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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

#61

Post by spideymans »

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.

Enthusiasts are often enthusiasts because they like things the way they are. They don't like new ideas that might rock the boat, potentially pushing their field of interest in a direction they might not like.

Re: How to use Reddit to get your first users

#62

Post by kube-system »

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.

"If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses."

-- maybe Henry Ford

I have always had better luck by building what I thought was a good solution, presenting that to the customer, then making incremental changes afterwards. If you think about basically any revolutionary product ever made, it was probably not a thing that anyone was explicitly asking for.

Re: How to use Reddit to get your first users

#63

Post by munificent »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #58
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…

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

No one is forcing you to compromise your morals. You can get free stuff from stores if you grab it and run out the door, but that doesn't mean that price tags force you to steal.

Re: How to use Reddit to get your first users

#64

Post by [deleted] »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #58
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…

[deleted]

Re: How to use Reddit to get your first users

#65

Post by xavier_ »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #58
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…

Very much depends of the subs. I spend a lot of time on /r/startups, the rules are super enforced. Way more than /r/Entrepreneur for instance.

The goal isn't to spam Reddit, but to leverage the audience without trespassing the rules. And, like all social networks the key is to help others (for real) and create value

Re: How to use Reddit to get your first users

#66

Post by layoutIfNeeded »

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…

You have a SaaS product in there.

Re: How to use Reddit to get your first users

#67

Post by Farow »

im3w1l wrote: post #43
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 think people are cool with self promotion if you do it in a tasteful manner. They may not even think of it as self promotion. People resent stuff like: "Special offer just today buy 2 pens and get 11% off!!" But they do like stuff like: "How we designed the Fountilator"

It doesn't even have to be tasteful, just a generic feel-good story, some giveaway, or if you're already famous just post on /r/IamA.

> /r/Subreddit helped me achieve my life long dream of [...].

> You guys helped me in my though times and I am giving away [...] in return.

> My name is [Famous Celebrity] and you should buy my new [...]. Btw, I might answer some generic questions.

Alternatively, you can buy upvotes, comments and compromised years old accounts to promote your product.

Re: How to use Reddit to get your first users

#68

Post by xavier_ »

im3w1l wrote: post #43
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 think people are cool with self promotion if you do it in a tasteful manner. They may not even think of it as self promotion. People resent stuff like: "Special offer just today buy 2 pens and get 11% off!!" But they do like stuff like: "How we designed the Fountilator"

Yes, that's the key!

Re: How to use Reddit to get your first users

#70

Post by xavier_ »

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.

It is hard to know what content will go viral for sure. From my experience is pretty much correlated to the value you bring to the community. If you're honest, transparent and teach something, relate your experience or your difficulties then you get engagement.
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