Reddit is one of the social media that many haven’t utilize. It is because not too many people knows about it. For those who are somewhat familiar with it, stay away from it because they don’t understand how it works. But if you use it correctly, Reddit can be very helpful tool to promote your video and your brand.
About Reddit
Reddit is different then other social medias. Unless Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter, it is not run to make money. Basically Reddit is community of anonymous users that cover pretty much every topics you can think of.
Because users are completely anonymous it can be very scary place. It can be very dark place. Also it can be brutally honest. It is important to develop some thick skin and not to take things too personally. But if you understand how Reddit works, you can use it as your advantage and able to promote your videos with great success. Basically, Reddit is like double edged sword, it can make you superstar over night, or you can loose everything over night.
Key to locking the Reddit isn’t easy but when you invest your time on it, it can be rewarding.
Basically, Reddit is made up of many different Subreddit that covers many different topics. You can pretty much find any subreddit you can think of. Some how if you can’t find it, you can create your own Subreddit.
Each Subreddit has its own rules to follow. These rules are called Reddiquette. It is important that you follow the rules carefully because they are enforced very carefully. If you break the rules, they can ban you easily. Once you are banned from Reddit, it is very difficult to get back in.
Best way to learn Reddit is to create an account and just dive in and start getting involved in the community. Just remember that Reddit is constantly changing. Each post, or even each comment have thumbs-up and thumbs-down voting system. So it can dynamically moves around the post constantly.
You can’t just drop your Youtube links and expect to get views
One thing you should never to is just join the Subreddit and just drop your link. That will never work. In fact, that will never work on any other social medias either. Unfortunately, many continue to do it thinking that the will get views from just dropping the links. If you just drop your link in Subreddit, you’ll get completely ignored, or even get banned from Reddit.
Although there is Subreddit just for posting your vlogs. But thousands of people are just dropping links there and it will be easily for your video to get lost.
You need to understand there is no easy way to get views and promote your video. In order to successful, you have to be smarter and you have to work at it.
Again, key to success in Reddit is getting used to it’s format and how it works. Also it is important to spend some time getting involved in the Subreddit you are interested in. Spend some time introducing yourself and getting involved in the conversation, ask question, and help others.
How to promote your video using Reddit
So I came up with simple 4 steps on how to promote your video using Reddit.
1. Analyze your video carefully
First step is to really analyze your video. Key is to promote each of your video separately because each video is different. Take the video you want to promote and think about all the different topics it covers. For example, if you have travel vlog of your family going to Disneyland, different categories of topic could be 1) family, 2) travel, 3) Disneyland fan, 4) kids, and 5) vacation, etc.. More different topic you can come with, better it is. You can even come up with more detail topics such as 1) family travel, 2) vacation tips, 3) Disneyland tips, etc.. More detail, easier it is to work with.
2. Search Reddit for different Subreddit for the category
Now search the Reddit for different topics you came up with. You can search Reddit using Google search. For example, if you want to search for travel Subreddit, just search by typing “Reddit Travel”.
Or you can just search inside the Reddit in the search box.
Make sure each Subreddit has enough subscribers, and read the rules carefully. Make sure the Subreddit you are looking at is relating your video.
3. Get involved in these Subreddit communities
When you find some Subreddits that can help to promote your videos, subscribe.
Here is the important part. Before you start dropping links to your video, spend some time reading the posts and get involve in the group. Again, read the rule carefully and see what you can do and what you can’t do. Spend few days to read posts, comment on posts, and write some post without promoting your video. One thing you can do is introduce yourself to the group and let the group and the moderators know that you exist. Trying to post something with value to the group or helping others in the group. By spending some time getting involved in the the group lets the moderators know what you are not just here to promote your video. It lets the group that you are here to contribute to the group.
4. Promote your video
Each Subreddit has different rules on self promotion. Many Subreddit do allow self-promotion, but it is strict on how you do it. So real the rules very carefully.
Once you have establish some footing in the group, you can slowly promote your video in the group.
Best practice to promote your video is to somehow use your video to help others. For example, if you have travel video from Asia, and if there is conversation about that particular place in Asian, you can use your video to make your point or help answer questions.
As I mentioned it before, Reddit use rating system. Higher rate you have, more exposure you get to the group. You get high rating by people voting UP your posts. When the group think that your posts is interesting and has value, they’ll vote UP which gives you high rating. Your goal is to promote your video and get highest rating as possible.
Conclusion
Reddit can be scary place, but when you get use to it and use it wisely, it can be very helpful platform to promote your videos or any other brand that you have.
very useful
I tried this with r/phantomforces since I was making a gun from the game I thought it would be wise to just post a link with a little caption there! I got 4x more views on that video!