How to Run Successful Marketing Campaigns on Reddit | HubSpot

What if I told you Reddit could give you just as much return on your marketing investment than any other social platform? There's incredible marketing opportunity with Reddit, yet it's not often in the conversation, and I'm betting it's because, frankly, a lot of marketers simply don't understand it. So in this video, I'm going to cover what Reddit is and just as importantly, what it isn't. I'll also walk you through, step by step, how to create a Reddit marketing campaign and share easy mistakes to avoid. And believe me, it is easy to make mistakes here because a lot of what Reddit offers goes against our nature as marketers. Lets start with an obvious but important question. How is Reddit different from other social media? First of all, it has got over 430 million active users per month, clocking in as the fifth most visited website in the US. The demographics fuse mail with over a quarter of users between the ages of 18 and 29. A quarter of the user base is Gen Z, who use Reddit as a source of product research more than most other social media platforms. Crucially, algorithms are less complicated than Reddit and based entirely on what users find engaging or not, which they can upvote or downvote. This means traditional ads are not going to work on Reddit because users will downvote or mark it as spam. Reddit is essentially anti marketing, which means the usual tricks won't work here. But isn't that kind of exciting? That means it's an opportunity to get creative and innovative with your campaigns. And to make it even easier, I'm sharing this free template from HubSpot that'll help you craft the perfect marketing campaign, whether on Reddit or anywhere else. We made it just for you and you can grab it at the link in the description below. Now back to the big question for the newcomers. What is Reddit and what is it not? Reddit is a site built on communities called subreddits. These are essentially channels about a particular topic users subscribe to. It can be broad, like gardening or hyper specific, like cats in business attire. Seriously, you can find anything on here, but the challenge for marketers is that these forums are based around genuine discussion and engagement, meaning a brand popping up in a community it's never engaged with before is a clear indicator that they're simply selling something or trying to so how do you engage? One method is simply participating in a discussion about your brand specific product or industry in a meaningful way. This could take the form of an AMA or ask me Anything, a popular form of discussion across Reddit where users ask questions on a thread devoted to a particular person or topic. The other option is to simply participate in the organic discussions happening around your product or industry, or start a subreddit for it if it doesn't already exist. The downside, of course, is you can't control the response, so it's recommended to have a community manager on hand to make sure your brand's responses are handled correctly. Reddit does also offer paid promotion for your posts at a minimum spend of $5 to keep your posts ranked higher and target specific users. But like other social media platforms, they will be labeled as promoted posts, so they still need to be relevant and engaging or users will skip right over it. Small businesses likely don't have the resources for a full time community manager, so how about I dig deeper on how to set up a business account on Reddit and start your first campaign? First and foremost, you'll need to set up your company's profile. To do that, you can follow this link and simply fill out the info. Remember that this should be a company profile and not a personal one. Redditors can see everything you viewed and upvoted, so you want to make sure that those things align with your brand. Next, you'll go to this link to set up an advertising account. This will include your billing information and permission level. If there will be multiple team members using the account, the next step is crucial and definitely the most time consuming. Find your audience Explore the subreddits related to your business and investigate their popularity. Use a tool like Reddit List to explore the popularity, growth and subscriber numbers of different subreddits. You'll need roughly 6,700 page views to achieve the minimum $5 spend, so it's important to choose a subreddit that has enough activity. Just look on the sidebar of a subreddit to see how many users are currently active. Before you get to setting up a campaign, begin engaging with the communities you identify, upvote things that are interesting and relevant to your brand, and share relevant, valuable content. But critically, it should not be your own. I can't stress how important it is to be genuine here guys. Reddit communities can sniff out accounts who have simply joined to self promote, so if you think you can gain the system here, I promise you you won't be able to. This is a community engagement tool as much as it is a promotional one. Okay, back to it. Once you're an active and contributing member of the community, then it's time to experiment with your own content whether it's paid or not. But it needs to add value in some capacity, not just an ad for product or service. For example, the self care company everymind Matters delivered self care tips to their community and it resulted in a huge boost in engagement, metrics and visibility. But clearly there are a lot of opportunities for missteps here, like a recent trend of posting engaging upvote worthy posts and then changing them to branded posts later. Yeah, shake my head. Although this has worked, this is frowned upon and one to avoid. What about other common mistakes you should steer clear from? I touched on the biggest one already being disingenuous. Reddit is about building community. Remember how I said it's a trusted source of product reviews? There's a reason for that, because Redditors are brutally honest and will call a spade a spade. Another one is sounding like pr. Admittedly this can be a challenge in online at work because things are typically done with a certain cadence with a certain goal in mind. Reddit is a bit more open ended than that, so you can't approach it with a clinical public relations brain. A third mistake is not being unique. In a place with so much content to ingest, you simply gotta stand out. One thing that will happen on Reddit if you post a question or comment that's been covered at length in the community, a Redditor will point you to a previous instance of the topic being discussed. So you better believe it will happen with content too. Be sure to do your research before you commit to any ideas. And finally, the most common mistake that I can't stress enough is not offering value. Redditors want something additive to fuel their interest in a topic or solid tips they haven't considered before. You have a business because you have something to pay offer customers, so it's key to find a way to distill your value into informative content for community members. So what have we learned? Being genuine and engaging with the desired community is key. Don't forget it. But the ultimate question remains. Is it all worth it? The answer is it can be. Reddit is a great tool for expanding your brand awareness through targeted community engagement. Think of it like a long term investment. You're building trust with a community visited by your most likely customer base. Establishing yourself as not only an expert, but a part of that community will also go a long way with future customers. And since building out successful marketing campaigns can be tricky, remember to grab your free marketing campaign template from HubSpot, designed specifically to walk you through step by step and creating killer campaigns on Reddit or anyplace else. Just click on the link in the description below and it's yours. Thanks for checking out this video, and I do hope your Reddit efforts yield results. If you have used Reddit for your business before, please let us all know in the comments what has worked for you. And don't forget to like and subscribe for more great marketing tips and tricks from HubSpot. See you on the next one.