Taking inventory of your assets
After completing the assignments in the first article, you now have a better idea of your story and the elements of your story that will be intriguing to the Reddit audience. With your story in mind, it is time to take inventory of your assets, which are the resources that you can use to contribute value to Reddit.
Types of Assets
The first asset you have is actually your story, which you clarified in the last article. Sharing your story is a way to contribute value on Reddit (assuming it is honest, interesting, and unique). A really great story can be enough on its own, but additional assets are usually needed to contribute sufficient value to get redditors to upvote your post.
This redditor used his time and skills to build a website to help solve a specific problem that other users have.
Below is a list of common assets that businesses bring to Reddit:
- Expertise – Expert knowledge on a specific topic that is either practical or fascinating.
- Authority – The ability to make decisions or strongly affect a decision-making process. The degree to which the authority directly affects redditors will determine its value.
- Product or service – Assuming a community finds a product or service valuable, it can be used as an asset by giving it away for free or at a discount.
- Money – A “meta asset” which can be used to provide a Reddit community with expertise, authority, or a product/service. For example, a business could purchase a certain product and offer it as a prize to a Reddit community.
- Relationships – Another “meta asset” which can be used to provide a Reddit community with expertise, authority, or a product/service. For example, a business could leverage a relationship with an expert to bring them to a Reddit community to provide value.
Assignment 2.1 – Take inventory of your assets
Start brainstorming all of the various assets that you and your business possesses. Do not worry about how valuable they are at this point. Think about the types of assets listed above and start naming the things you have at your disposal. For each asset, including the type of asset it is.
To complete this assignment, write down at least 10 assets that your business can bring to Reddit. These assets do not have to be directly related to your business. Any asset could prove to be valuable.
Assignment 2.2 – Rank your assets
Using what you know about your target subreddit, rank your assets in order of value. There is no objective way to do this, but it will give you an idea of what are the most valuable things you have to offer.
To complete this assignment, make a list of your top 10 assets in order of value to your target subreddit.
Promotional Reddit submissions
If you have followed our step-by-step approach, you are more prepared than ever to create a Reddit submission that results in a big marketing win (e.g., traffic, sales, email signups). In this portion of the article, we will teach you about the types of promotional submissions that lead to marketing results.
We will also show you how these submissions can be executed in an ethical manner. By the end, you will have created a plan for a single promotional submission.
Types of submissions
You can make numerous types of submissions to Reddit that will drive traffic, build awareness, and potentially result in sales for your business. Depending on the community that your business is focused on, you may have more or fewer options.
So before you attempt any of the following submissions, revisit the rules and review the top-performing posts in your subreddit (see assignments 2.2 and 6.1 from Part 1).
Article or Blog
If you already have quality blog content, this is a good place to start, but keep in mind that the content you previously wrote may not be relevant enough to share with your target subreddit.
You may have to write new content or rewrite existing content so that it speaks directly to the community you want to engage. Listen to the subreddit to determine how you can best contribute value in the form of an article.
Pictured above, you can see a user who shared an epic blog post on Reddit that led to hundreds of requests for his marketing
consultant services.
Many subreddits explicitly restrict users from posting ‘blogspam.’ Make sure you can find instances of others sharing their own blog posts in a given subreddit before you do it. In most subreddits, you should submit your blog article as a text post, which is more courteous to redditors since you are not forcing them to leave Reddit to read your content.
At the end of your text post, you can include a link to the original source of the content (your website).
Photo or Photo Album
Redditors love photos because they are easy to consume. Quality is important, but access is even more attractive. Use photos to show redditors things they have never seen before, explain a complicated process, or capture an extraordinary moment. Make an album to document a process or to share a series of photos.
When sharing images, always use Imgur or Reddit’s native image upload service. You can generate traffic or brand awareness by including a link to your website in the description of the photo/album on Imgur.
Infographic
Redditors love infographics because, if done properly, they present lots of information in an atheistically pleasing manner. Like an article, the infographic needs to be highly relevant to the subreddit where it is posted.
You can even create an infographic that is in direct response to a discussion that happened in the subreddit.
Your infographic could include quotes, statistics, or facts. Originality and quality are both important. Make sure your infographic has an attractive design and is easy to read.
Hire a designer if you need to. Also, fact check your infographic content. Redditors will question your infographic if it is not backed up with sources. Infographics can drive traffic and brand awareness by including a readable link on the graphic itself.
This link should forward users to a landing page or relevant blog post that contains more details and brings users closer to your product.
AMA (Live Q&A)
AMAs (Ask Me Anything) is one of the most popular forms of engagement between Redditors and experts/leaders/celebrities. If you are not an expert, leader, celebrity, or uniquely interesting, you should not consider doing an AMA.
AMAs are generally accepted because they are a great way to have a live conversation between one person and thousands (or even millions). A productive AMA will also require a lot of contribution from the AMA subject.
Pictured above, you will see an excellent example of this. A group of resume writers committed 12 hours to helping redditors for free, resulting in massive attention for their AMA.
If you want to learn more about AMAs, read “The Marketer’s Guide to Reddit AMAs.” AMAs will help you generate marketing results by including direct links to your web assets in the AMA body text. Also, if an AMA does very well, it is often written about and shared outside of Reddit. This can lead to further media exposure for your brand.
Landing Page or Web Application
If you have the capabilities or the money, creating a web asset can be a great strategy. A landing page, microsite, or functional app are all ways to contribute significant value to a subreddit if you can clearly communicate how it solves one of their problems. Again, listen to your communities. Create something that you know they want, but no one else has created it yet.
A skilled redditor made an app specifically for the Clash of Clans community, and it was 95% upvoted
plus, he received quality feedback on how to improve the app.
A landing page or web app can drive significant marketing results. Ecommerce products or affiliate links can be placed on your app, or your app can lead users to email capture. The potential for direct sales conversion is high if you create something valuable.
Always follow the rules and promote cautiously
In the examples above, we gave you some info on how you can generate marketing results through various Reddit submissions. The most important consideration is to make sure your submission is within the rules.
Breaking a subreddit’s rules while doing something promotional is a costly mistake that could ruin your goodwill and opportunity.
So always error on the side of caution. We would rather have you submit something that performs well on Reddit and drives less traffic than submit something that is negatively received, downvoted, or causes a ban/removal.
As you build a log of successful submissions, you will learn the level of promotion that is accepted in each community you participate in.
Assignment 3.1: Create a plan for a promotional submission
Review the list of various submission strategies provided above and decide which you are most prepared to execute. Then create a plan for your submission that includes:
1. Target subreddit – Where are you going to submit?
2. Concept – What is the concept for your submission?
3. Contribution – How will this post contribute value to the community?
4. Goal – What do you hope to achieve?
5. Title Copy
6. Body Copy or Link
7. Action Steps – What do you need to do to make this submission happen?
Once you have your submission plan created, review it with someone on your team or a trusted colleague. No need to submit it at this time. Just keep it on file, as you will refer to it in the next one.
