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Part of owning and operating a successful blog is understanding the myriad of creative ways that you can increase the number of visitors coming to your site. For example, one way to “growth hack” your blog is by embracing the power of Reddit, which has emerged, in many ways, as the front page of the Internet. If you want to know issues that are resonating with Internet users and tap into an established community, that’s the place that you go. So what’s the secret to using Reddit to grow your blog readers?
#1: Understand the Reddit audience
This might seem obvious, but it all starts with understanding the audience on Reddit. You need to understand, first and foremost, how the site is structured – such as its use of subreddits – so that you know where to post your content most effectively. Secondly, you need to understand that Redditors skew young and tech-savvy. And, make no mistake about it – Reddit can be a tough audience if you’re simply spamming its users with self-promotional content.
So consider what the blog Social Media HQ did – in response to the outcry over Net Neutrality, the blog began to develop unique, completely original content about this important issue. When the blog posted the content to Reddit, it did so because it understood that Net Neutrality was a key issue on everyone’s mind at Reddit. And the content was immediately “upvoted” and promoted by its users to help get the word out about Net Neutrality, leading to a spike in visitors.
#2: Save only your very best for Reddit
It’s worth reiterating this important point: the Reddit audience is very savvy, and can immediately sniff out anyone who’s merely trying to “game the system.” It’s allowable to post your own content on Reddit from time to time, but you surely can’t post every single that you write to Reddit and expect it to take off. You need to save your bullets and only post your very best, most relevant content.
Again, this is the strategy pursued by Social Media HQ – the blog produces a weekly stream of interesting content, but only cherry picks the very best to post on Reddit. This ensures that the blog has credibility with fellow Redditors and can optimize the flow of readers.
#3: Be an active Reddit member
One piece of great advice is to treat your Reddit account like your Twitter account. Just as your Twitter account shouldn’t just be a non-stop stream of promotional content, the same is true on Reddit. And that’s especially true because, as soon as you set up a profile on Reddit, users can see what types of content you are posting, and whether you are contributing to the community via upvotes and comments. On Twitter, this would be equivalent to interacting with your followers from time to time and sharing interesting content with them that you’ve found on the web.
In social media, as in life, there is no such thing as a free lunch. So in order to really tap into the power of Reddit, you need to put in a little effort of your own. If you respect the community, get to learn the issues that are top of mind with Redditors, and contribute to make Reddit a better place, you can be assured that you’ll get a lift in traffic, visitors and engagement.
