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How to use Reddit to get your first users

blog.spreadtheworld.net

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Re: How to use Reddit to get your first users

#51

Post by [deleted] »

woahAcademia wrote: post #14
enumjorge wrote: post #5

Does 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.

[deleted]

Re: How to use Reddit to get your first users

#52

Post by shiftpgdn »

random_visitor wrote: post #30
xavier_ wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes of course, don't spam or self-promote if it's not permitted! However, you can create some valuable content for the subreddit and share a link to your blog. Most Subs are ok with that (if you really bring value) and it can drive you some serious traffic.

Varies from subreddit to subreddit. This is purely anecdotal but on a big subreddit it's usually like 1 in 100 submissions linking to external site get the to "serious traffic" level of traction. You can instead write the same content as a subreddit post and add a link to your site at the end, such posts will have a much higher chance of reaching the subreddit frontpage.

Most moderators are already wise to people doing this. I moderate a decent sized subreddit (50k users) and whenever I see a wall of text post with a link at the bottom I just remove it. 99% of the time what is written is garbage and adds no value to anyone.

Re: How to use Reddit to get your first users

#53

Post by dhimes »

steelframe wrote: post #41
random_visitor wrote: post #17

The 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 b…

I'm the sole active moderator of r/electricvehicles, and you wouldn't believe the amount of self-promotion spam that I have to deal with on that sub. It's gotten to the point that I've written a custom Python app to use the Reddit API to pull all of the analytics on any new post and present it to me in a digested form: How old is the account? How much organic-looking activity has the user done across other subreddits…

Many years ago I got banned by a moderator on a sub for answering someone's question. I did have a product but didn't pitch it directly except in paid ads on the sub. My username was the website.

I emailed the mod for clarification as to what line I crossed because it seemed arbitrary. She never replied.

So be careful with your metrics. What happened to me was definitely not cool. And, I quit my paid advertising there to boot.

Re: How to use Reddit to get your first users

#54

Post by josefresco »

pc86 wrote: post #18
josefresco wrote: post #7

Roughly 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.

I lurked for weeks, did not try to sell anything and definitely learned how the community typically communicated before I made my first comment. Reddit is definitely not Hacker News which can be harsh but mostly fair.

Re: How to use Reddit to get your first users

#55

Post by josefresco »

anamexis wrote: post #15
josefresco wrote: post #7

Roughly 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?

Some comments were constructive and helpful even if they were negative. Most were not. I failed for other reasons.

Re: How to use Reddit to get your first users

#57

Post by xavier_ »

bpodgursky wrote: post #37
random_visitor wrote: post #17

The 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 b…

It is likely to get you banned, yes. But if the goal here is "advice on how to reach a target audience"... it's probably worth getting an account burned (not like they cost money), if it gets your post to the top of a relevant subreddit.

You won't get banned if you participate to the community and respect the rules. And that's also how you'll get the best results! That's the same for every "social networks", if you're just spammy you can get some short term results but if you bring some value to the community you'll get visitors, reputation and even fans.

Take the time to read the rules, participate to the subs, learn what works, what don't and try to help others in the topic you're into. Then, create some valuable content that help the community and post it with a link to your blog if you want some traffic, or ask for feedback on your idea.

Re: How to use Reddit to get your first users

#58

Post by hombre_fatal »

random_visitor wrote: post #17

The 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 b…

> Nothing wrong with the advice, but most subreddits have a no self-promotion policy

So, instead of "Go to my site to buy X!" you just talk about X in the third person. You mention your product/service X alongside the obvious brand names, you always have a story ready about how X can do what OP wants, etc.

The self-promotion rules just force you to be dishonest at all times.

Works well because people have a knee-jerk hate for "check out this X I made" but they are completely blind to "check out this X I found." You can see this a lot in r/gaming when solo devs share their work.

Re: How to use Reddit to get your first users

#60

Post by xavier_ »

pc86 wrote: post #20
kowlo wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm not trying to "game" anyone, I'm an indiehacker that's why I write it that way.
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