1. news

This guide and MarketersGuideToReddit.com are not affiliated with reddit inc. The content
in this guide is based on our research, experimentation, and experience working
independently with clients.
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Table of Contents
Chapter 1: reddit fundamentals
Chapter 2: Setting up your reddit account
Chapter 3: Navigating reddit
Chapter 4: Contributing to reddit
Appendix: Glossary of reddit terms
Appendix: Client questionnaire
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Introduction
It is important for every marketer to completely understand the tools they use to
communicate with their audience. Reddit can be intimidating for new users, so we
decided to create this guide to help others confidently approach the platform.
This guide gives you a fundamental understanding of the reddit platform, rules, and
communities which will serve as the foundation for a successful reddit marketing strategy.
Once you become an experienced and active redditor, you will be positioned to contribute
value to reddit communities and take advantage of the marketing opportunities that reddit
has to offer.
- David and Paul DiGiovanni, MarketersGuideToReddit.com
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reddit fundamentals
Reddit is a community platform made up of thousands of communities called
“subreddits”. Each subreddit is a place for reddit users (redditors) to submit and discuss
content surrounding a certain topic (e.g. politics).
There are two types of content that can be submitted to a subreddit:
1. Link posts consist of a title that links to any page on the web.
2. Text posts consist of a title and body of text.
Every post has a comments section where the content can be discussed.
Redditor Tip: Text posts are also called “self posts” because they link to themselves instead of
another web page.
What is a subreddit?
Subreddits are topic-based communities on reddit. Every post on reddit is submitted to a
subreddit. Redditors subscribe to subreddits related to their interests, allowing them to
follow specific types of content more closely.
Subreddit names are signified by the “/r/” prefix. For example, the “News” subreddit is
referred to as “/r/News” and it can be found at reddit.com/r/news.
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Understanding subreddits is critical to successful marketing on reddit. Each subreddit is
its own community with unique interests, demographics, culture, and rules. While the
general reddit audience might not care about your brand, a specific subreddit could be
filled with fans that want to hear from you.
This is the front page of /r/Pics, a subreddit dedicated to pictures.
This is the top of the sidebar of /r/Pics. The sidebar contains a search
feature, links to submit content, and general information about the subreddit.
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How voting works on reddit
You can vote up or down on every post and comment on
reddit. Every post is given a “score” which is the collective
difference between “upvotes” and “downvotes”. A post’s
score significantly affects where the post is positioned in
the subreddit.
For example, if two posts are submitted at the same time,
whichever post has the better score will be displayed
above the other post. Of course, posts are submitted at
various times of day and reddit has an algorithm that
determines how the age of a post affects its position on
the subreddit’s front page (as posts age, they fall down the
page).
This voting widget appears to
the left of every post. Users
can vote by clicking the up or
down arrow. The number
between the arrows iss the
current score. The number to
the left of the arrows is the
rank in the subreddit.
The primary function of voting is to control the order of posts on the subreddit’s front
page, but it also provides additional data about how content is received by the community.
This becomes especially useful when contributing content on reddit because the votes
provide feedback on how the community feels about a post or comment.
Redditors vote up and down for a variety of reasons, but in general you should upvote
things that add value to the conversation and downvote things that are spam, off-topic,
against the rules, or inappropriate.
Redditor Tip: The score of your post or comment is important, but it is hard to determine what the
score actually means without context. Look for comments and replies that give clues as to why
your content was upvoted or downvoted.
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Karma
Karma can be thought of as your personal reddit score. The
original purpose of karma was to encourage users to submit
quality content to reddit. Now, karma is something that
redditors generally do not care about. Instead of worrying about your overall karma score,
pay attention to the scores of your individual posts and comments to assess how your
content is being received by the community.
Other users can view your karma by clicking on your username or by navigating to
reddit.com/user/your_username.
Redditor Tip: Every redditor has “link karma” and “comment karma”. Link karma is the difference
between upvotes and downvotes on all link posts you have submitted. Comment karma is the
difference between upvotes and downvotes on all comments you have submitted. There is no
karma for text posts.
The Moderators
For each subreddit there is a moderator or group of moderators that maintain the spirit
and rules of the subreddit. Within the subreddit they can edit the content in the sidebar,
remove posts, change the design, ban users, and perform other special tasks.
The most important function of a moderator is to manage the content of the subreddit by
removing off-topic submissions, inappropriate comments, and spam.
As a marketer, it is important to be respectful of the
moderators and their rules. If you are ever unsure
about a rule or want to ask the moderators a
question, you can contact them by locating the
“message the moderators” link in the right-hand
sidebar of any subreddit.
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Redditquette for marketers
Adhering to reddit etiquette, or redditquette, is a fundamental way to contribute value to
every community you engage. All of the guidelines of redditquette were created for a
reason and by respecting them, you help make the community a better place.
We strongly suggest you take a moment to read the official reddiquette guidelines here.
Here are some additional guidelines specifically for marketers:
• Be professional. Not only are you representing your brand, you are also creating
interactions with redditors that they will use to form their general opinion about
marketing on reddit.
• Familiarize yourself with the subreddits you are engaging. Spend time “lurking” in the
subreddit and read the sidebar for specific rules and guidelines before submitting
content.
• Be accessible by responding to comments and private messages. It is especially
important to make sure you respond to comments that have been upvoted by multiple
users. Ignore comments that are inappropriate.
• Consistently do something on reddit that is not about you. Share others’ content or
answer a question that is not directly related to your business.
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Setting up your reddit account
Choose a reddit username
It is necessary to create a reddit account to engage redditors and choosing your
username is the first step in the process. Here are a few tips for choosing a username:
• Individuals communicate on reddit, not companies or brands. Every username should
attempt to contain a human element. We recommend including the name of the
employee and/or title in your reddit username (e.g. John_Company_CEO).
• Each member of your organization should have their own reddit username.
• You can use your personal reddit username (if you have one), but keep in mind that users
can view the history of your reddit activity.
• Do not overthink it. Reddit usernames are largely unimportant compared to the actual
content you post. Almost any type of username will work, so feel free to be creative.
Create a reddit account
Go to reddit.com and click “create an account” in the top righthand corner. This will trigger a pop-up window where you can
enter a username, password, and your email address (required if
you want to create ads). Click the “Create Account” button and
you will be re-directed back to the front page of reddit. If you
entered an email address, you will receive an email with a
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verification link.
Redditor Tip: Enter your email address when creating your account and verify your email address
by responding to the verification email. This will eliminate some basic restrictions on your account
that are designed to discourage spammers.
Customize your subreddit subscriptions
After creating your account, the front page of reddit will show you “hot” submissions from
the default subreddits. The default subreddits are the subreddits that you are automatically
subscribed to when you create your account. The first thing you should do after creating a
reddit account is customize your subreddit subscriptions by clicking on “My Subreddits”
in the top left-hand corner and then scroll down to “Edit Subscriptions”. Start by
unsubscribing from every subreddit that is not relevant to your business.
When you click "Edit Subscriptions", you will be taken to this page where you can subscribe
and unsubscribe from subreddits.
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Finding new subreddits
Go to reddit.com/subreddits and search for keywords that are related to your business.
Reddit will provide you with a list of subreddits where those keywords are mentioned.
The results of a subreddit search for the keyword “marketing” at reddit.com/subreddits.
Another way to find new subreddits is metareddit.com. The metareddit search provides
extensive results with filtering options that are useful.
For each subreddit you find, look at the name of the subreddit to decide if it is remotely
related to your business. If it has a chance of being related, click through and read the
content that is being shared. If the subreddit seems like it could be a valuable community,
subscribe to it by clicking the red “subscribe” button in the sidebar.
After you are done customizing your subreddit subscriptions, your front page will be filled
with popular links and discussions that are targeted to your interests.
Redditor Tip: When in doubt, subscribe to a subreddit. If it produces too much content that is
unrelated to your interests, you can always unsubscribe.
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Navigating reddit
At first, reddit seems like a daunting platform to navigate. Once you are familiar with the
platform, you will be able to use reddit to consume high quality content and connect with
targeted communities.
Reading the front page
The front page shows a mix of the “hot” content from all of the subreddits you are
subscribed to. Typically, redditors land on the front page and click on the content that
interests them. After you have gone through the front page, you can then take a look at
individual subreddits that interest you.
Reading subreddits
We recommend that you pick a few subreddits to visit on a daily basis. These should be
the subreddits that are most related to your business and have active communities.
You can bookmark these subreddits or visit them by typing the URL directly into your
browser. All subreddit URLs follow this format: http://reddit.com/r/subreddit_name.
Every subreddit has a front page which displays the “hot” content in that subreddit. The
“hot” content is determined by an algorithm that considers the score of the post and how
long ago it was posted. Like the front page of reddit, the front page of each subreddit is a
great place to get an overview of the community and see the latest and most upvoted
content.
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Subreddit menu tabs
Notice at the top of every subreddit there is a menu of tabs that sort and filter the content
in the subreddit.
Use these tabs to see the content that is not reaching the front page of the subreddit.
hot - The default view for every subreddit. It shows the most upvoted and recent content
shared in the subreddit.
new - The latest content shared in the subreddit, regardless of score.
rising - New content that is getting upvotes. It is usually empty in small subreddits, but
can be useful in larger subreddits.
controversial - Content that has received many upvotes and downvotes. This can be a
useful way to find content that is generating a discussion but might not have a score high
enough to show up on the subreddit’s front page.
top - Content with the highest score in a given time frame. You can filter the top page to
show posts from this hour, today, this week, this month, this year, and all time.
gilded - Content that has been “gilded”. Redditors can gild each others’ posts and
comments which gives the user “reddit gold”. Reddit gold costs money and gives the user
access to special features on reddit.
wiki - The wiki is used by subreddits for various reasons. Subreddits will commonly post
the rules of the subreddit or have entire guides dedicated to the topic of the subreddit.
promoted - Advertisements in the subreddit are displayed here. Anyone can purchase ads
in a given subreddit which are also displayed at the top of the subreddit.
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In general, these tabs are more helpful when you are reading a larger subreddit. For
smaller subreddits, you can easily keep up with the content by checking the front page of
the subreddit on a daily or even weekly basis.
Searching reddit
Searching reddit is a great way to find out what redditors are saying about a particular
topic. To use reddit’s search feature go to reddit.com, find the search box in the sidebar,
type in a keyword or phrase, and click the magnifying glass icon.
A list of relevant submissions will appear that can be sorted by relevance, new, hot, top,
and comments. You can also filter the results by the date they were posted to reddit (e.g.
today, this week, this month, etc).
Advanced Search
Reddit has an “advanced search” feature that you can utilize to enhance your searches. All
of the advanced search options can be found at reddit.com/wiki/search.
Here are two useful searches you can perform using the advanced search feature.
Search post titles - title:‘keywords here’
A normal search will look at content in post titles and the bodies of text posts. Doing a title
search can narrow down the results and help you find what you are looking for. For
example, if you wanted to find posts where redditors are complaining about a problem,
you might perform this search:
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Search submissions from a website - site:example.com
Searching reddit is a great way to find out what people are saying about a brand. You can
get a quick overview of submissions from any website with a search like this:
The reddit search wiki page has more information about advanced search options. Get
creative and try a few searches to see what kind of useful results you can produce.
Searching a subreddit
There is an advanced search option that limits
your search to a specific subreddit, but it is
easier to visit that subreddit and use the
search box in the top right-hand corner. Click
into the search field and a dropdown will
appear that says, “limit my search to /r/subreddit”. Make sure that box is checked and
your search will be limited to posts from that subreddit.
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Contributing to reddit
Be a helpful redditor
You can easily contribute to any reddit community by being an active voter. Upvote the
submissions that you think provide value and downvote submissions that are poor quality
or contribute little value. If you want to be an especially helpful voter, take a look at the
“New” tab of any subreddit. The “New” tab can be found at the top of any subreddit and
will show you the latest submissions to that subreddit. Relatively few redditors take the
time to vote on new posts, so it is a great way to contribute to a subreddit and help
determine which posts are seen by the rest of the community.
Report spam and rule-breaking content
In addition to downvoting, you should also “report” spam and rule-breaking content. This
puts the content into the moderators queue so they can review it and remove it if
necessary. To report a submission, simply click the “report” link under the submission’s
title.
Redditor Tip: Do not downvote or report a submission because you do not agree with it. Instead,
leave a thoughtful comment that contributes to the discussion.
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Submitting comments
Commenting is a great way to begin engaging redditors. Scan your front page or visit a
subreddit you follow and start reading the posts. Find a post that interests you and
consume it to determine if you have something to add to the conversation.
Before commenting, read through the existing comments to make sure you are not
repeating what someone else has already said. By reading the comments, you can find
opportunities to add value to the discussion by voting on and replying to comments.
To find new posts that have not been commented on yet, click on the “new” tab. This will
display the most recently submitted posts where you can start the conversation with a
thoughtful comment.
Note that comments can either be made in response to the post itself or to a comment
made by another user. When you are commenting, make sure that you are submitting the
appropriate type of comment. Use the comment form directly below the post to comment
on the post itself. Click “reply” under any comment to reply to that comment.
A comment and a reply. Notice the “reply” links and how the reply is indented under the comment.
Redditor Tip: If you are trying to comment or vote on a post but reddit won’t let you, it means that
the post is old and no longer accepts comments or votes.
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Submitting posts
To submit a post, navigate to the subreddit
where you want to submit a post (reddit.com/r/
subredditname). Look at the top of the right
sidebar and you will see two buttons: “Submit a
new link” and “Submit a new text post”. Note that in some subreddits the button text will
be customized or the subreddit may only offer one of the two options.
Click the appropriate button to access the submission form. If you are submitting a link,
you simply need to paste the link in the url field and add a title. If you are submitting a text
post, you need to add a title and body. Your body text may contain links to external
websites (see the next section - “Formatting comments and posts”).
This is the text post submission form. The link post submission form
features a “url” field instead of a “text” field.
Click submit and your post will be added to the subreddit. You can confirm your
submission by viewing the “New” tab in the subreddit.
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Use extreme caution when promoting your own content
Make sure you are honest about who you are and only share your own content if it adds
substantial value to the community. Before sharing your own content, spend time getting
to know a subreddit. By learning about the subreddit, you will have a better idea of how
much the subreddit will value your content.
Sharing a blog post
When sharing a blog post, do not link directly to the blog post on your website. Instead,
paste the full text of your blog post with a “source” link at the end of the post. Redditors
will appreciate the post being shared as a text post and will be more likely to upvote it.
Sharing an image or video
When sharing an image or video, link directly to the media instead of a website that has
the media embedded. For example, do not share a link to a blog post where a YouTube
video is embedded. Instead, share the direct link to the video on YouTube.
All images shared on reddit should be uploaded to imgur.com. Imgur is free, easy to use,
and you do not need an account to upload an image. Most importantly, Imgur is used by
redditors because it has the ability to handle large amounts of traffic that reddit generates.
If you want to control your images on Imgur, you should create an account so you can
delete an image in the future if necessary.
Formatting comments and posts
When submitting a comment or post, you can use “markdown” to format your content.
The two ways you are most likely to use markdown are to make text bold or create a link.
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Bold text
Make text bold by wrapping it in double asterisks (**), like this:
**this text will be bold on reddit**
Link text to a URL
Use this format to link text to a URL:
[The link text goes here](http://example.com)
With markdown you can also make text italic, create bulleted or numbered lists, and insert
tables of data. See all of the formatting possibilities in reddit’s wiki page on commenting
here.
Messages
A message is sent to your inbox when a redditor comments on your post, replies to one of
your comments, or sends you a private message. Private messages (PMs) are used to
contact a redditor directly and privately.
All of your messages are stored in the inbox and can be accessed by clicking on the
envelope icon at the top right of every page.
If the envelope icon is orange, that means you have unread messages.
Click the envelope icon to view unread replies and PMs. You can reply to comments
directly from the inbox or click on the “context” link to see the context of the comment
before replying.
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Unread post replies show up under the "unread" tab of the inbox.
Turn off post reply notifications
When you create a new post on reddit, there is an option
to “send replies to my inbox” and by default it is checked.
If you do not want to receive replies in your inbox,
uncheck this option before creating your post (users will still be able to leave comments). If
you have already submitted a post, go to its comments page and click the “disable inbox
replies” link under the post to disable inbox replies. This can be helpful if a post gets
highly upvoted in a big subreddit and your inbox is being flooded with messages.
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Conclusion
The information in this guide was designed to help you learn the basics of reddit and
become a contributing member of the reddit community. It is up to you to put the
information into action. We suggest you go to reddit.com to create your first account, then
refer back to this guide for help configuring your account, navigating the platform, and
contributing to reddit.
Before you go we want to stress the importance of being open, honest, and
authentic every time you communicate on reddit. This approach to reddit will yield
meaningful engagements and relationships that will produce positive outcomes.
To learn more about the reddit platform and ethical reddit marketing strategies, visit us at
MarketersGuideToReddit.com.
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If you have any ideas on how we can improve this guide, contact us.
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Appendix: Glossary of reddit terms
Below is a list of basic terms and abbreviations that you may encounter on reddit.
AMA
Ask me anything
DAE
Does anyone else...?
ELI5
Explain like I’m 5
FTFY
Fixed that for you
IAmA
I am a... (also the main subreddit for AMAs)
ITT
In this thread…
Lurker
A person who frequently visits reddit, but does post
NSFW
Not safe for work
OP
Original poster (user that created the post)
PM
Private message
Self post
Throwaway
A text post
An account made by a redditor that is used for a specific post and then
“thrown away” to maintain anonymity.
TIL
Today I learned...
tl;dr
Too long; didn’t read (used to label a summary of a post)
Troll
A user who posts or comments just to get a rise our of others.
Xpost or crosspost
A post that was previous posted to a different subreddit.
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Appendix: Client questionnaire
Use this questionnaire to assess your own (or a client's) marketing goals and opportunities
to engage reddit.
Who is your target market?
Be specific as possible. How old are they? Where do they live? What websites do they
visit? What is their income level? What is their most pressing problem?
What is the average value of a new customer?
What is unique or extraordinary about your business?
This could be related to your product, the way your business is run, or the people that
make up your business.
Tell us about your marketing and advertising strategies.
Be sure to include notable successes and failures.
What is your number one priority for your business right now?
How do you think reddit could help you accomplish your business goals?
Let us know if you are interested in advertising, AMA's, subreddit development, or
something else.
Who are the most experienced and interesting people you work with?
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Do you have branding or communication guidelines?
Include the guidelines or a link to the guidelines in the field below.
Additional Information
Use this space to tell us anything else we should know.
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