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How to use Reddit to get your first users

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Re: How to use Reddit to get your first users

#141

Post by xavier_ »

josefresco wrote: post #139
xavier_ wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some subreddits are super hard yes (like /r/roastmystartup), but that doesn't mean that all of them are! In fact, I've been roasted in a few subs and get some really good feedback from others. If you want to validate an idea, just get as much feedback as possible. The negative ones are the better most of the time. You learn a lot from them!

This was not /r/roastme/ or /r/roastmystartup/ it was a perfectly normal (for Reddit standards) hobby/niche subreddit and I didn't ask to be roasted, I was offering help as in "hey I built a thing to help you, what do you think? And then I was eviscerated.

It can happen sometimes yes, I've been roasted in a bad on some subs before.

That's really not the majority. What i understood afterwards was: the guys there weren't my target, my product didn't help them at all. They felt like I'm promoting out of the blue, and i got my ass kicked.

I just moved on and found a most targeted subs

Re: How to use Reddit to get your first users

#142

Post by derangedHorse »

gpm wrote: post #71
dhimes wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ther…

I'm a big fan of the idea that it's ok to be a person with an account and a company, but not a company with an account. The dynamics of the latter situation feel very wrong - the goal should be to make online interactions as human as possible. Obviously I don't know the details of the situation and certainly don't know the mods reasoning, but from your description if they banned you because of your username that soun…

Why would their username being the same name of their website be a ban worthy problem? Sure it may feel "wrong" but I don't think it should be a ban-able offense

Re: How to use Reddit to get your first users

#143

Post by xavier_ »

derangedHorse wrote: post #142
gpm wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a big fan of the idea that it's ok to be a person with an account and a company, but not a company with an account. The dynamics of the latter situation feel very wrong - the goal should be to make online interactions as human as possible. Obviously I don't know the details of the situation and certainly don't know the mods reasoning, but from your description if they banned you because of your username that soun…

Why would their username being the same name of their website be a ban worthy problem? Sure it may feel "wrong" but I don't think it should be a ban-able offense

Reddit is for people, not for brands (except ads). Like many other forums, it's better to speak as a person.

I feel like it's the same on social media

Re: How to use Reddit to get your first users

#144

Post by moetsi »

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…

would be interested in seeing whatever you release ill be on the look out for a link if you're still keen

Re: How to use Reddit to get your first users

#145

Post by main_gi »

xavier_ wrote: post #140
main_gi wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I strongly believe "if you're already famous" part is the most disgusting part of self-promotion policies (in general, not with these examples), because popular creators get at least 10+ people that will post their content as a link for karma, and then people starting out get none of that benefit, and starting out is the most difficult phase. If everything/everyone adopted a no-self-promotion policy no product could…

What do you call "famous"? I started reddit a year ago, I now have 3k karma and didn't notice any difference...

As in "you have an audience for your content already". This is more relevant on other platforms than reddit is, although you can get famous as a 'reddit-specific' user I think it's more difficult.

Re: How to use Reddit to get your first users

#146

Post by dhimes »

matkoniecz wrote: post #135
dhimes wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ther…

> My username was the website. So every post you made WAS an ad. > I quit my paid advertising there to boot Note that operator of subreddid and moderators receives no benefit whatsoever from that.

My user name wasn't clearly an ad. I use that same username on, for instance, the Coral City webcam chat. I remember one person on the subreddit getting an "aha" as s/he was asking something and I wouldn't direct him to my site, but I said this information was available on the web.

I tried very hard to not be spammy. I always offered information.

I think I at least deserved the opportunity to discuss it.

The mods don't receive benefit directly from the ads, but I bet somebody at Conde Nast (or whoever owns them now) cares.

Re: How to use Reddit to get your first users

#147

Post by dhimes »

gpm wrote: post #71
dhimes wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ther…

I'm a big fan of the idea that it's ok to be a person with an account and a company, but not a company with an account. The dynamics of the latter situation feel very wrong - the goal should be to make online interactions as human as possible. Obviously I don't know the details of the situation and certainly don't know the mods reasoning, but from your description if they banned you because of your username that soun…

Please see my response here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25211102

My username was a handle like most others (almost nobody comes in under their real name). It never occurred to me, for instance, to go to gpm.com— likewise, almost nobody made the connection on the site.

There was one time that somebody was asking about a gpa calculator or something so I threw one together on my web page. I don't recall telling them that it was available because the conversation would have been over. I made my calculator so that you could triage your studying- so given some guesses about how much you thought you could increase your grades in your classes, it would tell you where to spend your time. I can't recall if I was banned around this or not, but that was as close as I came to being "spammy."

As I said in the sibling comment, I thought I at least deserved a conversation.

Re: How to use Reddit to get your first users

#148

Post by dhimes »

xavier_ wrote: post #143
derangedHorse wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would their username being the same name of their website be a ban worthy problem? Sure it may feel "wrong" but I don't think it should be a ban-able offense

Reddit is for people, not for brands (except ads). Like many other forums, it's better to speak as a person. I feel like it's the same on social media

I always spoke as a person. Somebody would have had to think to go to xavier.com to find out my handle was also my website.

Re: How to use Reddit to get your first users

#149

Post by Kluny »

xavier_ wrote: post #129
Kluny wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Posts in our company's page or on our own walls gave us the best clickthrough, and we did a lot of grinding to build up our audience there. Facebook ads did well also, we would pay about 30c/click and something like 10% of those turned into sales. Instagram actually didn't do well for us - we got a higher sales capture rate but fewer clicks. We just didn't give the insta account the attention that it deserved (before…

Woo, 10% conversion rate on FBads! It's huge!

Yeah, we were getting crazy good results from our first $1000 of ad spend! Unfortunately diminishing returns set in pretty quickly after that, haha, but we had some winning strategies.

Re: How to use Reddit to get your first users

#150

Post by papreclip »

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…

>How old is the account? How much organic-looking activity has the user done across other subreddits?

these kinds of policies are the death of the throwaway account. many subs don't even allow you to post in the first place now if you haven't ground out a posting history in other subs that do allow new accounts. maintaining anonymity for anonymity's sake has become increasingly difficult over the years on the site

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