Engaging community members on Reddit: 3 original content formats
It’s time to level up your subreddit’s content calendar ⏰
Self-defined as “the front page of the Internet” since a long time, Reddit is an online forum platform with over 100,000 active communities around the world. Registered users (aka Redditors) post content, write comment, vote and give awards to posts on their favorite subreddits.
One of the subreddits I moderate, r/Polkadot, has grown from 6K members to over 70K members in 2021. This growth of +1000% was a real challenge to handle in terms of moderation but also and above all in terms of engagement.
Spam and low quality posts can flood the feed of any popular subreddit. As a result, relevant posts get lost and members miss the opportunity to take part in meaningful conversations.
On r/Polkadot, the community is dedicated to keeping up with the latest Polkadot news, learning about the technology, and responding to members’ questions and concerns. Below are 3 examples of original content formats that I initiated to further engage community members of a fast-growing subreddit.
🧒 ELI5 Series
ELI5 is an acronym for the phrase “Explain Like I’m 5”. The number 5 refers to a five-year-old child, which means that the person asking for an explanation has a limited understanding of the problem.
When I started moderating the subreddit, I could see members posting analogies to explain key concepts and mechanics. Blockchain is a complex subject to grasp with many layers (pun intended 🙃) to break down. Members wanted to understand the technology behind Polkadot in simple terms and I wanted to support them.
I submitted a project internally called “Polkadot from A to Z - ELI5 Series”, I had this idea of an alphabet book that members could read letter after letter, post after post on the subreddit. I compiled a list of words based on key concepts I often saw mentioned and so in June 2021, Emre Sumerli, Technical Educator at Web3 Foundation kicked-off this series with the first post: A for Account.
In his own words, Emre always find a way to explain key concepts in a single post by providing simple definitions, but also history, context, examples, and further reading links. You can read the full collection here.
Even though the high-quality posts were new to the subreddit, this series has been very well received by members, especially new members who often use these posts as a safe space to ask related questions.
💬 AMA Sessions
This is a must on Reddit, a format anchored in the DNA of the platform. Back in 2012, Barack Obama during his presidential campaign made the site temporarily unavailable because of the traffic generated on his post.
According to the company, Reddit hosts thousands of Ask Me Anythings every year. The most popular AMAs in terms of upvotes in 2021 was I’m a lobster diver who recently survived being inside of a whale. AMA!
A little further from whales and lobsters, in September 2021, I launched a format of AMA sessions with Bill Laboon, Director of Education and Community at Web3 Foundation.
The first AMA was titled “Polkadot for Beginners” and received over 20 questions within hours. These AMAs are a great moment for members of the subreddit to deep dive into a specific topic based on the main community’s questions. Here is my post announcing the current 4-month program to give an opportunity for members to prepare their questions and ask them to Bill, one of the most knowledgeable, supportive and patient personalities in the Polkadot ecosystem.
These monthly sessions are now a popular time on the subreddit and we tend to see an increase in traffic at the start of each month along with a great engagement rate. As an iteration, we now use the “event” feature for the AMA, which allow members to follow the post and receive a reminder when the event starts. It also displays the post differently when it is live and make it easier to spot among the other posts.
🤔 True or False
By moderating r/Polkadot every day, I started seeing the same questions being asked over and over again as well as some misconceptions. I thought it would be interesting to create a format of posts around those. And to somehow gamify this experience, by encouraging members to come up with answers and obtain a Reddit Award for them.
I’ve created an action plan and listed 12 questions and misconceptions that I have often read, like “Polkadot uses Proof-of-Work”, “Polkadot is a Layer 1 protocol”, etc. Then, I scheduled posts to be published on a weekly basis in the context of a True or False game. The best comment would receive the “Awesome Answer Award”.
This content format was live for four months, from November 2021 to February 2022, and even though it was not as popular as the AMA sessions or the ELI5 series, all the posts received comments and a few members really shined by their great answers.
Bonus: A cheat sheet for success
- 🌟 Collaborate with talented colleagues and make it happen! I had these ideas and worked to bring them to life but I could have never have written ELI5 posts like Emre, or answered as many questions as Bill, or designed illustrations like Zsófia, which brings me to my second point.
- 🖼 Get an outstanding visual identity. I didn’t mention it until now but a content format wouldn’t be the same without a proper visual identity. Zsófia Méhes, Graphic Designer at Parity Technologies, designed all the assets and her work really defines the formats by giving them all a very unique look and feel.
- 📊 Test, measure, improve. There is no one size fits all, the mentioned content formats may not be a great fit for your subreddit but you should test things out. Start with a pilot project with just a few resources and measure the success, iterate and repeat. Be consistent in the content you generate and gives members a reason to keep coming back to your subreddit.
- 🔦 Shine the light on what matters. Spend time on your subreddit to identify where you can support members. Try to create TIL (Today I Learned) moments for members and add value where you can!
