How brands use forums for marketing [Content Asset Example]
Content Asset Example #4 - Google is showering its traffic love on discussion forums. We deep dive into this trend and have listed some brands who have aligned their content strategy accordingly.
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When I started seeing posts about the rise of Reddit, I thought of researching its traffic trends. I compared website traffic and growth for Reddit with one of the most seen brands over search queries, i.e., Amazon.
These are the website traffic stats for Reddit1 as of June 2024. It shows a rising trend with an increase of 3.44% in visits since May 2024:
And this is how Amazon fared as of June 2024:
Not just Amazon, but Reddit has experienced massive growth in its traffic volume, beating Pornhub and taking its spot to become the 6th most visited site in the world! Another noteworthy rise is by X (Twitter) which has jumped 12 places to reach 8th place.
Some brands may have taken notice - and they were quick to hop into the trend of leveraging community forums for brand building.
In this content marketing example issue, we will explore the rise of forums as an active marketing channel.
How much rise in traffic are we talking about?
I came across a report by Sistrix2 that stated that Reddit and Quora are enjoying an increase of 22.90% and 15.90% respectively after the November 2023 Google update. This is reflected in an increase in the visibility index across US and UK ecosystems.
Not just Reddit, but even other forums like Quora, Medium, Stackoverflow, etc have shown an increase in visibility:
Many articles cover Google’s logic3 and showcase dissent4 favoring forums over niche websites that follow E-E-A-T guidelines.
To summarize, Google is favoring Reddit in search rankings and other forums because the content here is ‘authentic’, i.e., it reflects the true sentiments of real users about the search query by the user.
I think this aligns with Google’s E-E-A-T in terms of ‘trust’. But I don’t understand how it aligns with other requirements like ‘Expertise’ or ‘Authority’ in that subject matter.
Nevertheless, marketers have taken note and they have started to experiment with using existing forums or building one from scratch to ride this latest trend of using forums for brand visibility.
Okay, I am sold — how do I start leveraging forums for marketing?
First, let’s understand what is a discussion forum:
A discussion forum in 2024 involves creating a safe space for your existing customers, brand advocates, and potential customers to voice feedback publicly to your team or ask support for your products from peers.
Before the Reddit boom, brands were building community forums as a channel for engaging users to support each other while using their product ecosystem. For example, Bubble’s forum helps anyone using Bubble to ask questions regarding using the tool, voice concerns over Bubble updates, or showcase their work. Such forums help reduce direct support tickets and create user-generated FAQ content that future users facing the same problem could refer to.
When I try a random search query, the forum answer is the top result (after YouTube tutorial links).
How participating or building forums helps:
Apart from benefits in website traffic due to UGC content or if Google decides to rank you better, here’s how forums help:
Target long-tail keywords: when a website has low authority, many marketers advise targeting long-tail or low-volume keywords. By building branded forums or participating in existing ones as a brand, you can potentially capture this traffic with user-generated content. You also avoid investing resources in creating dedicated pages or blogs for those keywords.
Build trust: an active branded forum directly highlights platform adoption, thus improving chances of converting website traffic into users.
Get featured: Google recently released the ‘Perspectives’5 filter which uses Generative AI to collect various opinions about the search query under one tab. Also, participating in forums increases the chances of obtaining a ‘featured snippet’. Here, your branded ID within a forum may get more weight than other answers within a forum post. This is critical to help your brand control the narrative of a UGC forum post.
How to market using forums?
There are two main ways to build a branded community using forums:
Participate in existing forums:
Similar to other social media platforms like Twitter or Instagram, you can create an ID in any relevant forum and post as a branded user. Using this ID, you can comment on relevant or ranking posts, use their messaging features to handle support, or engage with users by creating posts.
For platforms like Reddit, you can create your subreddit community and get better control using community-building features.
Create a new branded forum:
Platforms like Reddit HATE marketers, especially when they try to act smart. Here’s how any self-promoting post gets treated:
Stories about posts or accounts getting banned on a subreddit are quite common.
This is why building your forum may make more sense, especially if you’re an established brand. The branded forum must be connected directly to your website for better content control. It also removes the platform risk associated with social media sites like Reddit or Quora.
How to plugin your brand in forums:
The key for platforms like Reddit and Quora is to not deliberately plug your brand. Unlike other social platforms, forums tend to hate self-promotion. Many forums have anonymity features making members free to be savage — and can lead to bad publicity if it gets blown up. Here’s what you can do:
Build a community: you can create branded subreddits on Reddit, branded publications on Medium, start dedicated Quora topics on your brand, and more.
Comment on existing posts: if there are existing posts that your brand can potentially plugin as the right solution, then use a personal account and give genuine advice. Here’s an example of how I wrote this answer that increased my profile visits (where I have plugged my website into my profile).
Just use the forum: make your founders or core team members build genuine profiles over these forums and engage like a normal and real human! If your founders are popular, they can even conduct an AMA (like Elon Musk did!)
5 brands that are nailing forums for marketing
Here are some brands that have used discussion forums successfully. A good way to kickstart your forum campaign is to see how these brands do it and make notes!
1. Shopify built a dedicated subreddit for Shopify developers and merchants
Shopify built an active subreddit of 240k+ members who ask support-related queries to fellow users. They have also built an active discussion forum of 900k+ as a part of their Shopify community initiative.
2. Short Story uses Reddit for customer discovery
Short Story designs clothes for people with a height less than 5’4. The founder is active on the subreddit ‘PetiteFashionAdvice’ which she uses as a source to get customer feedback and suggestions. For example, one of her posts6 asked community members to share their frustrations with petite clothing, which garnered 400+ upvotes and comments! Read more about their hacks on Modern Retail.7
3. Starter Story launched its publication on Reddit
When Pat Walls launched Starter Story, he got only 300 visits in the first month. Then a Reddit post that blew up helped him discover the hack of what today people call ‘Reddit Marketing tactics’. He made several posts that resulted in hundreds of upvotes, got him millions of site visitors, and helped him achieve $10k per month.
He shared details about how he did it - a must-watch if you want to understand Reddit marketing.
4. Unacademy got traction with founders building credibility by answering Quora questions
Unacademy is one of the top EdTech startups in India which helps prepare for Indian competitive exams. Roman Saini and Gaurav Munjal built stellar and active Quora profiles by answering relevant questions. They built credibility and a strong following when Quora was at its peak in India. You can see how his last post was active 5 years ago where he personally stepped in to answer questions related to Unacademy’s credibility.
Building a personal brand is the best way to navigate Quora. But you can explore Quora for Business guidelines8 to run a business profile for a better strategy.
5. Using Slack channels for networking and personal branding
Curated Slack channels are active secret havens for insiders across industries to interact without the social media noise. Founders and core team members can join the relevant ones in your industry and stay active to network and engage to build connections. However, note that Slack channels do not provide any SEO benefit.
For example, many new founders use the AcquiredFM podcast’s Slack channel having 23,000+ members to launch their products and network with fellow founders across others.
Another SaaS called Tally has built a branded Slack channel to nurture and engage its users for support:
Slack provides a more intimate and feature-rich platform to run communities, especially for B2B products. Check out our deep dive on Slack’s content marketing strategy to learn more.
Hope you can use this content marketing example for your brand - and if there are any corrections, do let me know! :)
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Reddit website traffic analysis by Semrush
Core Update, Reviews Update November 2023 -Status, Examples, and Data by Sistrix
Google Explains Why It Shows Reddit & Forum Threads In Search So Often by Search Engine Roundtable
Article complaining about being outranked on Google being outranked by Reddit by Search Engine Land
Learn from others’ experiences with more perspectives on Search by The Keyword Blog, Google
Writing on Quora as a business by Quora Resources