- These are small kingdoms and(mild explosion)
(laughs)
- (laughing)There we go.
- It just said, boom.
(soft music)Okay, today we're going to talk about Reddit.
One of the biggest websites in the world.
They have between one and two billion visits every month.
And all that could generate a lot of traffic to your startup
without having a big following already.
We're gonna talk about five steps
to growth hacking on Reddit.
Following video we're going to tell a real story
about going viral on Reddit
and how that's different than other social media,
such as Twitter and Facebook.
- (voiceover)This is straw startup.
- With us today, we have Staffan Ulmert.
Staffan, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself?
- I'm here in the Sweden.
I built a music community called Has It Leaked.
We quickly did 2 million visitors from Google per month.
And then I did the same for a newbie movie community
called Where You watch.
I've been on BBC world ,
The Guardian ,The New york times, Vice.
- So why are we talking about Reddit today?
- I think Reddit is interesting
It's a tricky beast, uh, but has a great traffic.
It's been a great traffic source for me.
And they are divided into these subreddits.
It's like a mini forum.
It's everything from world news
to collecting Beatles record.
Unlike Twitter or Facebook
quality content or products or services
actually have a shop.
And that pays off.
Pays off without having a big following.
- So the point here really is that
if you create amazing content on Reddit,
you don't have to have a hundred thousand followers
like on Twitter or somewhere of the other social media.
- It's so cliche, but it actually is true.
The downside, however, is that moderators rule the kingdom.
You either follow their rules or you're out.
- So you have to be a little bit more subtle on Reddit.
You can't just, you know,
jump the party and try and sell stuff.
- Exactly. There's an audience ready.
They are ready in that way.
They are divided already
into these mini forums or subreddits.
Unlike Twitter or Facebook, like I said before,
you don't have to have built a following first.
There's no SEO, there's no keywords to use,
there's no hidden hashtags or all that crap
that you have to deal with within uh, Instagram.
Step one, understanding Reddit.
So first of all,
you obviously need to create an account
and then join subreddits
where you can be productive.
And productive, I also mean
that you read and learn and take your time.
As an entrepreneur,
this might include the subreddits startups.
I think it's a good way to start listening and reading
first of all, lessons.
I really like can learn a lot from that.
And then you got lengthier stories,
which are also very interesting.
And then we got content marketing.
I think that's very interesting
about how to use content correctly,
how to get exposure to your content.
Alternative, if you're willing
to reveal your own business venture,
what you are going to do.
There's one called startup ideas
and is also super interesting I mean.
- Yeah, and this is cool, right?
First important, you cannot skip this step
and there are two things here.
First of all, you can learn a lot from this content.
This content is really, really solid content.
Secondly, you're also learning Reddit.
And if you don't learn Reddit,
you're not going to be able to move forward here.
- [Staffan] Step two, ask all the newbie questions.
Don't think of Reddit as a traffic source, straight away.
Take the opportunity to ask those really basic questions.
And these are questions I usually get all the time.
It's the same type of questions.
It's do I need SEO?
How do I find investors?
Uh, do I need a paid campaign?
Uh, how do I hashtag stuff on my Instagram?
Do I need to do that?
Should I use word press?
Reddit is perfect.
Myself have engaged a lot in Instagram marketing.
That's a subreddit, which is very interesting.
I'm very bad at Instagram. So I'm learning a lot.
- So now you're engaging again,
learning what to do and what not to do.
And I think the important area is what not to do too,
because we know the rules are strict.
Every single group you go into,
you have to read the rules.
- Yes.
- And posting, you know,
we'll teach you what to do and what not to do.
It can be frustrating, right Staffan ?
- Can be super frustrating. Yes.
Step three, prepare to market yourself.
So this is your time to map your niche on Reddit.
So list all the subreddits, which are related to your niche.
There's going to be more than one here.
So first of all,
I want to really recommend a very basic, very simple tool.
It's called delay for Reddit.
It's much more than a scheduler.
It's a tool to discover valuable subreddits.
Uh, you just search for the keywords
that you are interested in,
and your business is related to,
and it will find those relevant subreddits.
And it's going to help you with when to post,
it's going to give you a lot of data insights.
So it's, and it's super simple to use
really highly recommend that one.
It's super cheap as well.
Then be very transparent. I can't say that enough.
Don't talk about your company in third person.
Like be very transparent on who you are and why, you know.
- And respecting the moderators obviously right?
And again, we've said a couple of times read the rules.
- Yes yes. Read the rules. - (laughs)
- [Staffan] Step four, engage in your niche.
Okay. Now it's finally time.
Now it's post time. Post, post, post.
What should you post? You might ask yourself.
Okay. So guides have really worked for me.
So that way you contribute,
and it's an organic way to insert links at your site
if it's relevant.
if you don't know what type of guide
you can write about,
or you have no idea and you need inspiration,
copy popular posts and just improve upon them.
Brian Dean a famous SEO guy,
he has this skyscraper method,
which is basically you build one building.
Someone has built a really tall building,
you look at that and just make it even taller.
Um, I think that makes a lot of sense.
- So you are saying,
hey, get inspiration from others,
do create original content,
but you get the idea about the theme
because the theme is popular
and then build a taller building,
build something better than the previous posts.
- [Staffan] Step five, gain traffic.
Okay. I don't want to sound like a broken record.
I know I have before,
but Reddit hates marketers.
That's number one thing to remind yourself of. Right?
So when you go into insert your link
to your business or your product,
make sure that either being upfront
that hey, this is my product uh, so, you know,
just so you know,
or make it very seamless and organic.
I'm going to have some, a few examples for you.
So if I post an extensive guide,
uh, at the bottom, I often place a link which says,
hey, this guide was originally written for,
and then site X or my site.Right?
So it might not be original content.
Uh, so it works like a reference.
- So does that generate enough traffic
just to have a link at the bottom?
- If it's good enough, for example,
it's going to get a permanent placement
and people are going to go to that post,
they're going to have questions in the end,
they will click on that link
and see whatever happens, you know.
Or in that guide,
uh, you can place a link to a product directly,
a product I'm selling,
but also include links to other company's products.
It doesn't have to be your competing company of course,
but just to make it, you know, kind of seamless
like Amazon, Amazon, your site,
Amazon, Amazon, that,
okay that might be too obvious,
but just make it flow,
make it organic, make it something like,
hey, I really recommend this.
- So you're saying that,
hey, it can look like
a one sided promotion of your business,
but if you do mix it up a little bit,
then it can be done.
- Yes.
And one thing I find works really well for me is,
okay, I really don't have time
to maybe write those extensive guides.
I've written a ton of guides.
I can see that my client maybe have built
a very impressive site from the beginning and you know,
written lots of guides or posts or whatever
they shared it to Facebook,
they shared it to Instagram,
maybe gotten a few likes and then died out
and maybe it doesn't perform that well on Google.
Take that stuff and put it on Reddit.
And I also want to add, you know,
it's okay to promote your business directly
on a few subreddits (inaudible)
There's one called shameless plug(giggles)
and there's one called small businesses.
And Oh, I want to mention the coupons.
There's one called coupons, which is super popular.
People go crazy over there.
So that's uh, highly recommended
- Finally we'll talk about something interesting.
We'll tell a story about going viral on Reddit,
um ,but also why actually it's different
going viral on reddit
compared to say Twitter or Facebook.
- I went viral on a twitter, semi viral on Reddit
at around the same time.
On Twitter, it was my tweet
was about Taylor Swift's upcoming album.
Um, it blew up.
Got 1 million impressions within 24 hours.
That's a lot and resulted in 90,000 visitors
because I had included a link to my site in that tweet.
And a number of outlets wrote about me,
Vogue, Yahoo, Metro, MTV, all that's good,
good press for me.
Compare it to Reddit.
I had written a guide on clothes
which got really popular
and it got 27,000 impressions
and it resulted in 2000 visitors to my site.
Now, Okay. That doesn't sound too impressive
compared to the 1 million impressions,
but there's a big difference here.
The Twitter users, which came to my site,
They didn't really explore the rest of the site.
They just jumped back straight back to Twitter.
And my Twitter account is, I mean, it's years in the making
with I have 30,000 followers.It's not a lot,
but I've been running that Twitter account
for many many years.
- I think there's an important point here that
this is a business strategy from Twitter and Facebook.
They are trying to create more closed communities
where people stay.
Reddit is different in the way
they do not mind linking to others
and are more integrated with the world.
- Exactly.
To get the ball rolling
and get to the million visitors or impressions
already on the other hand,
my account was brand new,
I had no trust, no following.
And I got uh, tons of impressions anyway.
And unlike Twitter, visitors actually converted.
Only 2000 visitors, yes
but 8% of those signed up to my newsletter.
I got, sold a lot of affiliated products
at the same at the time.
- And that's really one of the important points here is that
on all the social media,
you just have a lot of people flying by
but in these subreddits you get the exactly right people
that are relevant for you, your service, your business.
(soft music) Okay. There you have it.
Five steps to growth hacking on Reddit.
Step one, understanding Reddit.
Step two, ask the newbie questions.
Step three, prepare to market yourself.
Step four, engage in your niche.
Step five, gain traffic.
Thank you very much for watching.
(upbeat music)