sort of “industry insider”.

Carmelo Hannity

In other words, it never hurts to network. The inherent honesty built into Reddit’s community can help you learn what users want minus the fluff.

While it may seem like a lot of energy to reach out to such a specific group, keep in mind that these are the most vocal and active users in your space. At a glance, Reddit seems like a behemoth in terms of traffic and competition; however, a bit of creativity and legwork can help you establish your company’s blog as a premiere resource for Reddit’s community.