Image Courtesy Eva Blue on Flickr

By: Amanda Drum

Where anonymous comments rule the roost, Reddit can seem like the last advertising frontier. Reddit is a tight-knit community of some of the brightest minds in tech, and they do not tend to take kindly to
marketing or shameless self-promotion. Still, many brands gain favor with the
high-traffic site. How? They follow Reddit’s policies to reach out to Redditors
as they come.

Here are the top five tips for creating—and surviving—a Reddit marketing plan:

1. Stay Transparent

Brands should never lie about their company-status. Hiding corporate status while promoting is called “shilling” and defies Reddit guidelines. Instead, brands can offer assistance and should engage with users in unique ways. Common strategies include hosting an AMA (“Ask Me Anything”) session, where Redditors can peg companies with literally any question, so long as they answer all questions in a timely manner. Not for
the faint of heart—cue the Internet Trolls. Companies can also volunteer support services and answer user questions and complaints in real-time.

Reddit.com: Commit to your AMA, or risk immortalization.

2. Engage First

Reddit protects their site from link-spammers and bots with a mechanism called Karma Points. Karma Points are points users can only gain by commenting on threads and creating helpful, non-marketing posts. These points are important; they indicate your account’s trustworthiness to other users and prevent users from flagging your posts as spam. According to Reddit, if brands don’t think they have the time to build up engagement, “[They] might want to buy a sponsored headline instead.”

3. Pick Your Subreddit

As with other social media platforms, brands posting to specific subreddits will earn more link conversions than just posting to a general thread. They raise their chances of interested users seeing their thread—and run less risk of being reported or slandered.

Reddit Co-Founder Alexis Ohanian. Image Courtesy Mashable.com.

4. Speak The Language

Users might be turned off by corporate “speak.” Corporate-speak signifies falsehood within the website. Brands should keep their voice personable, friendly and helpful, but also very, very casual. When brands adapt Reddit’s everyman speech—minus all the cursing—users resonate more closely with their message.

5. Adopt A Strategy

First and foremost, Reddit stands for “community, discussion and sharing.” Brands that thrive on Reddit honor their code and only seek to a) create a community, b) facilitate a discussion and c) cultivate new ideas. Brands must first respect Reddit’s culture, just as a brand would respect any other social media platform. Only then will users respect a brand enough in turn to notice their promotions.

Image Courtesy ficusdesk on Flickr

Advertising on Reddit can be difficult and time consuming, but it is not impossible. Reddit-marketing may take trial and error and dedication, but brands can build solid followings if they remember to follow the rules.