Using Reddit for Business
Endless information exists about how to best use the big social networks for your business – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest, to name a few. While the right combination of these networks is essential to one’s online outreach, there are also smaller, niche networks that many businesses can benefit from, too, such as Digg and Reddit. Today, we look at Reddit – what it is, where to find it, and how to use it to your advantage. Why? It is important to understand what Reddit is to determine whether it can be a useful social media tool for your business, and to understand how to use it effectively to drive prospects to your site.
So what exactly is Reddit?
Reddit is a large community of members that like to share interesting things with one another, such as news articles, blogs, videos, pictures, etc. Subreddits (communities within the larger community) help organize the information by areas of interest.
From computer security to world news, gardening to science, food to politics, there are topic based-communities for just about any interest – business or personal – you might have. Within these communities, users can share information they find interesting, start a conversation, answer a question or take part in a discussion. You can find a list of popular subreddits here (note: sometimes subreddits also have subreddits).
How can I use Reddit for my business?
There are two ways Reddit can help businesses. First, it’s a great research resource. Trending or hot topics in your area of expertise will tell you what people (potential prospects or clients) are interested in and talking about. This can give you ideas about relevant articles or blog posts for your content marketing.
Second, it’s a great place to raise your company’s visibility. When you submit a link, members of the community can comment and interact with you, and, if you’ve posted in a relevant community, you can send very targeted users to your website. If your links or discussions are helpful or valuable enough, you can get enough “up” votes and make it to the front page, where you will have even more visibility. (The reverse is true, too. Get enough “down” votes and you will be limited as to how much you can post.)
Where do I start?
The best way to start with Reddit is by familiarizing yourself with the types of topics that are being discussed, what items are being shared, and what type of protocols are used in these discussions. For example, as with most social media sites, blatant self-promotion is not acceptable, nor is “spam posting” (posting content that is not related to the subreddit or conversation).
After setting up an account, spend some time checking out the different parts of the site. You’ll see the following navigation bar near the top of the screen with each tab serving a different method of navigation through the site.
Here’s what each tab does:
- Hot: This tab skims through each of the subreddits you are “subscribed” to (each tab you’re following) and puts the most frequently visited topics of discussion within that respective subreddit.
- What’s New: This tab shares the most recently submitted items from each respective subreddit in one convenient location, allowing you to look at “what’s new.”
- Controversial: This tab shares the more controversial items submitted to each subreddit, items that typically spark additional discussion.
- Top: This subreddit shares the most “upvoted” (or most liked) items from each subreddit you are subscribed to in one convenient location.
- Saved: Registered Reddit users are able to “Save” (or bookmark) any item they find interesting to come back to later. This tab allows you to see all the items you’ve “saved” previously.
Ready to Jump In?
Assuming you have an account on Reddit and you are logged in, you will see the following section on the top right of the page:
When submitting a link, you’ll want to know in advance which community you want to target. Hit the Submit a link button, and you will see the following screen:
Fill in the following fields: Title, URL, Choose a Subreddit. Insert the title of the blog post, video, or picture you are submitting and its respective URL. Insert the respective community you are trying to reach in the “choose a subreddit” field. Hit “submit” and voila! You have just submitted your link on Reddit. You can check if the link was submitted by going to the respective subreddit and hitting the new button to see if your submission appears.
What’s next?
You now know the basics: what Reddit is, how to use Reddit and how to submit a link on Reddit, so it’s time to give it a try. If you find the site has communities that are relevant to your business (not all businesses are suited to Reddit) and when you’re comfortable with submitting links and following and participating in discussions, you can consider the next step, setting up your own subreddit and starting a community of your own. But be forewarned! This takes time, effort and a lot of management, and is something we will be addressing in a future post. You can download our Reddit tip sheet, or contact us if you’d like Sales Renewal to help you further your content marketing program with Reddit and other social media sites.
Sales Renewal’s insight:
Endless information exists about how to best use the big social networks for your business – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest, to name a few. While the right combination of these networks is essential to one’s online outreach, there are also smaller, niche networks that many businesses can benefit from, too, such as Digg and Reddit. Today, we look at Reddit – what it is, where to find it, and how to use it to your advantage.
How Much is a Like Worth? is a Good Question
It’s been called the million-dollar question: How much is a like worth? While we admit we’d “like” to know, in fact, we suspect we already know – a like’s worth varies depending on the influence of the liker. And while the liker might not appear to “like” you much in terms of sales, at least one study suggests a customer’s fondness for your company is inversely proportional to his value in terms of referrals.
1. When you understand your customers, you can value them and communicate with them in different ways.
2. It’s critical to follow up with your customers after they’ve purchased, to make sure they’re happy, to win their loyalty and also to remind them to recommend you to friends.
3. Knowing a customer’s lifetime value doesn’t matter if you can’t keep them for a lifetime. In other words, customer service matters, a lot, to your company’s continued profitability.
In future posts, we’ll discuss some of the elements that go into our sales programs, including attracting customers and keeping them, effective survey tips, and how to be sure your company’s customer service is doing right by you and your customers.
In the meantime, we think it’s worth asking, what’s a like worth? But as we remind our clients daily, it’s just as important to ask, why are we worth liking?
Sales Renewal’s insight:
Got a Pin?
Was “do a better job managing social media” on your list of New Year’s Resolutions? How’s it going?
If adding Pinterest to your social media mix is on your to-do list, you might enjoy reading about how journalists are using the very-visual tool. In case you still need to create a business presence on Pinterest, start with our November post on how to create a Pinterest page for your business.
Sales Renewal’s insight:
Putting Your Money Where Your Mouth Is – Google Authorship
You know what they say about the weather…
In 2011, Google announced an initiative to give online authors credit for their content while also providing more search visibility for their business. The initiative, called Google Authorship, in essence associates your Google+ profile – adding a byline, photo and other relevant information – to your blog posts and articles when they appear in search results. The rationale? According to Google, users trust recommendations and the attribution to an actual person more than they rely on search algorithms.We’ve been following and testing the numerous iterations of Google Authorship as Google has continued to refine it. Just as we felt it had stabilized enough for us to recommend that our clients start getting their content correctly attributed, there were two new improvements that make us even more enthusiastic about Google Authorship.
The Best Ways to Start with Google Authorship
Our hesitation has been the authentication process.Initially, it was overwhelmingly complicated, and it seemed that only hardcore, early adopters of Google+ were motivated to sign up.While we were researching the best ways to set up Google Authorship for this post (we had uncovered three), Google streamlined the process even more. Now, depending on the email address you use for your Google+ profile, you can choose one of two options to set up Authorship:
Easy!
Link your Google+ profile to your content via your company-hosted email addressIf the email address you use for your Google+ profile is hosted on the same domain as your website (i.e, @salesrenewal.com and www.salesrenewal.com), you can link your content as follows:
- Add a byline containing your name on each page of your content (for example, “By Akshay Masand”).
- Make sure your byline name matches the name on your Google+ profile.
- Verify your email address in Step 4 on the Google Authorship page. Note: We discovered that Google Authorship will make public the email you use for verification, so if you do not want to keep this public, we recommend going back to Edit Profile and changing the visibility options to “Only You.”
Flexible!
Set up Authorship by linking your content with a non-company email addressIf your email address is hosted on a different domain (i.e., @comcast.net), or you write for multiple websites, or are a guest writer, you can link your content to a Google+ profile with a two-step process:
I. Link your content to your Google+ profile
- Sign in to your Google+ account, select the Profile icon on the left, and you’ll see a URL similar to this: https://plus.google.com/113443865105779610916/posts
- Copy the URL and remove the posts so you’re left with your Google+ URL, which should look something like the following: https://plus.google.com/113443865105779610916
- Take this URL and put it in between the following code:
- Use this to create a hyperlink in your byline, which will look something like the following: https://plus.google.com/113443865105779610916?rel=author”>Your Name – Add a byline containing your name on each page of your content (for example, “By Ashkay Masand”).
- Make sure your byline name matches the name on your Google+ profile.
II. Link your Google+ profile to your content
- Log into your Google+ account, hit Profile, and press Edit Profile.
- Navigate to the About tab, and scroll down until you see the Contributor to section.
- Edit the fields to add the name and URL of your website and click to save the changes.
- Note that you need to add each website your byline appears on.
Note: While you’re in Edit Profile mode, you might want to check that your photo is a nice crisp headshot (while very cute, puppies are not ideal for building your authority as an expert in your field!) and be sure your +1s are set to show on your profile (click the +1’s tab, check the Show this tab on your profile, and click Save).You can verify that you’ve done everything correctly by visiting Google’s Rich Snippet Testing Tool and typing in your website’s URL. If Authorship was set up correctly, you will see a sample search preview.
Reaping the Benefits
Google Authorship was developed to improve the quality of online content and, in turn, the online search experience. Associating individuals with the content they produce provides accountability and indicates to web users that there are real people writing what they’re reading. For those who create this content, Google Authorship provides an excellent tool to gain popularity and build an online reputation as experts in their respective fields. Google Authorship also provides Author Stats in Webmaster Tools – impressions and clicks to your content – so you can monitor which content resonates with your readers.So what are you waiting for? Claim your work and start building your online reputation! And be sure to subscribe to our blog as we will be following and reporting on changes and updates to Google Authorship as they happen.
Sales Renewal’s insight:
You know what they say about the weather… In 2011, Google announced an initiative to give online authors credit for their content while also providing more search visibility for their business. The initiative, called Google Authorship, in essence associates your Google+ profile – adding a byline, photo and other relevant information – to your blog posts and articles when they appear in search results.
Nate Silver, Marketing’s Wake Up Call
We’re tempted to call it the Nate Silver effect: In the last few weeks a handful of industry watchers have suggested that what companies really need to succeed is a chief marketing technologist.It’s not a bad idea. Obviously, sales and marketing functions are increasingly dependent on technology. The technology choices available today are roughly double what they were last week – and some say they’ll quadruple by Thursday. (That’s a ballpark estimate, you understand – we didn’t run it by Mr. Silver.)
Our point is that while most organizations understand that they need to use technology and social media to grow their brand (and more importantly, sales) few can afford to add a chief marketing technologist to the staff.The problem that many companies fail to address is that embracing social media without employing all of the analytical tools available is a waste of time, and a sure way to misdirect your advertising and marketing budget.
You need to incorporate everything you know about your customers’ buying cycle into your online (and offline) sales strategy. It’s not hard to use Facebook, Pinterest, Reddit, and LinkedIn, and Adwords campaigns – but it is hard to use them effectively, honing them to reach and convert prospects that are in different places in the buying cycle.
We spoke about this last spring in our Concord Chamber of Commerce Series. The example we used highlighted our sales strategy for an electric fence company. (See the sample site here.) The company had a good understanding of its prospects, their decision criteria, and buying cycle, and they knew where to find those prospects – but it wasn’t enough. The company wasn’t using that knowledge effectively.
We helped by optimizing keywords for prospects at each stage of the buying cycle, tailoring content to meet them where they were – for example, identifying prospects even before they knew they were in the market for an electric fence. We reached out to those prospects differently than we did to those who were already shopping for fences. We optimized content for them and analyzed their visits to the company’s site. We tracked other prospects – those who came to the site through organic search – and adjusted our online ad campaigns to improve their impressions and interactions with the fence company. Merely posting a special offer on the company’s Facebook page wouldn’t have had the same results.
We know, because we measure those kind of things – and you should, too. Subscribe to our Growth Spurts blog, or contact us now to find out more.
Sales Renewal’s insight:
We’re tempted to call it the Nate Silver effect: In the last few weeks a handful of industry watchers have suggested that what companies really need to succeed is a chief marketing technologist. It’s not a bad idea. Obviously, sales and marketing functions are increasingly dependent on technology. The technology choices available today are roughly double what they were last week – and some say they’ll quadruple by Thursday. (That’s a ballpark estimate, you understand – we didn’t run it by Mr. Silver.)
Our point is that while most organizations understand that they need to use technology and social media to grow their brand (and more importantly, sales) few can afford to add a chief marketing technologist to the staff. The problem that many companies fail to address is that embracing social media without employing all of the analytical tools available is a waste of time, and a sure way to misdirect your advertising and marketing budget.
The Importance of Share-worthy Customer Service: Learning from Trader Joe’s
“All that they do is dedicated to creating a WOW experience for our customers.” This may not be the typical opening line for a cashier’s job description in a seemingly commodity business like a grocery store chain. But for Trader Joe’s, a positive customer experience is at the heart of everything they do. From its customer service and unique products that are reasonably priced to an in-store experience that exudes “fun” in every aisle to a commitment to helping the local communities that they are part of, Trader Joe’s puts the customer first.
As a frequent Trader Joe’s shopper, I can recount numerous experiences at my local store that keep me coming back. But a recent incident crystalized this customer-centric strategy.
I was waiting to check out at my local Trader Joe’s (lines are never longer than 3-5 people, so “waiting in line” is not something to be dreaded), talking to the person in the next line over. A man cut in front of me and put his stuff down on the counter. When I commented that actually, I was next in line, his reply was, “well, I’m not a mind reader.” Further discussion about how given that fact, it might have been a good idea to have used his words to ask if I were in line led nowhere, so, in spite of my frustration, I stood aside and the store crew member (cashier) rang him through and got him out the store.
The crew member then rang my items through, bagged them for me, and handed me a large bouquet of flowers that had quietly appeared at his counter during this process. He acknowledged that I was totally in the right, and thanked me for not making a fuss. I came home elated and ready to tell everyone I met about my flowers and how great I thought the crew member – and store – was.
There’s something to be learned here for just about any business. Clearly, training the front-line staff and giving them the authority to make such decisions (the flower transaction happened so smoothly that I hadn’t even noticed my crew member signaling to a co-worker to grab the flowers while he continued with my purchase) is the most obvious example of a customer-focused strategy.
But this can’t happen unless the philosophy is carried through in each component of the sales process. To keep customers coming back, Trader Joe’s has a no-questions-asked return policy and a weekly bring your own bag contest. In fact, I won the prize one week – and you can be sure I shared (Facebook!) my excitement. I’ve never received so many comments on a Facebook post from my friends. The Fearless Flyer, a monthly specials promotion that is more magazine than store circular, and in-store signage help guide the Trader Joe’s “newbie”. And the spirit of adventure – the introduction and discovery of new products, changing displays and store layouts – elevates the shopping experience for all customers.
As Glen Llopis described in his Forbes article, Why Trader Joe’s Stands Out From All the Rest in the Grocery Business:
It is apparent that Trader Joe’s carefully addresses their diverse consumer needs in their research & development efforts: from product quality, product origin, packaging to the subtle attention to detail that cater to the cultural nuances of this consumer. Trader Joe’s knows these consumer groups are loyal and incredibly viral within their own communities… Trader Joe’s has mastered their business model, but they are never satisfied. In fact, they are always looking for new ways to push new ideas as they feel a deep sense of responsibility to satisfy their consumers… Trader Joe’s is diligent about maintaining the standards of their cultural promise.
Have you encountered “share-worthy” customer service recently? Does your business provide “share-worthy” customer service? We’d like to hear your story!
Sales Renewal’s insight:
“All that they do is dedicated to creating a WOW experience for our customers.” This may not be the typical opening line for a cashier’s job description in a seemingly commodity business like a grocery store chain. But for Trader Joe’s, a positive customer experience is at the heart of everything they do. From its customer service and unique products that are reasonably priced to an in-store experience that exudes “fun” in every aisle to a commitment to helping the local communities that they are part of, Trader Joe’s puts the customer first.
How Pinteresting! Pinterest Officially Opens Its Doors to Businesses
Brands were so popular on Pinterest that it’s a bit hard to believe that until this past week, Pinterest’s terms of service specified the platform was limited to “personal, non-commercial use.” The social media platform has officially welcomed businesses with the introduction of new tools and new business terms of service, which makes it explicit that the platform can be used for commercial purposes.
The recent announcement could possibly be a sign of how Pinterest might evolve as a tool for brands as the site continues to grow in popularity. It’s certain that the social media platform is becoming more popular as the site drew 26.7 million unique visitors last month, up from 3.3 million in the year-ago period, according to statistics from research firm comScore.
Even though the new free business accounts don’t look different from other Pinterest pages at the moment, the pages are a clear indication that Pinterest could be looking toward a monetization model and that the social media platform is being forward thinking.
Pinterest hasn’t provided a specific number of businesses that have pages, but in a blog post, Pinterest product manager Cat Lee acknowledged that “thousands of businesses have become part of our community, giving great ideas, content and inspiration to people on Pinterest.” Lee highlighted a few profiles such as Anthropologie, Whole Foods, the Smithsonian, and Amazon, in particular, as inspirational brands on Pinterest. She also presented case studies from Jetsetter, Allrecipes, Etsy Organized Interiors, and Petplan Insurance, including analytics on how they have used Pinterest to drive traffic.
According to editor-in-chief of Etsy, Alison Feldmann “business pages provide brands with an authentic platform to drive loyalty and engagement within their community. Curating new trends, perspectives, and products gives brands an exciting way to express their point of view and distinctive voice.”
One thing that is certain is that business pages probably won’t change the way brands create content, but instead inspire brands to come up with creative ways to use the platform. An example of this is the fact that businesses will now be able to embed pins and boards on third-party sites and brands can incorporate elements of Pinterest on their own websites. Through the use of sharing Pinterest content via buttons and widgets, companies will be able to engage relevant audiences through their own online platforms.
Pinterest has set up a Pinterest for Business page with best practices, case studies, and other creative solutions to help provides businesses ideas on how to use the new Pinterest for business.
Source: Pinterest (blog)
Sales Renewal’s insight:
LinkedIn: Company Page Audience Targeting
When was the last time you checked out your business’s Company Page on LinkedIn?
The popular B2B social media platform recently updated the look and feel of its Company page section, making it an even more valuable vehicle for generating leads and connecting with industry professionals. Those familiar with the Timeline photo of Facebook won’t be surprised to learn that LinkedIn now offers a similar feature for Company pages. This, along with the often-overlooked marketing opportunity of “audience targeting” might mean that it’s time to give your page some attention.
Read our tip sheet for more about how you can showcase your products and services in a very targeted manner.
Sales Renewal’s insight:
How Well Do you Tell Your Story?
So you’re good at updating posts on Facebook and you’re targeting prospects on LinkedIn? Tip of the hat to you. Maybe you’ve even got 1, 000+ followers on Twitter and you’ve figured out how to connect with prospects on Pinterest. Congratulations; you’re in the minority of small businesses that use social media effectively.
So how well do you tell your story? If you’ve accomplished all of the above, storytelling is the next tool you should sharpen in your social media kit.
Author Jonathon Gottschall makes a convincing argument that storytelling is the ultimate weapon for small businesses. (And big ones, too.)
Need help managing your social media (or other marketing) activities? Let us tell you our story… our clients agree, it has a happy ending.
7 (Mostly Free) Ways to Maximize Facebook for Your Business
So you have a company Facebook page. You do two to three status updates a week, sometimes post a photo. But you’re left wondering, “Is there anything else I can do?”
We’ve rounded up 7 easy ways to help make your Facebook page work harder for your business:
- Showcase your brand via the Facebook Timeline
- Participate on Facebook as your brand
- Run contests for your followers
- Set up special apps to engage your followers
- Open up the Subscribe button for your personal page
- Set up networking, social and niche “groups” for targeted messages
- Advertise your Facebook Page to promote your business
Our 7 Ways to Maximize Facebook for Your Business tip sheet will give you more details about these ideas. Of course, before trying any of them, we recommend reviewing your overall social media strategy to be sure you are meeting your goals. If you need help devising or implementing a social media strategy, please get in touch with us – we’re happy to help!