When marketers think about sites where they can advertise to networks and communities, they tend to think about social networks like Facebook and Twitter. But this means that they are missing out on some of the biggest and most receptive audiences that can be found online – on community sites Reddit and Quora.
These sites are hugely popular and designed around people holding conversations and listening to opinions, meaning that their users are perfect for marketing to, as long as the marketer is smart about how they do it.
So What Are Quora and Reddit?
Reddit is nicknamed “the front page of the internet” and offers a huge series of message threads built around ‘communities’ that users join according to what their interests are.
The site attracts hundreds of millions of monthly visitors from all over the world and boasts an impressive range of subjects and interests to contribute to.
Quora is a community site where message threads are structures in a question-and-answer format. The site was launched in 2010 and has built up over time, with a range of subject experts brought on to answer questions as well as standard community members. For the internet veterans who remember (the now defunct) Yahoo Answers, Quora can be thought of as a more modern version of this.
The site hit 300 million monthly users in 2018, and excels in Google rankings, as internet users have become more used to heading there for answers to all of their problems, questions and concerns.
How Can You Market Successfully On These Sites?
Understand Your Platform
Before you can market successfully to any audience, you first need to understand how each platform works and adapt your strategy to work with the platform. Reddit is a good way for you to get attention for your product or services, whilst Quora is better for you to build brand authority in your industry.
Reddit is a massive site, which can make it hard for your posts to get attention. The Reddit community values content using upvotes and downvotes, which users are able to add to a post when it appears on their feed. The good thing about Reddit, for marketers, is that content is split up into ‘subreddits’, which are far more niche categories. You will be able to be seen by more people if you are able to find the right subreddit(s) for your target audience.
Quora
Quora is easier to use, with less sprawling content and a more navigable structure, but this doesn’t make it any easier to market to your target audience. With Quora it will come down to spending more time answering questions and establishing yourself as an industry leader.
You will probably get less traffic on Quora than other channels, but the traffic that you do get will be more highly engaged.
On both of these platforms it is critical that you don’t just jump in and start advertising your company. These are community sites, and the communities want you to establish your place within them before you can gain credibility. Stay active on the sites, comment and answer questions, and don’t even think of marketing until your place on the platform has been solidified.
Posting Your Own Content
If you think that you have done enough in your community and your posts are appreciated, then you can start to think about posting your own content and advertising your brand. It is still important that you are careful and subtle with this, though. Reddit in particular is very aware of selling tactics and so on, and if you are too obvious then your posts will be downvoted and you will lose your opportunity to impress.
Make sure that anything you post is valuable, interesting and offers something to the community that you haven’t seen posted there before. You may also want to post this content in other places and then use the best-performing content only on places like Reddit. If you decide to post in more than one subreddit, you should include the phrase “crosspost” in your subject line to acknowledge it. Redditors appreciate transparency.
Finally, even though you can post your own content now, you should still post other people’s as well. A rule of thumb on Reddit is that you should only post links to your own site and products around 10% of the time. This will help people to trust you more.
On Quora, start out by answering questions that are directly related to your industry. You can find the questions that you need by searching related keywords and looking for recent questions with a good number of followers. You could use template answers for some questions (particularly those that are asked a lot), but Quora users prefer personal stories and submissions, so it is better to take your time and respond personally.
You must also remember that, although this is a marketing opportunity, you are here to answer someone else’s question, so don’t just jump onto the question thread and start shilling your own products! Make sure that your response is helpful and relevant.
Prove Your Industry Leader Potential
The best way to gain credibility and keep yourself visible on these sites is to market yourself as an industry leader. This isn’t difficult if you are knowledgeable in your field, all you need to do is take what you know and use it to impress and help other members of the community.
To get started you can spend some time browsing both sites and see what questions are being answered, or what people are talking about. The most popular questions and content are where your success will lie, so keep track of these. You should also look at the tone and style that is most popular On Reddit, users tend to prefer sarcastic, silly and geeky content, whilst Quora is more geared towards sincere advice and a supportive tone.
When you start posting, don’t overthink it or try too hard. Becoming an industry leader is nothing more than knowing what you are talking about and being able to pass this information to others so that they can better understand what you do. Community sites offer the perfect place to do this, and the more you offer the faster you will rise through their ranks.
Need More Help
Quora and Reddit give you the opportunity of becoming industry leaders, by putting in time and effort you can build up a following who respect your thoughts and opinions. Once you are in this position you can start to subtly market your company and gain inbound traffic to your website – some of which should convert into new business for your company.
Here at MaxWeb, our friendly and expert staff excel at marketing businesses on the internet and would welcome the opportunity to talk to you about your company’s current efforts and future plans in this area.
Why not give us a call on 0151 652 4777 or email info@maxwebsolutions.co.uk to find out more.
Posted on Friday, January 24th, 2020 in Social Media.
