Back in October we speculated on how we think Reddit would become a large part of marketing campaigns in 2021. Well, in the same quarter of 2020, the self-proclaimed ‘front-page of the internet’, saw a 90% increase in advertising revenue YoY and daily active users grow to more than 52 million.
It’s clear from their aggressive approach into the advertising world, that there is a vast number of opportunities available for advertisers to maximise on the growing audience. With drastic changes to privacy and the use of personal data, contextual targeting is re-emerging as a potential leader for marketing strategy.
Reddit, as a website, is built with context through it’s 138,000 active subreddits (forums of particular topics) and yet despite this, it’s widely overlooked as an efficient tool to drive awareness and leads.
What value does Reddit provide?
Reddit is a community-driven platform that is built on the following three key values:
- Passionate communities that can’t be found elsewhere.
- Seeking to be informed by conversations they trust.
- Drive action and advocacy across industries and sizes.
As mentioned, Reddit has over 138,000 subreddits filled with various discussions based on topics of interest. These interests vary widely, from UK politics to game streaming, with a global audience consuming content and interacting in sometimes heavily opinionated discussion. Whatever the product, there seems to always be a niche to generate conversation with the target audience and subreddits provide the easiest method of segmenting these audiences.
Whilst Reddit is often viewed as a website dominated by US users, the growing popularity in the UK cannot be ignored and the demographic makes up for the second-highest user base with a +48% year over year growth.
For UK advertisers, Reddit has the capacity to drive awareness, generate leads and build on content consumption from niche audiences through contextual targeting alone. This contextual targeting opportunity is a key factor if marketers want to move with the times in this privacy-first age.
Outlined by Reddit’s COO division:
“Our mission at Reddit is to bring community and belonging to everyone in the world. Brands looking to engage in an authentic and interesting way can be a part of this mission too, tapping into our 430M+ active users in the process,” exclaimed COO, Jen Wong. “With a dedicated team now fully operational in the UK, ambitious growth plans for 2021 and increased interest from local brands to be part of the Reddit community, we are primed to service the UK advertising market with best-in-class campaigns that cut through.”
It’s clear that acceleration of Reddit as a marketing opportunity in the UK is growing fast and this biddable channel could play a bigger role than mainstream social media advertising depending on how Facebook, Snapchat and Twitter deal with the removal of third-party cookies.
In what ways can Reddit be utilised?
With Reddit clearly providing value to brands/companies, it’s important to understand how this value can be used to drive exposure and awareness.
Reddit suggests that brand activation should be achieved through reaching passionate communities, engaging and informing a leaned-in audience and through driving action and converting communities into customers.
We believe, based on a community and action driven approach, that the following methods provide substantial utility:
1. Contributing to popular subreddits:
If budget is tight and you’re looking to gain exposure for free, then you can utilise Reddit’s community as a user. Through finding niche subreddits, posting news articles and key insights, you can create significant coverage for your brand/company whilst positioning yourself as thought leader. This is a great way to develop an understanding of the platform as well as provide substantial SEO benefits through ‘backlinks’.
There are a variety of subreddits to choose from, which may make sharing less simple than it seems, but we’d recommend finding a relevant subreddit with approximately 10,000+ users to share your content through and ensuring you always follow the rules and engage with the community.
Key pieces of content that work well include news, infographics and memes.
2.Building a community with your own subreddit:
Not only can you post content within pre-existing subreddits, but you can also create your own and develop a community around it. Developing your own subreddit takes time but the benefits are astronomical as your community can start to build and market your organisation for free. You might already find that an unofficial subreddit has been created for your organisation, of which we’d recommend referring to point 1.
Many established universities have built their own subreddits, a lot of which is organised and moderated by Student Unions. This is a great way for existing alumni and lecturers to build rapport and entice others, but it’s important to note that building your own subreddit requires a lot of patience and community management.
Tips on promoting your subreddit: include it within an email newsletter, run an AMA (Ask me anything) with an individual of key importance, promote it on social media and/or provide incentive for potential moderators.
3.Utilising biddable opportunities:
One of the fastest growing and easiest ways to utilise Reddit as a platform is through its ever-growing biddable platform. As highlighted, Reddit’s contextual targeting opportunities far exceeds opportunities in other social platforms such as Facebook and Instagram.
Reddit’s advertising platform focuses on subreddits for targeting, and with over 138,000 subreddits, the platform allows you to hyper-target specific users without the need for third-party cookies. If budget allows, you can even opt for what’s known as ‘Category Takeovers’ which allow you to promote to communities in specific categories for 24 hours at a time.
Despite this focus, Reddit does offer interest-targeting and integration with your website through the ‘Reddit Pixel’ which works in a similar way to Facebook’s. Therefore, quick integration is just a few steps away.
Getting Started
Getting started on Reddit couldn’t be easier with Hunterlodge Advertising’s connections to the UK partnership team.
To find out how Hunterlodge can create a successful Reddit campaign for your brand, contact kim.mclellan@hunterlodge.co.uk
