CyberMarketing Con 2021 was full of insightful sessions from the best marketers of the business. We were lucky to have Andy Tzortzinis, Senior PR and Communications Manager at A-LIGN, join our first session. He shared his experiences and tips for marketing to cybersecurity practitioners – especially MSPs – on community forum platform Reddit.
Since he is fairly new to the cybersecurity space, he set out to learn more about the industry through the forums in the r/MSP channel that discuss customers’ pain points.
Relationship Marketing on Reddit
Andy emphasizes that, at the end of the day, using Reddit is simply a way to conduct relationship marketing. When using Reddit, marketers should focus on providing value rather than seeking to get something in return.
With that said, Andy also emphasizes that using Reddit is a long game strategy.
When engaging for the first time, it’s important to start slowly to develop rapport with the community you’re engaging with by presenting your company as a resource and not just a vendor.
Andy recommends finding thought leaders, trusted voices, and influencers within a subreddit and letting them know who you are. There are a lot of thoughts and ideas on Reddit, so it’s also important to give credit where credit is due.
Why Reddit?
According to Andy, Reddit presents a fly-on-the-wall opportunity because it unveils what really keeps the community up at night. Furthermore, he says that the site lets you see how your target market views your product in an unfiltered way.
Andy’s 6 Rules for Success
Andy shared 6 rules that will help in both Reddit and relationship marketing.
- Be authentic
- Be empathetic
- Be relevant
- Provide real value
- Be responsive
- No strings attached – don’t expect anything in return
More Tips for Reddit
Go for new posts.
Andy shares that in a subreddit, the feed defaults to the “Hot Posts” or the trending posts. To be updated with the latest posts, change the tab to “New Posts.”
Check the top voted response.
There’s a reason a post will end up being voted to the top. Andy recommends checking why by asking some questions. Are there respondents who identify with the OP (original poster)? What info are the other respondents sharing?
You can respond by offering what provides value, which differs for every vendor.
4 Questions to Ask Yourself
As a user of the platform, you need to adhere to the rules of the community. Andy recommends asking yourself these questions:
- Can I respond in the thread in a way that doesn’t break any vendor engagement rules?
- Which participants in the thread have a problem/need I can solve?
- Should I DM (direct message) the OP or anyone else?
- Am I going to piss anyone off?
Conclusion
If you think that using Reddit seems like the job of sales, Andy agrees with you. On Reddit, you can create leads for sales people. It also helps you get a better understanding of your buyer persona by gleaning insights that don’t come from landing pages or reviews.
Just be patient, follow the rules, engage with the community, and you will yield results!
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