Maisie Lloyd
I'm passionate about recording the world, but most of all driven by creativity and collaborative environments. My experience revolves around the production of digital content, pertaining to graphic design, writing copy, and video and audio content.
What is Reddit?
Reddit is a social platform which merges content with community discussions. The platform has amassed millions of users since its launch in 2005. It offers many features that others do not provide, like anonymity, a thread-like structure, subreddits and the ability to up-vote and down-vote content to influence where it is displayed.
Why is content from Reddit pulled through to the SERP?
Reddit hosts a vast amount of community discussions; these are often what we see being funnelled onto results pages. User-generated content is often pulled through to Google’s search engine because its algorithm recognises the value of the information provided on the Reddit page. But if we investigate what the driving factor is, it’s the human experience and individual opinion that deem it as quality content.
Google’s partnership with Reddit was forged at the beginning of March 2024. The mutually beneficial partnership has become more apparent, as more Reddit posts are utilised to answer search queries.
Adapting your strategy
Creating a community
Reddit is set up for communities to be established, communities allow users to create spaces to host conversations surrounding specific topics. Users can also join existing communities which is brilliant for expanding audiences with a specific interest in that niche.
Build up Karma
Reddit has ‘karma’, karma is a numerical representation of an account’s reputation. This helps users identify accounts which are more likely to be authentic, contribute to Reddit’s communities and abide by the guidelines and rules.
Karma is calculated through positive and negative engagement across the account’s content, typically, it is up-votes and down-votes that influence karma.
Social Listening
Social listening is all about monitoring and analysing any discussions referring to your brand, any relevant keywords, your competitors or topics in your industry. This technique allows you as a brand to gather information on your audience in a way that is naturalistic to them. Unlike a survey or questionnaire, social listening allows you to get honest, real-time reactions and responses.
Reddit can be especially useful for those starting to shape their strategy. Information regarding pain point, preferences and patterns can be gathered and can help produce customer profiles and content strategies.
Audience participation
Reddit’s main function is as a forum, and as such, audience participation should be leveraged into your strategy. You can do this by hosting an ‘Ask me Anything’ session, this creates a space and time frame for your audience and wider audiences to ask questions.
Conversely, participating in discussions and offering your brands a unique perspective, is a great way to join discussions and position yourself without overtly selling a product or using traditional marketing means.
Leveraging analytics to drive content and discussions
Like with any strategy, using analytics is essential. Collecting data to inform your strategy is incredibly valuable. It can help us define our goals, whether that’s the amount of followers gained in a period of time or a certain amount of clicks on a link.
Data can aid us in the identification of what is and isn’t working for audiences, which then shapes what kind of content is produced. It can be used to draw comparisons for later campaigns and projects, to ensure that any goals, objectives and briefs can be fully met in future.
