How to use Reddit for your business

As the self-proclaimed “front page of the internet”, Reddit is certainly a strange place. But deep inside all that strangeness, there are opportunities for business owners. 

In this guide, we’ll be taking a closer look at Reddit and how to use it for your business. 

Specifically, we’ll cover:

• Marketing
• Subreddits
• AskReddit
• Engaging with Redditors
• Reddit slang
• Reddit ads

With over 52 million active users every day, Reddit has a thriving community. And such a huge demographic presents some great opportunities for marketing. 

Because Reddit accounts are completely anonymous, it’s the perfect place to find the public’s honest opinions, making it a great place for market research. 

You can find specific discussions about particular topics through Subreddits, and you can get detailed opinions and perspectives by asking open-ended questions on AskReddit. More on both of these later. 

Just like Facebook has pages and Instagram has hashtags, Reddit has subreddits. 

Subreddits are specific news feeds dedicated to different subjects. You can type anything you like into the search bar on Reddit and you’re almost guaranteed to find a thriving community of strangers sharing and engaging with different content related to that subject.

Subreddit threads are a useful resource for your business. You can use them to:

• Search for industry-related news and opinions.
• Keep an eye on growing market trends. 
• Find interesting leads and opinions. 
• Post content, questions, or surveys. 
• Search for your own business to see if there’s any mention. 

Alternatively, you could also start a SubReddit for your business. This works much in the same way as any other social media page, so it’s a great place to post content like:

• Blog posts
• Product demos
• Promotional material 
• Professional opinions and insights about your industry

It can be tricky managing different social media campaigns simultaneously as they all have their own specific tone and demographics.

If you’re ever unsure about what to post or how to present it, remember the golden rule of Reddit; it’s for having fun or solving problems. If your content doesn’t ask questions, answer questions, or say something interesting, it probably won’t get much attention. 

AskReddit is a Subreddit exclusively used for asking questions to the public. It’s one of the most popular pages because of the sheer variety and wackiness that can emerge from it. 

People ask questions about pretty much everything from legal advice to sandwich fillings, and lots of businesses use it as a resource for market research. 

If you’re ever unsure about a product or business practice, and you want to get some new perspectives on it, just ask Reddit and you’ll be sure to get some engagement. They might not always be useful, or polite, answers, but they’ll definitely give you some interesting perspectives. 

Some tips for posting on AskReddit:

• Ask open-ended questions. 
• If you are asking “yes or no” type questions, always follow it up with “and why?”
• Try not to make it too obvious you’re doing market research, it could come across as disingenuous and reduce engagement. 
• If you’re interested or unclear about a comment you’ve received, don’t be afraid to reply with further questions. Most Redditors enjoy a healthy dialogue. 

The beauty of Reddit is its simplicity. Anybody can talk to anybody else, completely anonymously. 

Because of that, you have a direct channel to millions of users ready to engage with. For example, if you see a thread about your industry or, more specifically, your actual business, then engage with the thread on behalf of your business. 

If they’re saying positive things, great. Just chime in, say hi, and thank everybody for their support. 

On the other hand, if you’re seeing a lot of customer complaints, you can do some damage control and figure out what the problem is. Tech companies are great at this, as they’re always asking for bug reports on their products. 

Just reply directly to the original poster (OP), introduce yourself, thank them for bringing the problem to your attention, and let them know you’re doing everything you can to fix it. 

Next, try to fix the issue and give live updates about the progress you’re making. It’ll make users feel like you’re both working together to fix a problem, rather than battling against one another. 

Both these approaches will give a human voice to your business while getting direct feedback and engagement from potential customers. Overall, it’ll provide you with some great customer feedback and generate some positive PR. 

As a new Reddit user, the first hurdle you might encounter is the amount of slang, abbreviations, and acronyms that are regularly used on the platform. 

To help you out, here is a list of some common phrases that you’ll see in posts:

• OP = original poster (in other words, the person who started the thread)
• AFAIK = as far as I know
• IANAL / IANAD = I am not a lawyer / I am not a doctor
• IMO = in my opinion
• TLDR = too long didn’t read
• IIRC = If I remember correctly
• AMA = ask me anything
• ITT = in this thread
• TIL = today I learned
• NSFW = not safe for work
• FWIW = for what it’s worth

There are plenty more being used that we can’t mention here because they’re, shall we say, NSFW, but a quick Google search will help you understand any that’s unclear.

Finally, one of the most straightforward ways to use Reddit for your business is to pay for advertisements to appear on the main page. While this is always a viable option, we would say you should approach it with caution. 

People don’t visit Reddit to buy things, so ads can sometimes come across as a little annoying to Reddit users. Unlike Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, where ads are a much more accepted part of the platform, 

Reddit’s users view it as a sort of wild west. It’s a place of free-flowing conversation and ideas. So seeing companies trying to sell products can come across as a little out of touch with the whole vibe of the platform. 

We’re not saying it won’t lead to sales, just that it might also foster a little hostility at the same time. Try reaching audiences with more organic methods first, like the ones we mentioned earlier.