Message Board Marketing

Looking for a new avenue for research and development? You might want to look at the front page of the internet. Reddit is increasingly a platform where businesses assess customer needs. Take e-commerce clothing retailer Short Story, which specializes in petite apparel. The brand utilized relevant subreddits like r/PetiteFashionAdvice to get a sense of its target customers’ pain points when shopping. From there, the retailer could then ensure its products effectively addressed customers’ most pressing needs. 

Reddit is a treasure trove of dedicated communities for a variety of niche interests. The potential for B2B brands to leverage the platform in a similar way abounds. From r/cybersecurity (386,000 members) to r/webdev (1.3 million members) to r/manufacturing (42,000 members), there’s an active and engaged community for almost every industry.

One word of caution: Reddit is all about real people giving their unfiltered perspectives and advice, so any heavy-handed sales and marketing tactics will be quickly sniffed out and rejected by users. So don’t think of the platform as a place to directly promote (aka advertise). Instead, use it to ask, engage and listen to get the real scoop on what your target audience cares about most — and then take that information and use it to start working on solutions.

TL;DR: For many brands, Reddit is an untapped resource to gain valuable insights about your target audience. Start exploring the platform’s potential.

A Whole New Feed

Succeeding on social media has traditionally been all about catering to the algorithm — which is notoriously complicated and constantly changing. Ever wish a real live person could cherry-pick the best content instead?

With the introduction of a new human-curated discovery-based feed, LinkedIn seeks to reintroduce a personal touch to the platform. Now in the early testing period, the feed will  feature posts, videos, newsletters, events and more selected by members of LinkedIn’s News team. Users will be able to find relevant content and voices from people and organizations they’re not currently connected with and who they might not see or hear from otherwise. 

LinkedIn’s move is part of a recent wave of platforms capitalizing on the discoverability trend (Facebook’s Discoverability Engine and Google Discover to name a couple) made famous by TikTok’s ForYou Page. 

Will LinkedIn’s contribution bring something new to the table? It’s a possibility. On the one hand, real people behind the content you see may increase quality control. On the other hand, human bias may come into the equation, and publishers with established audiences could get preference. Another benefit:  Smaller creators who struggled to be picked up by an algorithm-based feed could get a boost  from a News team member choosing their content.

Consider ways you can optimize your LinkedIn content to be truly unique, compelling and have that personal touch that just might catch the eye of an actual person.

TL;DR: LinkedIn is testing a new human-curated feed. Think about ways to make your content stand out to a real person.

ICYMI