Community Marketing in B2B - Reddit

We talked about community marketing a bit in our last newsletter

If you haven’t checked it yet, have a look here

In this newsletter, we’re going to deep dive into my newest favorite channel and the OG of communities - Reddit.

Many of us may remember the famous (or infamous) Reddit saga of January 2021.

GameStop ring a bell?

Yeah, that time when a reddit community waged a war against Wall Street and won

What if I told you reddit has the power to build tight-knit communities for B2B too

For ex: Look at this comment about ABM I found in r/marketing

That’s one of the simplest yet detailed explanations of ABM I’ve seen

There are multiple communities that you can build on reddit

Here are some general ones that already exist:

1. r/marketing

The most popular marketing related subreddit with 1 million+ members

There are discussions about anything marketing here

2. r/b2bmarketing

While not as active as marketing, this subreddit also has decent communication and discussions

3. r/saas

121k members strong and engaging as ever

Now notice how these are mostly communities with a very broad target audience

I’m certain a brand that is able to leverage reddit properly to build their community, will see great benefit from allocating some resources to reddit community building

Just make sure you follow these rules before going about building a community on reddit

1. Understand Reddit Culture: Study rules of similar subreddits, if any, so you get an idea of what works and what doesn’t
   
   Tune your brand language and Tone of Voice (TOV) to suit the platform
   
2. Promote your subreddit: Use related or complimentary subreddits to boost your own community.
   
   Collaborate with other communities to increase your audience
   
   Users value authenticity, so make sure your plugins aren’t obvious and just seen as spam content.
   
3. Identify your niche: Like I said earlier, there is a lot of space on reddit for focused discussions. Being a place for just that will help you stand out and provide more value to your community.

Here’s a lean team structure you will require to build and maintain a community:

1. Community Manager - They will oversee the day-to-day operations and activities in the community. Moderating discussions, engaging with members all falls under their purview. A good community manager will be able to build relationships with communities that have lookalike-audience and forge relationships which are beneficial to the growth of the community.
2. Content Creator - To get gears rolling, you’ll need to consistently push content for your community yourself. These can be pure creation, or even curation. This content will serve as prompts to get other members more active.
3. Moderators - As the community grows, you will need mods who can ensure the community guidelines are being followed, provide assistance to members who seek it and generally help maintain community hygiene.

I hope this newsletter gives you some fodder for your thoughts

If you’re a Redditor, would love to hear your thoughts on this opinion-piece in the comments.