How to Manage Your Brand's Reputation on Reddit

The most impactful, yet the most challenging marketing platform out there: REDDIT

Products and brands are being talked about in every corner of the internet. Identifying all of these mentions is a pretty simple process; it just takes a bit of time to set up.

Reddit is an excellent medium for providing current social monitoring tactics to aid in brand management and data collection.

I constantly see digital marketers saying they don’t “get” Reddit (well, in fact, I haven’t come across an agency that actually provide community or content marketing services on Reddit. We are an exception because we’ve been on Reddit for more than a decade). They always say it’s too confusing or a place all businesses should avoid. 

Reddit is a medium that doesn’t have everything spelled out. So, some users give up easily after having a bad experience which could have been avoided if they had invested enough time to learn the social norms and history of the platform. 

And yet, if you call yourself a digital marketer and you don’t at least acknowledge the value of subreddits, you’re doing something wrong.

Reddit has become a platform most businesses cannot really ignore… For many reasons.

Yes, Reddit ranks incredibly well in Google. In fact, Reddit results for your branded search may make or break your business:

Other arguments that Reddit cannot be neglected by marketers are:

• Reddit is #6 platform in the world, traffic wise. Well, there are many sources and this number can vary, but it is never below 10.

• Google and AI platforms use its content to understand the real-life context behind keywords and entities/brands

• LOTS of keywords include “reddit” now because people do want to find real first-hand experience with anything (and Reddit unfortunately doesn’t have a good search engine of its own)

But that’s not all….

By dismissing the platform, they’re dismissing target audience groups that are:

• already bunched together

• already talking about relevant industry topics

• asking questions YOU know the answer to

These are communities – not an unresponsive Twitter list, vanity Pin board, or limited Facebook timeline.

There are inside jokes, thematic content (i.e.; weekly contests), in-depth quality discussions, beginners looking for help, and much more. A local business – a plumber or an HVAC, for example – can be incredibly useful on subReddits. It’s an extension of customer service.

Step 1: Find relevant subreddits

Knowing where your audience is should your first step to understanding Reddit. These could be general subreddits (e.g. Health, Beauty, etc.) or these could be brand-driven subreddits (brands and products that complement your offering). Don’t start with dozens of subreddits though because it could be quite overwhelming. 5-8 should be a good start.

You don’t have to actively participate at this point. Joining them and reading daily is enough to get used to the rules, tone and accepted 

Step 2: Become a member, not a community manager

SMMs/businesses need to be flexible when experimenting with new platforms. Becoming a community member in a relevant subreddit is the perfect way to get started. It’s such a simple concept but it gets twisted when you try to approach it from a traditional marketing perspective.

The benefits of being a contributing member include being able to extract social data, learn more about potential customers, the market, the interests, demographics, psycho-graphics, and once you’ve gotten your fill, you can put it all together in an accepted form of advertising. Or a contest. Or a game. Every subreddit is different.

Step 3: Set up Reddit monitoring

Monitoring Reddit has lots of benefits, but mainly:

• Understanding your audience’s pain points

• Being able to identify your product weaknesses

• Being able to become part of conversation (this is tricky! Make sure you do a lot of reading before jumping in to comment)

• Understanding your competitors’ wins and failures

• Curating social proof

• Brand awareness: You can promote positive sentiment by reinforcing in (again, this is tricky).

None of this is easy but for most brands it is a necessity. Make sure you know what you are doing or hire a reliable provider (like us) to ensure your brand is part of the conversation without causing reputation crisis.

The tools you can use to monitor Reddit are:

• Google Alerts

• Buzzsumo

Here’s a screenshot of creating a new alert to monitor brand mentions on Reddit using Buzzsumo:

Step 4: Approach every thread with a lot of care

By this time you already have some more or less established Reddit accounts. Treat them with much care.

Redditors can be pretty aggressive even when you are trying to come off as helpful and non-promotional.

• Don’t try to be defensive. Answering questions is ok. But trying to defend your brand may be not. Reddit is not Twitter.

• Branded accounts may face a more aggressive attitude no matter what they do. It is not a bad idea to establish and use personal accounts. Involve your employees and let us train them.

Reddit was never meant to be a marketing platform. But it is a platform that cannot be neglected by marketers because it has such a huge influence on brands’ reputation and awareness. If you are not paying attention to Reddit, you may be losing out to your competitors. Ask us how you can safely and effectively utilize the platform, based on your niche, reach and organic impact. Every case is different!