How to use Reddit to get your first users

https://blog.spreadtheworld.net/posts/get-first-users-reddit/

by xavier_ • 6 years ago

205 148 6 years ago

blog.spreadtheworld.net

Loughla• 6 years ago

So this sums up as - post your ideas in specifically targeted subreddits.

What am I missing that makes this noteworthy?

kowlo2• 6 years ago

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?

pc862• 6 years ago

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.

dwaltrip• 6 years ago

Perhaps not everyone is super familiar with this idea? If so, it could be noteworthy or interesting to them.

xavier_29• 6 years ago

That's pretty much it yes! And don't select the same subs depending of the stage of your project (idea/testing/traction).

Kiro• 6 years ago

Isn'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."

voxic11• 6 years ago

That's not a rule, its a guideline from a page that states its "no longer updated".

woahAcademia2• 6 years ago

The rule only Applies to small businesses.

Big companies buy accounts that have been used for years.

dclusin2• 6 years ago

Accounts are pretty cheap to buy

seanwilson• 6 years ago

I never understood why that rule doesn't include comments. Like if you posted a ton of helpful comments and zero posts, you wouldn't be allowed to post a link you made yourself.

I don't think there's anything wrong with promoting blog posts or apps you've made yourself unless it's really excessive. How are people supposed to get started otherwise? It's okay if you're a huge tech site, a big newspaper etc. because people will auto-post your new posts to try to earn some karma but who is going to do that when you've only got a handful of readers?

andrewmcwatters3• 6 years ago

Selectively enforced. I have a small enough profile and don’t advertise much and my account is nothing but promotions.

exolymph• 6 years ago

De facto the only enforcers of this rule are moderators, who care more about their subreddit-specific rules anyway.

enumjorge• 6 years ago

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 that people have reached the top of Hacker News or Product Hunt, gotten massive traffic spikes but then saw little to no conversions, it doesn’t strike me as particularly noteworthy.

woahAcademia2• 6 years ago

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.

retsibsi• 6 years ago

Aldi had great success posting "hauls" until they were caught astroturfing.

Is there a decent rundown of this anywhere? I tried a couple of google searches but didn't find much.

(I often get the feeling this is being done by various companies, especially on Reddit, but I find it hard to distinguish between astroturfing and sincere consumerism. Especially when they are probably working in combination: astroturfing to set the tone, then genuine community members jumping on the bandwagon and acting as unwitting accomplices. So I'm interested to read case studies wherever it has provably happened.)

tstegart• 6 years ago

I created my own subreddit and if you look at the sidebar, it is clearly promotional content. I post my own stuff and have links to my website in my sidebar. It works pretty well and I don't get complaints. Its a fashion sub so I cross-post pictures, but otherwise just post my own stuff and answer people's questions. It helps that I promote other businesses as well, not just my own links.

Overall, I found it a good marketing tool for my side project and a way to not get into trouble with other mods. You can see it here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Watchbands/

xavier_29• 6 years ago

I got 400 visitors from a small subreddit (/r/nocode). I got a few thousands visitors from a post on /r/startups or /r/Entrepreneur several times!

But you're right, a big subreddit gives you about the same amount of traffic than HN.

yboris2• 6 years ago

I keep trying to promote my Video Hub App: https://videohubapp.com/en/

This makes sense most-naturally when a user asks for "what's good software to organize videos?" So I answer honestly: "I created this app, this is what it does, I think it may fit your requirements".

I'm an independent developer and have never spent money promoting the app. Today my GA shows 70 visitors coming from Reddit this week. Usual number of visitors from all sources is 70 per day.

yboris2• 6 years ago

The benefit may be long-term trickle of visitors. I once recommended my app as an answer in a Reddit thread, and it is still getting me a few visitors per week.

Really depends on your app and where you promote it. About 5% of my visitors buy my app, and that's probably because they come from targeted Reddit comments (or organic searches for the specific thing my app offers).

xavier_29• 6 years ago

That's true, I still get a few visitors per day from the post I made on /r/nocode.

If your post is in the top of the month/year/all time it will bring you visitors on the long term. (I guess they're also better on Google search. Not sure tho)

josefresco5• 6 years ago

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.

anamexis• 6 years ago

But were they right?

josefresco5• 6 years ago

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

pc862• 6 years ago

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.

josefresco5• 6 years ago

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.

bluedino• 6 years ago

Did you create Dropbox? :)

spideymans• 6 years ago

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.

kube-system• 6 years ago

"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.

xavier_29• 6 years ago

Don't ask them what they want, ask them what problem they have!

That's your job, as a founder, to design a solution that fix the problem. (It can be as small as a landing page with your value prop on it and some fake demo)

xavier_29• 6 years ago

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!

josefresco5• 6 years ago

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.

allenu2• 6 years ago

I think I've noticed this attitude from "enthusiasts" as well.

Even if a solution people are using has flaws, with regular use they get so used to its idiosyncrasies that they can't imagine it not working the way it does. It's very difficult to have them think creatively about a better way to do things at that point.

I think there's a bit of Stockholm syndrome in it as well, for lack of a better term. You get attached to the technology because now you know its ins and outs. If it gives you the results you want, what more could you want at that point?

If someone comes along and shows you "a better way", you might become violently dismissive because you're so attached to your solution.

echelon• 6 years ago

Reddit has been great for driving traffic to https://vo.codes.

It's a meme site, so it's tolerated. The best thing is that the users have started posting content generated by my site to various subreddits (/r/vocalsynthesis, /r/mediasynthesis, /r/artificial, etc.), which has compounded the traffic we get. It's about 15k uniques a day and growing.

I don't have monetization in place yet, but plan to add a Patreon and eventual subscriptions for streamers wanting to integrate TTS donations into their stream.

I'm going to use RPAN to demo streaming deep fakes and apply it to an improv session. It should be fun and will hopefully drive a lot more traffic.

andrewmcwatters3• 6 years ago

Reddit is a very particular audience. Big but particular. I’m not always thrilled about the idea of advertising there.

MisterTea• 6 years ago

Reddit is just an enormous public forum of forums; there's nothing special about it. The problem with reddit isnt reddit but users who think a forum is a social life.

freeone3000• 6 years ago

In what way is it not?

andrewmcwatters3• 6 years ago

No, it definitely has a particular demographic skew. This is important to companies targeting a specific customer profile. Reddit is not a place I want my products associated with right now.

xavier_29• 6 years ago

You shouldn't see Reddit as a whole. Every subs has his own particular culture.

Just select a few of them and start to participate!

kowlo2• 6 years ago

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.

andybak2• 6 years ago

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.

markdown3• 6 years ago

/r/vive has really strict moderation whilst /r/oculus has barely any.

Which do you think has a better community, and do you ascribe that result to the moderation?

rchaud3• 6 years ago

good point, some mods are draconian in what they'll allow or won't allow. For example, even using the word 'Wordpress' on a reply in r/web_design will get your comment deleted and replaced with an automod comment that that sub isn't about CMSs.

I think it's to guard against people shilling themes and plugins, but it's ridiculous considering that CMSs comes up naturally on discussions about building websites.

xavier_29• 6 years ago

I started this a year ago, with no karma and no friends. Reddit is a BIG forum, just participate, try to bring value, be nice and don't spam. If you do it that way it should be good

buro93• 6 years ago

Reddit 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.

robbyking• 6 years ago

I love this analogy! I'm a moderator of r/mtb, and creators have gone as far as to ask me why people aren't interacting with their content. I usually send a short reply about how the community responds to certain types of content, but your post does a good job of explaining why.

I think I'm going to borrow your bar analogy next time I have to warn a fledgling YouTuber about spamming.

buro93• 6 years ago

r/mtb eh?

My experience with forums is from running 300 cycling forums :) None of them mountain biking though.

random_visitor4• 6 years ago

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 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.

xavier_29• 6 years ago

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.

random_visitor4• 6 years ago

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.

jbob2000• 6 years ago

Most subs don't allow you to promote your own blog posts. Because why not just make the post right on the subreddit? That's what reddit is for.

The whole premise of trying to drag users away from reddit to your own domain is totally against what reddit is trying to do, expect to get blocked no matter how you work around it.

bpodgursky2• 6 years ago

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.

random_visitor4• 6 years ago

not like they cost money

This is why subreddit have a account activity requirements to interact on a subreddit. It could be a threshold of account age, total post/comment karma, comment karma on the subreddit or a combination of them. Getting an account above that threshold is gonna cost you in time and effort. Imo there are better use of time than grinding burner reddit accounts.

Also, if a user is banned the content that led to ban will almost certainly be taken down. Not to mention, getting an external link to top is going to be a challenge in itself

steelframe2• 6 years ago

Except if you're self-promoting, you're not going to get your post to the top of any healthy subreddit with an active user base. In my experience on r/electricvehicles, self-promotion/spam posts stay at 0 upvotes with a handful of reports and complaints in the comment section. It's literally just spam that wastes everyone's time.

One pattern is for a YouTube channel to try to spam their content on the sub. I know it's the channel owner (or someone affiliated with the channel owner) because each video they post everywhere has the same logo in the upper-left corner. And those videos are pretty much all they post. They get banned from my sub very quickly, and in my experience they don't come back.

xavier_29• 6 years ago

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.

MattGaiser• 6 years ago

I have known a few people who got a lot of users from reddit. Their attitude was that accounts are cheap so while they were banned numerous times, they just kept on going back.

xavier_29• 6 years ago

That's the bad way to doing it IMHO. You don't bring anything to the community and you probably don't get results either.

steelframe2• 6 years ago

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? What is the actual content? Has the user posted the same URL to multiple subreddits? Has the user's activity received user reports? Fortunately I have some faithfully diligent reporters on my sub who will flag newly posted suspected spam in a matter of minutes.

If the post doesn't pass my sniff test, my script will remove the post, mute the user, and permanently ban the user with a single keystroke -- do not pass Go, do not collect $200.

I can't just rely on user reports alone because a few of the members of the community are overzealous about what they'll report. I need a variety of metrics to make the call, and it's much easier to use the Reddit API to collect, process, and report those metrics than to try to click around in Reddit's horrible moderation UI to get the information I need to make a reasonable decision.

Confession time: I started writing the script about 5 days ago, and since I'm waiting to start a new job, I've actually made this script into a bit of a hobby to kill the time. By now it's morphed into a multi-threaded Mutt-like Reddit moderation tool, where it displays all mod queue content via a curses interface that I navigate with VIM key bindings, and keystrokes issue commands onto an asynchronous queue that another thread consumes and acts upon via the PRAW package. For example, the keystroke to approve a submission will immediately delete the post from the curses view because I love wicked-fast and responsive UIs, but the deletion on the backend could take another couple of seconds, especially if I'm rapid-firing 5 or 6 approvals in a row, and I just let that happen on the queue. Maybe if I refactor so that Python experts' eyeballs won't bleed when they see my code (e.g., I'm manually grabbing and releasing locks on stuff that's shared between the curses interface code and the async queue code rather than using more elegant synchronization capabilities in Python) I might consider releasing some source.

random_visitor4• 6 years ago

Haha, can relate to that. After a certain point the Reddit tools become really inadequate. I used to mod a super popular subreddit (the kind that are always on the r/all) and we had 3 bots and two dozen moderators and still the mod queues was always filled.

I'm about to graduate so I've stopped all that except for helping a moderately popular sub. Overall it's given me plenty time I needed in other parts of my life, but I miss the small joys that came from my little python scripts improving the day for 20 or so people. That was the first time when something I created made impact on another person's life.

dhimes4• 6 years ago

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.

layoutIfNeeded• 6 years ago

You have a SaaS product in there.

reitzensteinm• 6 years ago

That's a tough sub to moderate. It seems like half the users are there because they genuinely like EVs, and half see it as the no man's land cold war between RealTesla and TeslaInvestorsClub, depending on whether they're short or long.

A while back there was somebody that was only posting VW press releases. They were promptly called out by somebody, who themselves turned out to only post pro Tesla articles and a handful of VW FUD.

The comments themselves are generally pretty based, though. Bad actors are quickly downvoted. It's one of the few places on the internet that gets just as excited by the Model Y launch as they do the ID.3. I read it daily, thank you for your work!

intended• 6 years ago

All those little pieces of code, are what keep millions of subs from just not collapsing.

Say whatever anyone wants, I think reddit is the future of human moderation (millions of experiments), over FAANG and their army of invisible workers and rules.

xapata• 6 years ago

manually ... releasing locks

You might like `contextlib.ExitStack` if `with lock` doesn't cut it for you.

syspec• 6 years ago

Does this count as self promotion?

moetsi• 6 years ago

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

papreclip• 6 years ago

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

shakezula• 6 years ago

There's a big difference between promoting your Etsy fountain pens store and promoting the fountain pen you're making and selling, though.

I think the author is the latter, while the type of promo you're talking about is usually the former.

im3w1l• 6 years ago

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"

bitxbitxbitcoin• 6 years ago

That's true here on HN, too.

One thing about Reddit is that the addition of images allows a lot leeway for self promotion by brands.

Farow• 6 years ago

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.

xavier_29• 6 years ago

Yes, that's the key!

eli• 6 years ago

also known as Content Marketing

fakedang• 6 years ago

This is the Way.

He has spoken.

(couldn't resist, just got started with the new Mandalorian season)

hombre_fatal• 6 years ago

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.

munificent2• 6 years ago

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.

xavier_29• 6 years ago

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

Kluny3• 6 years ago

I have successfully promoted my company on Reddit, but it is tricky, for the reasons mentioned. There are two techniques that worked for me.

0. Be a chronic reddit user for years, with a main account that has thousands of karma and a couple of throwaway accounts that also have various content.

1. Write an interesting blog post with useful content that relates to your product, and post it on a relevant subreddit. Put a call to action like "Buy Now" at the bottom of that post. Post it a maximum of twice in any 24 hour period. If it doesn't succeed on a given subreddit, you can try it maybe once more with a different headline before you should move on to a different subreddit. If you post it more than 4-5 times total anywhere on reddit, you're liable to get banned.

2. Hang out in subreddits where people discuss products like yours. Answer questions with useful information. After providing the information, link your site as the source. Do not just link your site without also providing a useful answer on reddit.

Reddit does drive quite a bit of traffic, something like 60-100 hits per upvote. It's great, but it still often doesn't result in as many sales-per-click as facebook or instagram.

xavier_29• 6 years ago

Interesting! You mean facebook & instagram ads or groups/regular posts?

basq• 6 years ago

This is still news to me, the 10% rule is presented as 10% of posts... posting 9 other things to post 1 of my OCs seemed overly excessive.

Now I might actually start posting some things...

xavier_29• 6 years ago

That's less drivable than ads for sure. I should probably compare the two ROI and see what's the more efficient!

VectorLock• 6 years ago

Most of the self-promotion posts you see on reddit usually are titled "Look at the so-and-so my girlfriend/boyfriend/sister/mother/whatever made!" Even if its not the skirt the no-self-promotion rule I think they tend to do better in general.

mooreds• 6 years ago

I thought this was a good "Ask HN" on the topic:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25118624

The OP asked about how to self promote on Reddit and there were a variety of answers (including what you said: "don't").

xavier_29• 6 years ago

I missed that one! I need to hang out more here

ravenstine• 6 years ago

I 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.

xavier_29• 6 years ago

I tried Reddit ads for a few weeks, don't really worked for me. I should probably try again!

manishsharan• 6 years ago

I wish you would blog about your experience as well.

davio• 6 years ago

My colleague posted a socially awkward penguin meme ridiculing his failure as a mobile game developer.

The post itself was funny and relatable, but didn't have any self-promotion. People asked about the game in the comments and he got his biggest download day as a result.

lotsofpulp• 6 years ago

That’s the kind of strategy that I would expect to find in an article titled “How to use Reddit to get your first users”.

xavier_29• 6 years ago

Reddit loves memes and the subs of fun/meme are super huge!

Didn't tried it yet :)

dbbljack• 6 years ago

fishing for someone to ask about your product feels just as disingenuous as posting from a brand account but reddit slurps it up.

brlewis• 6 years ago

It seems different to me, because on subreddits plagued by self promotion, nobody will ask.

dclusin2• 6 years ago

For every meme like this there's probably a thousand that pretend to be this and fail miserably.

monetus• 6 years ago

Reddit doesn't have the minaway and maxvisit features HN implemented. Self control can be difficult, and many subreddits have an undercurrent of anxiety. I feel like that should be kept in mind.

rchaud3• 6 years ago

Last step of the process: your MVP is ready, you need some traffic. The secret is to provide as much value as you can. Share your secrets, how you grow your product, share your analytics...

This sounds more like how to get a post trending on IndieHackers or HN. Why would users of say, a no-code product care about your DAUs or growth strategy? Wouldn't they be looking for tutorials, or clear ways in which your app saves them time and money?

xavier_29• 6 years ago

It depends of your target customers of course. I meant create valuable for them, be transparent.

rchaud3• 6 years ago

understood, thanks for responding.

sedibles• 6 years ago

As a hobby project I made an online calculator for estimating dosage in cannabis edibles (https://www.scientificedibles.com). I found it quite a challenge to get users/feedback initially, however I became active in the edibles subreddits on reddit. I generally try to be contribute to the community, and when I see questions where my site can help I do the calculations for the user, and post them a link to it on my site (I made a sharing feature).

I think this is a fair way of providing value, while also raising awareness of my project. I think you can easily get in trouble if all you want to do is just get users to your site by spamming links, and not put in any effort to understand the community you are engaging with. I would just go with ads instead if that's the case.

xavier_29• 6 years ago

Yep, that's exaclty what I wanted to pass in this post!

DoreenMichele2• 6 years ago

Contrary to what people here are saying, this does not boil down to "Self promote in violation of the Reddit rules." Among other things, it talks about first validating the idea and it also tells people to read the rules of the sub before self promoting.

borja_froged2• 6 years ago

I think reddit is a gold mine if you genuinely want to help others. In other words, promoting your product should be the consequence not the goal.

xavier_29• 6 years ago

Can't agree more!

chungus_khan• 6 years ago

If your product is something the users will genuinely want and find very useful, and you present it as a member of the community who decided to make it for the community's benefit, people will be thrilled generally.

If you show up as an outsider, or with a product that either isn't useful or isn't unique/new you will be seen as the shill that you are.

borja_froged2• 6 years ago

100% agree!

screye2• 6 years ago

Getting Reddit hobbyists onboard is a kind of trial by fire.

I have seen this work many times for YT channels on cooking, comedy and car subreddits, but make one mistake and they will eat you alive. The likes of RCR, Babish, Kenji, Gus Johnson,etc. only got popular because their offerings were incredibly high quality. Additionally they all brought something fresh to a relative stale scene.

Additionally, if you come off as even 1% inauthentic, then you are toast.

Enthusiasts can be the harshest people out there, if your creds are considered invalid. But, if you are building a product for enthusiasts, then you likely are one too. In that situation, it makes sense to build credibility and become a regular there. By the time you are willing to 'show off' you product, you're already deeply rooted in that community.

So I'll revise the OP's advice. Once your product ready, reach out to your preexisting reddit network to help it get past the bootstrapping problem. Any sooner and you'll lose redditors for life.

xavier_29• 6 years ago

Hum… I did validate the idea of my product on Reddit way before it was built.

It really matters on what sub you choose at what stage. Some subs are ok with half baked products, some will trash you!

Just spend some time on your target subs, try to understand what works, what don't and post accordingly!

dvtrn• 6 years ago

Kenji as in J Kenji López the chef? Did he not get popular LONG before reddit as an author and consultant in the culinary world in general?

screye2• 6 years ago

Only specifically his youtube channel. Ofc, Kenji was well known even before this. Chinese cooking demystified or babash are better examples.

pluc• 6 years ago

1. Go on reddit

2. Find places relevant to your product

3. Talk about your product when relevant

magic.gif

imnotreallynew• 6 years ago

I built a little reddit/forum service awhile ago that pings me when a conversation related to my other project is happening. Its been a great way to generate leads - plugging the product right where its completely relevant to the conversation.

Ive thought about making it public - email is in profile if you think the tool would be useful to you.

volatilitywave• 6 years ago

It's a great resource but you have to be sneaky if you don't want to pay for ads. I've been banned from investing and wallstreetbets for just mentioning my website even though my posts got 100+ upvotes and great feedback from users. I get it though... too much self promotion could be toxic and wouldn't allow reddit to make money. It is what it is.

https://glimpse.info/congress

kevmo2• 6 years ago

I run several large subreddits, and we remove this sort of spam.

xavier_29• 6 years ago

No links were allowed?

Some subs are super strict, like /r/Startups and that's ok. I still participate and find a lot of value in them!

kevmo2• 6 years ago

It's generally pretty obvious what's someone spamming for signups vs legitimate community participation.

agustif• 6 years ago

Thinking of building a micro-saas for photographers to sell their pictures, any subreddits anyone might recommend or anyone interested on it?

How to use Reddit to get your first users

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