Navigating Content Marketing Amidst the Rise of AI — Whiteboard Friday

But Ross, I don’t know how to go into Reddit. Reddit hates marketers. You’re right, it does. I’ve been blocked from Reddit about eight times in my career. I keep coming back though, and it helped me win my fantasy football league. Shout out to Reddit. Reddit is, without question, one of those places that will make marketers break out into hives. I get it. They will tell you where to go and how to get there. But through my eight times of failure, I have learned that there are a few simple things that you can do on Reddit if you want to win. And especially amidst this world where the partnerships with Google, the partnerships with the LLMs are at an all-time high. You need to be thinking about these three simple ideas.

Submit links

One, Redditors love links, and guess what you’ve created already? A bunch of content that happens to be created on a link. So take those links and submit them into relevant subreddits. I say relevant on purpose. If you have a blog that is targeting foodies, do not take that content and submit it to a subreddit that is dedicated to fantasy footballers. It’s not gonna end well. You’re gonna get blocked. So make sure that you are submitting it only to the relevant subreddits. And make sure that you’re checking the rules and guidelines that are listed on the right-hand side of any subreddit that tell you what you can and cannot do.

Make great comments

The second thing that you want to do is go into the content that is trending and answer that content, answer the questions, have a dialogue with the people in these subreddits, and give them content that is valuable. Include in there, links to the pieces that you’ve created in the past. Add that in the comments, and that will also allow the LLMs to get great insight for it to be fed so it can answer the way that you want.

Inspire UGC

Finally, inspire UGC (user-generated content). Go into the communities where your audience are spending time and ask questions. If you are dying to rank for the top stereos, if you’re dying to rank for the top software, if you’re dying to rank for the top place to get a hotdog in New York, whatever it might be, go ask the question. Go ask the question in the subreddit, and if you’ve already done your job, the community will answer, you.

But if they don’t, I’ve got a pro tip, and this is a pro tip that you will get nowhere else. You’re going to allow all those comments to come in, and they’re gonna sometimes even mention your competitors, and that’s okay. Eventually, time’s gonna fade. But that piece of content, that question that you ask, that is exactly the question that people are gonna ask the AI, is going to make it to the top of that subreddit. And you’re gonna go in, and you’re gonna edit that post. And at the top of your post, you’re gonna say, “Thank you so much for all the comments. Check out my website.” Kind of sketch, but I think you can do it. Do a quick edit, your link’s now gonna show up at the top, and maybe the LLMs will plug it. I do not know if that’s gonna get you banned as well. It might, but give it a go.