Harness the Power of Reddit Marketing

Reddit is one of the most active and "happening" communities on the Internet today. With nearly 200 million unique visitors every month, it has deservedly earned the nickname of "the front page of the Internet." As a chiropractor, you can harness the power and reach of Reddit to deliver useful content to targeted users and promote your practice at the same time. Here's how.

How to Post Content on Reddit

To begin with, you need to create an account on Reddit.com, which is a quick, one-minute process. Once you've created a username and password, you are instantly eligible to post your content via two buttons, "Submit a New Text Post" or "Submit a New Link," on the right side of the site homepage.

Before you start posting, however, it is recommended that you familiarize yourself with the variety of content other people are posting and various content categories and subcommunities (called "sub-reddits") that may be relevant to your practice. You should ideally select one or two sub-reddits in the beginning, and each should have at least a few thousand members.

The sub-communities could be related to, say, "natural health care," where your chiropractic content may fit most appropriately. You can respond to the queries of other members, make your comments or suggestions, or simply provide relevant and helpful information about various chiropractic procedures, services or techniques that could benefit the community.

How to Build Your "Karma"

Reddit community moderators keep a close watch over the quality of the content you post under various categories. The frequency of your participation and the quality of your contributions will earn you "karma" or score from the editors. A higher karma indicates to other readers how credible and useful your content is likely to be.

Karma is essentially Reddit's way of rewarding you for adding real value to the community with good-quality content. You can post images along with the content sometimes to make it more impactful. Most importantly, once you have earned a significantly high karma, the moderators will let you create your own independent "sub-reddit." If you want, you can create an exclusive chiropractic community and cultivate it with great content to attract thousands of members to join it.

How to Rank on Reddit's Front Page

The coveted front page of Reddit is where you would aim your posts to rank in order to gain maximum visibility and response. To start with, your post should have an eye-catching title to draw the attention of readers in a highly competitive environment where everyone is vying for attention.

Provide original, unique and highly useful content in your post which would directly benefit many readers. If the readers like your post, they may give it an "upvote" and if they do not, they may give it a "downvote."

Your post's ranking on Reddit will depend on the net vote score. For instance, a post with 10 upvotes and zero downvotes will rank the same as a post with 100 upvotes and 90 downvotes.

The most recent posts will rank higher if two posts have the same net vote score. Remember that posting stale, repetitive or recycled content on Reddit is a bad idea. The community thrives on fresh and unique content. You can post content that is not yours, but provide appropriate credit where it is due.

Stay Genuine to Win on Reddit

The strength of Reddit is that it is one of the most reader-friendly communities on the Internet. Blatant marketing and self-promotion do not work. When you focus on adding genuine value to the community, you will be universally accepted and rewarded. Over time, your reputation on Reddit will translate into readers' interest in your chiropractic practice and improve your business in a sustainable manner.

Editor's Note: The author thanks Vikas Vij, who assisted in the writing of this article.

Naren Arulrajah is president and CEO of Ekwa Marketing (www.ekwa.com), a complete Internet marketing company that focuses on SEO, social media, marketing education and the online reputations of chiropractors.