Reddit is one of the biggest websites in the world. They have between 1 – 2 billion visits every month. All this could generate a lot of traffic to your startup without having a lot of followers already. Let’s talk about 5 steps to growth hacking on Reddit.
In this article, I’m going to talk about a real story about going viral on Reddit and how that is different than other social media, such as Twitter and Facebook.
5 steps to growth hacking on Reddit
Steffan Ulmert is from Sweden. He built a music community called “Has It Leaked”. He manages to get 2 million visitors per month quickly. And he did the same for his other startup, a newbie movie community called “Where You Watch”.He’s been on BBC World, The Guardian, The New York Times, Vice.
You might also like to read: How much does the internet weigh?
Why Reddit?
Reddit is interesting. It has great traffic. They are divided into subreddits. Those subreddits are like mini forums. There is everything from world news, to collecting Beatles’ records. Unlike Twitter or Facebook, quality content, products, or services actually have a shop. And that pays off without having a big following.
If you create amazing content on Reddit, You don’t have to have a hundred thousand followers like on Twitter or some other social media platforms.
But the downside is that moderators rule the kingdom. You either follow their rules or you’re out. So, you have to be a little bit more subtle on Reddit. You can’t just jump into it and sell stuff.
There is an audience ready. They are ready in that way that they are divided already into these mini forums or subreddits. Unlike Twitter or Facebook, you don’t have to have a built following first. There is no SEO, there are no keywords to use, there are no hidden hashtags or such things that you have to deal with within other social media.
1. Understanding Reddit
First of all, you need to create an account, and then join subreddits, where you can be productive. That means you read and learn and take your time to be familiar with the platform. If you are an entrepreneur, this might include the subreddit “startups”. It is a good way to start listening and reading lessons. You can learn a lot from that. Then you got lengthier stories, which are also very interesting.
Then there is the content marketing subreddit. That is also a very interesting subreddit, about how to use content correctly, how to get exposure to your content. If you are willing to reveal your own business venture, what you can do is, join the subreddit called, startup ideas. That is also super interesting.
This step is very important, you cannot skip it. Because you can learn a lot from these contents and also you can learn Reddit. If you don’t learn Reddit, you are not going to be able to move forward in Reddit.
2. Ask all the newbie questions
Don’t think of Reddit as a traffic source, straight away. Take the opportunity to ask those really basic questions. Simple questions such as,
- Do I need SEO?
- How do I find investors?
- Do I need a paid campaign?
- How do I hashtag stuff on my Instagram?
- Do I need to use hashtags?
- Should I use WordPress?
Reddit is perfect. There is a subreddit called, Instagram Marketing, Which is a very interesting subreddit. You can learn a lot from this subreddit.
You are engaging and learning what to do and what not to do. It is an important area is what not to do too. Because the rules are strict. Every single subreddit you join into, you have to read the rules.
3. Prepare to market yourself
You need to map your niche on Reddit. List all the subreddits, which are related to your niche. There is going to be more than one here. There is a very basic and simple tool called, Delay for Reddit.
It is much more than a scheduler. It is a tool to discover valuable subreddits. Just search for the keywords that you are interested in, and your business is related to, and it will find those relevant subreddits.
It is going to help you when to post and it is going to give you a lot of data insights. Also, it is super simple to use. It is also very cheap.
Be very transparent. Don’t talk about your company in the third person. Be very transparent about who you are and why. Respect the moderators and always read the rules.
4. Engage in your niche
Now it is time to post. But what should you post? You can post guides. They are relevant and you can contribute as well as you can insert your website links in the guide. If you don’t know what type of guide you can write about, or you have no idea and you need inspiration, you can copy popular posts and you can improve them.
Brian Dean is a famous SEO person. He has this skyscraper method, which is basically you build one building. Someone has built a really tall building, you look at that and make it even taller.
Get inspiration from others, create original content. And always build something better than the previous post.
5. Gain Traffic
Reddit hates marketers. That is the most important thing that you should remember. When you insert your link to your business or product, make sure that either be upfront or make it very seamless and organic.
For example, if you post an extensive guide, you can place a link at the bottom saying this guide was originally written for the site that you want traffic for. It might not be the original content. It works as a reference.
Does the generate enough traffic just from the link at the bottom?
If the content is good enough, it is going to get a permanent placement. People will see that post and they’ll post questions in the end, they will click on that link and see.
You also can place a link to a product directly in that guide. Also, you can include links to other company’s products. It doesn’t have to be your competing company. You can post links like amazon and put your link in between them. But that might be too obvious. But make it flow, organic, and something that recommends.
It looks like one-sided promotion of your business, but if you do mix it up a little bit, then it can be done.
If you really don’t have time to make those extensive guides, You will be able to find what your clients may be building a very impressive website from the beginning and write lots of guides or posts and share them on Facebook, Instagram. Maybe they got a few likes and then died out and maybe it doesn’t perform that well on Google. You can take that stuff and put it on Reddit.
And also it is okay to promote your business directly on a few subreddits. There is one called the shameless plug. And there is one called small businesses. And also there is one called coupons, which is super popular. It is highly recommended.
Why actually it is different going viral on Reddit compared to Twitter or Facebook
According to Steffan, he went viral on Twitter, semi-viral on Reddit at around the same time. On Twitter, it was his tweet about Taylor Swift’s upcoming album. It got 1 million impressions within 24 hours. That’s a lot and resulted in 90,000 visitors. Because he has included a link to his website in that tweet.
And a number of outlets wrote about him. Vogue, Yahoo, Metro, MTV, all that’s good. And it was good press for him. When comparing it with Reddit. He wrote a guide on clothes which got really popular and it got 27,000 impressions. It resulted in 2000 visitors to his website.
That doesn’t sound too impressive compared to the 1 million impressions. But there is a big difference here. The Twitter users, which came to his site, didn’t really explore the rest of the site. They just jumped back straight to Twitter. And his Twitter account is old and has 30,000 followers. It’s not a lot, he is running that Twitter accounts for many years.
There is a business strategy from Twitter and Facebook. They are trying to create closed communities where people stay. Reddit is different in that way. They do not mind linking to others and are more integrated with the world.
His Reddit account was brand new, he had no trust, no following. But it got tons of impressions anyway. And unlike Twitter, visitors actually converted. Yes, it was only 2000 visitors, but 8% of those signed up for his newsletter. He got sold a lot of affiliated products too.
On other social media, you just have a lot of people flying by, but in these subreddits, you get the exact right people. They are relevant for you, your business, your service.
So these are the first steps to growth hacking on Reddit.