By Arianna Crawford, The Social Media Explorer
The Big Valley Marketing New Platforms Series is a collection of posts that aims to introduce B2B marketers and communications to new social media platforms that may enable them generate new, innovative and uniquely meaningful approaches to reaching out to and interacting with their audiences. Adopting and maintaining new channels is a long-haul journey and will take time before any return on your investment. If you’d be interested in partnering with Big Valley Marketing, feel free to drop us a line at hireus@bigvalley.co
Reddit, is, in many ways, the front page of the internet. It’s where people go when they want peer opinion and in-depth topic discussion, but it still carries some of that early internet pessimism about brand promotion. This innate pressure means it’s often de-prioritized by overwhelmed B2B brands.
Whether you choose to ignore or invest in Reddit as an organic social platform, either option comes with risk. If you decide to ignore, you miss the opportunity to inform an audience looking for answers about your product. But if you hop in without being careful, you could really turn off potential (or existing) buyers.
It’s important to recognize that Reddit isn’t an all-or-nothing platform like many of the others we’re discussing. With advertising, AMA opportunities, and more, there are varying degrees of Reddit activation available to brands. For those wanting to dip their toes in before fully committing, our team has created a Reddit engagement guide with risk and investment-tiered tactics. Reach out to hireus@bigvalley.co. co to learn more about it.
It’s the right fit for: Brands whose success requires activation of a larger community of implementers, users, buyers, and investors.
Ask yourself:
- Are we already listening to what people are saying about us on Reddit?
- Do we have unbiased experts and community-minded individuals who can help answer questions and engage users?
- Is our team willing to publicly engage without an overreliance on “brand speak”?
- Are we prepared for the time it’ll take for the impact of our work to become clear?
Audience
- Size: ~1.2 billion monthly active users across most demographics.
- Behavior: People are seeking information from peers with established expertise on literally anything and everything – but they require thoughtful engagement.
- Relevance: Your audience is likely looking for information about your brand and ending up on Reddit There’s an opportunity to establish authority on your brand for people wanting to know and learn more.
Ease of Management
- Tools: Reddit has some tools for subreddit moderation and advertising, but not the kind of tools that traditional social media platforms typically support.
- Infrastructure: All activity will have to be direct on the platform, but it is an established, stable platform. Daily maintenance isn’t necessary unless you’re running and moderating your own subreddit.
- Moderation: If you create your own subreddit, you can create your own moderation rules, but if you’re joining and participating in other, established subreddits, you’ll have to follow their moderation rules.
Content Strategy
- Uniqueness: Content formats are more limited here than elsewhere, and the emphasis is heavily on text.
- Fit: If you have information to provide on your product and services, or experts who can provide expertise, then you can fit in. Otherwise, you’ll struggle.
- Transference: While the activity on Reddit isn’t directly transferable, the insights can inform content on other platforms.
Overall Impact
As “the front page of the internet”, Reddit should be prioritized as an important source of information for brand sentiment. As for active social media engagement, it’s one that needs to be carefully considered before getting started, due to the prevailing corporate pessimism among its audience. However, there are ways to experiment and test the waters before adopting it as a central part of your social media strategy.
