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The 10 Best Subreddits for Marketers

What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think of Reddit? Is it the discussion board’s reputation for toxicity, or do you just think about GIFs?

If you’re willing to put in a little work, Reddit is jam-packed with insight amid discussions about digital communications and content marketing. The site, after all, has billed itself as “the front page of the internet” for more than a decade. As the landscape of branded content expands and becomes more complicated, it stands to reason that Reddit might want to get involved.

Think about it this way: Reddit is like an afternoon spent at a thrift store. Sometimes you have to sift through the dubious looking bodysuits long enough to unearth a raspberry beret. So to help you with the sifting, here are the 10 most insightful and useful subreddits for marketers.

1. r/marketing

With more than 110,000 subscribers and a bevy of in-person meet-ups, r/marketing is the big kid on the content creation block. Users tend to share resources rather than get mired in debates, and the board’s most popular post to date is a collection of free educational materials on Google Analytics.

Professional resource-sharing is the name of the game on r/marketing, which also boasts a crowd-sourced list of online digital marketing certification programs and an AMA (call for questions) hosted by a twenty-something digital marketing whiz kid. You may not find an easy way to jump into a conversation, but this board has enough reading material to keep you busy.

2. r/dataisbeautiful

No matter how advanced you are with visual assets, r/dataisbeautiful offers inspirational fodder for your team. The conceit of the board is simple: amateur data visualization artists and statisticians design interactive, beautiful infographics and charts. Some designers use raw data from studies they find online just to experiment with their craft.

Now, r/dataisbeautiful isn’t just a collection of random pie charts. If you’re developing their company’s unique voice across content channels, the discussions on data viz can knock ideas loose in your brain. Take, for instance, this top-ranking talk about the leading causes of death in the United States. The thread includes three charts that show the average Google user’s fears about dying are very different than the risks reported in census data and stories in the media.

3. r/askmarketing

Beginners should use this advice-focused subreddit as a free crash course in marketing basics, but seasoned professionals are more than welcome to treat this subreddit like a game. Can you answer the original poster’s (OP) query about chatbots and whether they’re worth it? We can.

The board’s most controversial discussion to date involved socially conscious corporate messaging, or, as the OP called it, “social justice warrior corporate marketing.” The OP wanted to know why so many companies were releasing LGBT-friendly messaging around pride.

“At first,” the user wrote, “I thought it was solely the busywork of HR, but then saw how marketing came into the picture as well. My current feeling is that it’s an amorphous force that is hard to pin down, and is obviously all based around the idea that social justice sells.” Responses ranged from dismissive to politely playing devil’s advocate (“So what if a business went out of its way to be unwelcoming to specific demographics – would that be a smart strategy?”)

4. r/internetisbeautiful

r/internetisbeautiful is a rare subreddit because its users aren’t angry about anything. The board’s userbase earnestly and emotionally shares online content whenever something about the design or tone catches their eye.

For a content marketer, browsing r/internetisbeautiful is a great way to learn how the masses want to spend their time. Recent highlights include StatMuse’s interactive table of basketball elements and Outrider’s nuclear bomb simulator. Controversial submissions have even inspired users to research companies’ terms and conditions. This subreddit is a deep dive in more ways than one.

5. r/content_marketing

If you’re feeling disconnected from your colleagues, perhaps because you’re the only one focused solely on content marketing, you can think of this subreddit as a job-specific water-cooler—or, more likely, a secret Slack channel.

Recent discussion prompts have included, “Any journalists in here who pivoted from media to content marketing?” and “Content promotion on Reddit yes or no?” (By the way, the answer to the latter question was “only if it’s relevant to the discussion at hand!”) Though the board isn’t as trafficked relative to the others on our list, it’s populated by professionals who already understand what content can do. You won’t find stodgy skeptics here.

6. r/webmarketing

No sane marketing writer would counsel you to follow this subreddit’s instructions point by point, but amid all the posts from its 15,000 subscribers, r/webmarketing has a lot of gems. Take this exhaustive survey of influencers on Instagram, for example—one user asked for each influencer’s secret tactics and found that many use “powerliking” to combat the app’s finicky algorithm. Others encourage would-be social influencers to contact users with higher fanbases to request a shout-out, and most emphasize the power of giveaways and contests.

Users also discuss helpful Google Chrome extensions for marketers, bad landing page designs, and page loading speed.

7. r/ppc

If you’ve ever thought, “Boy, I wish me and my friends would sit around and yell at each other about AdWords,” this is the subreddit for you. r/ppc features all the benefits and bothersome bits of paid advertising on Google, and the board’s 17,000 subscribers pick apart everything from Wix to annoying habits of content marketers.

Be very careful about chiming in here. One controversial post reads, “if you are a content marketer reading this, please know that this sub is largely comprised of very savvy digital marketers. We know exactly what you are doing, how you are likely tracking it, maybe even some guestimates on your conversion rates. Hell, we could probably do this better than you do it. Do you really think we don’t get what you’re doing?”

8. r/seo

This subreddit offers a home for seasoned SEO pros and new hires alike. Discussion topics range from sharing syllabus material to “how the hell does Forbes still rank so well?”

There aren’t a ton of new posts on the board, but discussions can go on for days at a time. r/seo is a great place to browse if you’re curious about the general state of the field, and every once in a while, someone will cite a blog you’ve never seen. This week, a user asked for a recap of the last year’s updates to SEO, and responses ranged from “don’t do anything black hat” to “use HTTPs and mobile-first indexing.”

9. r/digital_marketing

Granted, this board is one of the smaller ones on our list, but perhaps because it’s not overloaded with content, r/digital_marketing yields spicy conversations about annoying clients (“Just make our version of the #icebucketchallenge”) and YouTube influencers.

Subreddits like this one often need a little help from enthused, informed parties in order to really get things going. With almost 17,000 subscribers, r/digital_marketing has the makings of an interesting hub. It just needs you.

10. r/EntrepreneurRideAlong

In 2012, entrepreneur Rohan Gilkes began his own subreddit as a way of updating a general audience on the growth of his startup. His intention, according to the still-busy subreddit’s sidebar, was to create “probably the most transparent case study you’ll ever see for a local business.”

What started as a live-blog has become a collection of captain’s logs and musings from Gilkes and his affiliates. So many small business owners and marketing professionals started to follow Gilkes and communicate with him that, after a few years, his subreddit became a great place for these subscribers to share their favorite resources. There’s just a metric ton of content, from a database of companies that hire remote workers to Gilkes’ entire business blog.

Overall, Reddit is just like any other place on the internet–full of both terrible stories from people you’d never talk to in real life and useful information related to your interests. Subscribe to these subreddits and start commenting on things, but limit your time clicking around. Before you know it, you’ll be fourteen pages into r/delusionalartists and realize you haven’t gotten any work done in two days.

Image by Ashim D. Silva

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