Web 101: What is Reddit?

by Lily Bradic | DIGITAL MEDIA GHOST | DIGITAL MARKETING

Reddit’s good for being discovered, but it’s not good for pushing your brand. If users suspect you of advertising, you’ll be down-voted.

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Heard of Reddit? If not, be warned — unless you can afford to procrastinate for the next few hours, you’re better off leaving this site until you have time to kill. If you’re familiar with Reddit, you’ll know what we mean.

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What is Reddit?

Reddit, tagline “front page of the Internet”, is a strange beast — and it’s virtually impossible to explain, because your experience there will depend entirely on which subreddits (forums) you subscribe to. Essentially, Reddit is…

•  A social network. You can follow users, send private messages, and interact with each other in comments. There are no profile pictures and real names, though, so there’s a certain anonymity to Reddit that you don’t get with more mainstream social networks.
• A news site. If a new meme is born, or a video goes viral, it probably started here (or at 4chan, but we won’t go there). 
• A community. Users submit content — like links, text posts, questions, and images — and other users can comment, vote, and reward interesting contributions with Karma or Reddit Gold (popularity points, essentially).  

Who uses Reddit?

As of May 2013, the majority of Reddit users are between 24-35, male (59%) and live in the United States. 

But journalists use Reddit, too. And celebrities often post AMAs on the site (Ask Me Anything, where a user invites other users to ask them questions. Even Barack Obama did one).

Reddit, as a community, is pretty diverse. But there are subreddits for pretty much everything, so again, your experience will be different depending on where you lurk.

Why should you care?

If you’re running the social media profiles for your brand, then you probably know the pain of searching for fresh content that hasn’t been discovered by your competitors. If you subscribe to relevant subreddits (no, not /r/aww or /r/doge) then this can make your search a LOT easier.

Reddit can be good for market research, too — just bear in mind that the community is mostly liberal, mostly atheist, and mostly male, so there WILL be a bias. 

Is Reddit good for marketing?

Reddit’s good for being discovered, but it’s not good for pushing your brand. If users suspect you of advertising, you’ll be down-voted.

Instead of advertising directly, try engaging in discussion, becoming active on a particular subreddit, and consider doing an AMA about your area of expertise (for example, “I run a successful business selling handmade dresses online. AMA”). 

Need help getting started? Subscribe to get Ghost Tips and we’ll help you level up!

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