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The following is a guest post by Sasha Woss. Sasha is a content marketer and passionate blogger. When she’s not researching ways to make you better at digital marketing, she finds herself at foreign countries or cooking classes. Follow Sasha on Facebook and Twitter.

Although most people who aren’t familiar with it tend to think of it as just another social media platform, Reddit is an entirely different animal, and is nothing like Facebook, Twitter, or Tumblr. Dubbed as “the front page of the internet”, Reddit has every right to sport such status, since it has over 234 million unique users and 8 billion monthly pageviews. It should then come as no surprise that it is the 7^th most visited website online, which means that there is limitless potential if you are looking to grow your small business using Reddit.

Image source: Screenshot from Reddit

According to James Hutton, who is a manager at BestEssays, Reddit has been a blessing for them:

“Reddit has not only helped us spread word about our service, but it has also provided valuable information about what our customers expect from us. We have since improved the quality of our services dramatically.”

But, before we get on to how you can use Reddit to benefit your small business, let’s familiarize ourselves with the basics:

• Don’t use your real name or other personal information. Anonymity allows for more freedom, and the way Reddit avoids anarchy is by allowing every user to look at posting history of other users to establish how genuine they are. If you are looking to build a personal brand, you may use your real name, but be careful.
• Creating an account is as simple as coming up with a username and a password.
• When you join, you will be automatically subscribed to some of the more interesting subreddits, such as r/videos and r/gifs, which are very addictive. However, feel free to subscribe to other which might interest you.
• Speaking of which, Reddit is divided into niche communities, called subreddits. For example, if you are a small business owner, you may want to check out r/entrepreneur and r/smallbusiness
• Because Reddit users are anonymous and have multiple accounts, the way Reddit keeps things in check is through Karma. You are awarded Karma points for your posts, as well as your comments, which boosts your status as a Redditor and shows others how authentic you are.
• Think of how your contributions can add to the community, not just how it may benefit you. Of course, you are in it for yourself, as well, but Reddit is also about helping others.

How to Boost Your Business with Reddit

In theory, anonymity allows you to plug your products, but since most users will be able to see through this tactic, you are best advised to avoid it, since it can have an adverse effect on potential buyers. You don’t want to do anything to tarnish your company’s reputation right away. So how do benefit from using Reddit? Here are 9 most effective ways:

1. Reddit Paid Ads

Reddit is probably the best platform to advertise your products on, and there are several reasons why. There is the fact that it’s completely safe. But, the most amazing thing about advertising on Reddit is that you don’t have to go looking for your target audience. It’s right there, in the subreddits you are interested in and subscribed to. As opposed to social media platforms, Reddit ads work on a CPM basis.

2. Make Use of r/deals Subreddit

Just like its name indicates, r/deals subreddit is where you would go about promoting your service or a product. Again, Reddit has done all of the work for you, which means that users who hang out in this subreddit are interested in becoming customers and getting a good deal.

3. Use Reddit as an Extension of Your Customer Service

Every serious brand and business should be on the lookout for mentions. With Reddit, you can take it one step further by responding to those mentions and comments. You can also use it as an opportunity to provide people with more information about your company and the services you have to offer, and to monitor the complaints.

4. Post Something Cool about Your Business

Although Reddit and its users frown upon marketing and promotion outside of the appropriate subreddits, you can still mention your company in case it has somehow contributed to the community, or if you have a new approach which might be useful to other Redditors.

5. Try Doing an AMA

AMA, or Ask Me Anything, works well on Reddit, and you can use it to boost your company’s exposure, as well as your credibility if you are looking to build your brand. Simply start by introducing yourself inside r/AMA, and invite users to ask you questions. The beauty of AMA is that everyone uses it, from small business owners to IT giants.

6. Try Curating Viral Content

Aside from promoting your own original content, you can also make yourself more useful to other users by curating select content from your niche. This applies to articles, blog posts, infographics, GIFs, videos, and just about anything that has value. Once again, Reddit has done all the work for you, because you can find the content inside subreddits.

7. Recruit Collaborators

At some point, you are going to need to hire other people, whether on a full-time or freelance basis. Reddit makes that a lot easier. If you are looking for someone local, you can ask around in a subreddit dedicated to your town, or you can look for a particular skill in the appropriate subreddit.

8. Receive Valuable Feedback and Research Market Trends

You can keep an eye on market trends and what the users are after by checking out their posts. Also, you can ask them to provide feedback on your service or product inside one of the business subreddits. Business subreddits are also a true goldmine of information, so don’t be afraid to ask.

9. Host a Subreddit Contest

You will need to see about this one with the mods first, but usually they allow you to run a contest where you give away your service or a product, because it improves user engagement, and gets people posting, leaving useful information in the process.

Conclusion

Reddit is not just platform where you can have productive discussions with people that share the same interests as you, but it’s also a tool with which you can grow your small business. The great thing about it is that is so easy and intuitive, you won’t have to spend weeks or months targeting the right people. They are already there, so make the most out of the opportunities you can find on Reddit.

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