Social Media Marketing 5 min read
03 Feb 2021

How To Advertise Your Dropshipping Business On Reddit?

How To Advertise Your Dropshipping Business On Reddit?

The power of social media marketing is getting stronger day by day. Almost every online business, whether big or small, is integrating a foolproof SMM strategy into its digital marketing framework for better conversions.

Reddit marketing is an effective yet often overlooked marketing channel that is used by only a limited number of brands these days. Why? Because Reddit is believed to be the most intimidating social network that looks like nonsense to many online businesses.

The platform with its outdated message board appearance, and ruthless users, has failed to capture the attention of online sellers and dropshippers.

But it is not all bad news.

If used correctly, Reddit can engage and empower audiences just like any other social media marketing channel.

It is one of the most interesting and active places online to share useful and industry-specific content.

According to expert digital marketers, Reddit is an amazing source of traffic generation that online brands can use to promote their dropshipping business and boost conversions.

It’s a massive community with more than 300 million users who share news and content on different subjects.

You can choose your favorite subreddits depending upon your areas of interest when you sign up. 

 

 

 

What Is Reddit?

Reddit was introduced in 2005, and since then, it’s grown into a powerful aggregator where users can submit self-posts and links from other websites that are relevant to each group.

Reddit users are called ‘Redditors’. They can either upvote or downvote each submission. This concept is called ‘Karma’. Having higher karma increases your business credibility. 

Here, the idea is to share valuable content so that you don’t get many downvotes. 

If you’re looking to target any specific niche, then you may want to use the subreddits. A subreddit represents the community that revolves around any specific niche, such as fitness, entrepreneurship, technology, etc.

To get the hang of this platform, you have to spend more time using it.

Reddit - Demographics

Reddit mainly consists of users between the age group of 18-34. Most of the users are educated. If we carefully look at the demographics, it is evident that 50% of the Reddit community holds a college degree.

The website mainly comprises male users. However, there is a sizable population of female contributors as well who share valuable content regularly.

More than 75% of Redditors make up to 0-50k per annum. If you sell high-ticket items online, then Reddit might not be a good choice for you.

However, dropshipping businesses selling affordable products can use Reddit to market products online.

Getting Started...

Once you know that this platform would make sense for your marketing efforts, the next thing you should do is to get your content posted.

For this, you have to make an account. Once you have signed up for the platform, click on the ‘submit a new link’ or ‘submit a new text post’ option that is available on the right-hand side of your Reddit homepage.

Depending on the type of content (link or text) you’re trying to submit, you’ll be prompted with the relevant post layout.

Both these options are more or less the same. The only difference is that the link layout will ask you to add a link, while the text layout needs you to enter text (optional).

The title you give to your post should be compelling enough to drive conversions. Reddit already has plenty of content, so if your post has a boring or irrelevant title, it would be difficult for you to get upvotes.

Here are a few things you should consider before you post anything on Reddit:

  • Upvote and downvote difference is the deciding ranking factor on Reddit. That means a post with 200 upvotes with zero downvotes will be ranked the same as a post with 2,000 upvotes and 1,900 downvotes
  • If two posts are similar in terms of upvotes/downvotes, the recent one will appear first
  • You should not use a link shortener on Reddit
  • Avoid posting boring and old content as the community thrives on fresh and engaging content

What Makes Reddit Challenging?

Unlike other social media channels that focus on specific content and building profiles, Reddit focuses more on online discussions and community building. Subreddits constantly move up

and down based on the number of upvotes and downvotes they receive.

In other words, posts that attract and engage a maximum number of people will automatically get more acknowledgment. On the flip side, uninteresting posts get moved down. This strategy makes it challenging for marketers to promote ads that contain general information.

Other than that, you can’t easily search for official business profiles on Reddit. Write ‘KFC’, and you’ll get a list of results having this keyword. But no sign or symbol can differentiate the original brand profile from others.

While there are search functions and filters, what appears on top depends on how active and recent the posts are.

Now that you already know that Reddit is a challenging yet result-driven marketing platform, it’s time to see how exactly you can use Reddit to your advantage.

In this guide, we have shared a few Dropshipping tips Reddit users can use to get the most out of this channel.

 

Be A Member First

Make sure you become a member first before you start posting anything on Reddit. Be a genuine contributor.

Remember, Reddit is rigid when it comes to promotional content. Brand-new accounts with no posts are largely distrusted on the platform. 

Once you choose subreddits, the next step is posting in them to gain trust. Click on the ‘Top’ button to get an idea of what each subreddit values the most. The results will help you pinpoint the posts that are ranked at the top in terms of popularity.

 

Build Trust

As mentioned above, the main purpose of Reddit is to build community. That is why you must give from this platform.

To gain the trust of your target audience, you need to build a repo and credibility. Redditors looking at your profile history will eventually start trusting your submissions.

Since Reddit doesn’t support any explicit promotional activity, you have to find ways to promote your brand organically. 

Before you start participating in Reddit discussions, make sure you learn about the language and abbreviations the community uses. Talk confidently and give detailed information on the subject. Also, upvote other contributors and share unique stories to keep readers engaged.

 

Share Valuable And Unique Content

Get ready to witness a marketing failure if you’re planning to repurpose your Facebook or Twitter content and post it on Reddit.

Remember, you are not the only one who’s looking to convert Redditors into potential clients and boost ecommerce conversions.

The competition is already aggressive on the platform. Hundreds of thousands of people post high-quality content regularly. To unlock a new stream of customers, you have to post unique content that can genuinely engage people.

 

Find Suitable Subreddits

After you’ve participated enough in your chosen communities for a month or so and have earned sufficient karma, you can now move to the next step.

Since you have already invested enough time contributing to your targeted subreddits, and you know what type of content is admired by the Redditors, your goal is to produce content that is highly relevant and valuable.

You can strategically link to your website without highlighting it. But it’s also crucial to understand that there is little to no incentive for Redditors to click your link if you’re not mentioning it in the first place.

So choose subreddits that are relevant and where your promotion could look unforceful and natural.

 

Be Consistent

Similar to any other social media network, Reddit also demands a solid strategy and consistent hard work. There is no such thing as an overnight success.

Play the long game, remain active, contribute regularly, and have noticeable karma to attract Redditors.

Once you have successfully sorted these things, the next important thing is to focus on frequency and volume.

How much you should post on Reddit depends on multiple factors. Some subreddits are large and active, while other options are less rigid than others. 

 

Do Not Sound Promotional

Reddit is a short-term organic marketing tool that also supports long-term strategies. Using Reddit as a promotional tool can help businesses have a steady flow of organic traffic.

The content you post must not sound promotional. Since the basic purpose of this platform is to provide value to the members, you should ensure that your content is value-laden and full of valuable facts and information.

 

Use Paid Promotions The Smarter Way!

If you want to expand your business on Reddit using paid promotions and ads, you can do that by creating a promoted post. That post will be pinned at the top of the subreddit’s front page so that all members can see it without the hassle.

For this, you have to click on the ‘ Advertisement’ tab that is listed in the right-hand column of the page. Just ensure you scroll down a bit, though.

From there, you can initiate your promotional campaign. Simply give your campaign a title and choose your target location to get started.

The next step is to choose the subreddits based on your areas of interest. You can also specify the types of devices your paid ads should be visible on. At this point, you can also set a budget for your campaign.

Here it is essential to understand that dropshipping businesses that use Reddit paid advertisements will not have to pay for the number of clicks that they get on their posts. Instead, you have to pay for impressions.

 

Choose The Best Time To Post

Just like other social media channels, such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, Reddit also has the best time to post content.

The process begins by knowing your target audience as only then you would be able to decide the best time to create a post.

Reddit uses ‘Minimaxir’ to identify some of the trends that popular posts on Reddit tend to follow.

With this tool, you can see the posts that are doing well on the platform. The graphical illustration is easy to understand and the results are pretty much accurate when you implement the same strategy for your campaign.

 

Optimize Your Submission

At this point, you must have a clear understanding of why and how you should use Reddit to your advantage.

It’s time to optimize your submission.

First things first, you must decide whether you’re going to submit a link or a text post having a link back to your website.

Optimize Your Title: The first step is to optimize your post title so that your content gets maximum visibility.

Each includes 25 submissions per page. Your goal is to create a post that outperforms the other 24 Reddit posts available on the subreddit.

You can take a cue from headline guidelines you have been using for other platforms earlier. Capitalize all the important words if you’re creating a guideline. Similarly, if you’re creating a title for a discussion or you’re posting a link, you can capitalize the first word and proper nouns only.

You can also include tags wherever applicable. The purpose of these tags is to help people recognize what exactly they’re looking for. We’d suggest taking a random look around each subreddit to see what kinds of tags people are using for their posts.

This might look like a lot of effort. But following all of the above-listed steps will ensure that your post won’t get deleted by the moderators.

 

Host An AMA

You can implement the AMA (Ask Me Anything)strategy when you have already gained the trust of your target audience.

AMA is a question/answer session in which Redditors will ask questions. It lends a great opportunity for dropshipping businesses to mention their site link strategically during a session.

Redditors admire this strategy as they get plenty of useful information, stories, and detailed tips from the contributors.

 

How To Build A 7-Figure Dropshipping Store

Diane Eunice Narciso
Author

Diane Eunice Narciso

Diane Eunice Narciso is a content marketer, strategist, and writer who's skilled and passionate about marketing, social media, eCommerce, etc. And is also an expert in sales and business development nurturing strategic partnerships and collaborations.

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