How To Use Reddit For Easy Market Research
Have you ever used Reddit? Do you even know what it is or how it’s used? Because not many people do and it’s not exactly your average social media platform like Facebook. Market research can be a very lengthy and expensive process and therefore might not be available for small or start-up companies. As a platform that revolves around different communities, using Reddit correctly can give you valuable information and user insights.
How exactly do you use Reddit?
Reddit is built upon different communities. By subscribing to popular communities (called subreddits), you’ll get an ongoing thread of viral content. These communities are divided by themes such as interests, news, hobbies, and Reddit inventions such as the “Ask Reddit” format, where the community answers questions.
Ultimately, Reddit is a place for casual users to discuss topics that they’re passionate about and ask questions about those topics to others. If any companies or vendors try and post adverts or promotions, they will simply be kicked out. Reddit also has a scoring system depending on the popularity of your post. If you post something funny within a community, for example, other users can ‘upvote’ your message which pushes the post higher to the top of the conversion. However, users can also downvote your post which then gets sent to the bottom if you’re content is not relevant or is something other than joining the conversation.
How to use Reddit for market research
With over 330 million users on Reddit discussing endless topics, there is so much opportunity to gain helpful insights on certain products, services or industries.
Firstly, ensure that you’re searching within the right communities that will be talking about your chosen topic. You can search for subreddits and use different keyword searches until you find different areas or communities relating to your brand or product. For example, by searching for MacBook, you’ll come across subreddits such as ‘MacBook repair’, MacGaming’ and ‘MacSetups’. Within these communities you’ll find valuable conversations about Apple as a brand and their MacBooks, offering an authentic glimpse into the lives of MacBook consumers.
Of course, different brands will be wanting to understand different opinions and experiences users have which are completely unfiltered and honest. Some good basic questions to ask yourself is what users think of the market you operate in, what users think of your brand and its products and the advertising/ marketing that comes with it. Because Reddit pushes all the popular and discerning comments to the top of the page, you’ll read all of the smartest comments first which is who you want to target your marketing strategies at. These users are most likely going to be more discerning customers meaning that they hold a lot of knowledge that the masses will follow.
Once you gather all the information you need about your brand or products, you can then build your content around customer needs/ wants.
The do’s and don’ts
Once you find the right community to conduct your research, it’s helpful to do a bit of keyword research. Search for different keywords or key phrases related to the topic you’re interested in and browse the different questions and discussions that users have posted. Another good way of getting straightforward answers from users is by joining the subreddits ‘SampleSize’ or ‘AskMarketing’ where you can post questions related to any topic. However, you may not find the relevant users for maximum results.
On to the do not. Obviously, don’t make it obvious that you’re conducting market research as your posts will be downvoted or worst, marked as spam. Reddit is a place for genuine conversations, and no one wants advertisements or promotions shoved in their faces. Vendors who try to post here will often be mocked or kicked out.
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