Posting on reddit without it being deleted comes down to luck, or whether you are friends with (or have given some benefit) to the mods.
How to use Reddit to get your first users
11–20 of 154 posts
Re: How to use Reddit to get your first users
#12Posting on reddit without it being deleted comes down to luck, or whether you are friends with (or have given some benefit) to the mods.
Rather depends on the subreddit. I subscribe to most of the VR subreddits. /r/vive has really strict moderation whilst /r/oculus has barely any.
Re: How to use Reddit to get your first users
#13Isn't this problematic due to the 1:10 self-promotion rule on reddit? "For every 1 time you post self-promotional content, 9 other posts (submissions or comments) should not contain self-promotional content."
The rule only Applies to small businesses.
Big companies buy accounts that have been used for years.
Re: How to use Reddit to get your first users
#14Does anyone else have experience posting on Reddit for marketing purposes that they can share? I haven’t done it myself, but my understanding is that most subreddits frown upon self promotion posts. The article makes it sound like it’s as simple as posting to the right subreddits to get views, but I’m skeptical. The author also mentions getting 400 visitors as an example of success. 400 visitors is nice, but given th…
Do what big corporations do. Buy old accounts and astroturf.
Aldi had great success posting "hauls" until they were caught astroturfing. They likely are still doing similar but smarter with their accounts.
Re: How to use Reddit to get your first users
#15Roughly 10 years ago I had a startup idea and had the thought to reach out to "enthusiasts" within the market niche on Reddit and elsewhere. My requests for feedback were met with extreme cynicism, criticism and just outright rudeness. Maybe 5% of the responses were constructive.\ My takeaways: Asking users what they want isn't always useful. Enthusiasts communities can be very negative to new ideas or members.
But were they right?
Re: How to use Reddit to get your first users
#16Reddit is a forum and to a forum of enthusiasts it is a personal space.
It's more akin to a bar in which they all meet and hang out.
It's possible to research via a bar, just get to know people first and they'll embrace and support whatever you're working on. But to those who wish to just walk into a bar and start trying to perform market research or sales... yeah, know that it comes across as an invasion of personal space.
If anyone wishes to use any forum for successful launch of a project... either your product has to be that good (in which case they'll only trust an existing member saying so) or you should get to know the community first and contribute to it and be a trusted member of it.
Re: How to use Reddit to get your first users
#17The article can be summarised to: "Use the subreddit where your target audience hangs out"
Nothing wrong with the advice, but most subreddits have a no self-promotion policy (and reddit has a "no promotion over 10% of account activity" policy). There are things like self promotion threads but its only visited by people looking to promote their products and not by other people. Users who don't cease the promotion on being warned will have a very real possibility of having their account and domain banned from the sub.
I've been on the moderator side of subreddits, and the general sentiment is that people are there because of a shared interest and not to be the promotion ground for some wannabe-rich guy. If a subreddit is for fountain pen enthusiasts, they'd rather see 10 posts going "Help me choose my first fountain pen" rather than some guy promoting his fountain pen store on etsy.
Re: How to use Reddit to get your first users
#18Roughly 10 years ago I had a startup idea and had the thought to reach out to "enthusiasts" within the market niche on Reddit and elsewhere. My requests for feedback were met with extreme cynicism, criticism and just outright rudeness. Maybe 5% of the responses were constructive.\ My takeaways: Asking users what they want isn't always useful. Enthusiasts communities can be very negative to new ideas or members.
It sounds like you weren't a member of that community prior to trying to advertise your services for financial gain. Cynicism is probably the best outcome from something like that, honestly.
Re: How to use Reddit to get your first users
#19I advertised an app I wrote on Reddit, not by posting, but by using Reddit ads. Say what you want about Reddit; their ads work very well. I was able to target relevant subreddits, people made posts about it(opening the door for me to interact with potential users), and I got a few hundred people to sign up through the Play store.
I didn't continue because I realized that there just wasn't a way to make the app profitable. I had assumed, based on my experiences from 10 years ago, that I could make money on ads, but ads today are pretty worthless unless you reach a critical mass of users.
Re: How to use Reddit to get your first users
#20So this sums up as - post your ideas in specifically targeted subreddits. What am I missing that makes this noteworthy?
You're not missing anything - fairly straight-forward advice. In their defence, they didn't title the post "The secret on how to use Reddit to get your first users"! But how did it get to the front page?
A combination of people upvoting the title without reading the (pretty useless) article and the article's author using "IndieHacker" in the title which is probably trying to game people into thinking it has any relation to IndieHackers.