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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-pr

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_ 6y 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_visitor 6y 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.
  - shiftpgdn 6y ago
    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.
  - xavier_ 6y ago
    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.
- jbob2000 6y 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.
  - throwaway3699 6y ago
    You've got this the wrong way around. Reddit, much like HN, is mainly centered around discussing links on the internet.
bpodgursky 6y 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_visitor 6y 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
- steelframe 6y 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_ 6y 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 6y 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_ 6y 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.
steelframe 6y 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_visitor 6y 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.
shakezula 6y 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 6y 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 6y 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 6y 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.
  - main_gi 6y ago
    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 get any popularity. I think the rule is often instated for reasons really involving low-quality content and spam (but with more exterior objectivity), but it hurts the already-disadvantaged in the process. The only good thing that may come from it is having to focus on features and benefits of the product more since you can't just dump the link to the product, but again already-famous people/companies don't have to deal with that.
    - xavier_ 6y ago
hombre_fatal 6y 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.
- munificent 6y 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.
  - wolco2 6y ago
    It does when the dials are turned up. In your example the price of everything is too much to afford ever grabbing the food and running makes you a hero with strong morals.
    - munificent 6y ago
      I don't think anyone is literally going to starve to death if they are unable to deceptively pimp their own software startup on Reddit.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- xavier_ 6y 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
Kluny 6y 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_ 6y ago
  Interesting! You mean facebook & instagram ads or groups/regular posts?
  - Kluny 6y ago
    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 I left the business, anyway).
    - xavier_ 6y ago
      Woo, 10% conversion rate on FBads! It's huge!
      - 6y ago
basq 6y 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_ 6y ago
  That's less drivable than ads for sure. I should probably compare the two ROI and see what's the more efficient!
VectorLock 6y 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 6y ago
I thought this was a good "Ask HN" on the topic: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25118624 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_ 6y ago
  I missed that one! I need to hang out more here

xavier_ 6y 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_visitor 6y 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.
- shiftpgdn 6y ago
  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.
- xavier_ 6y ago
  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.
jbob2000 6y 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.
- throwaway3699 6y ago
  You've got this the wrong way around. Reddit, much like HN, is mainly centered around discussing links on the internet.

bpodgursky 6y 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_visitor 6y 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
steelframe 6y 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_ 6y 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 6y 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_ 6y 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.

steelframe 6y 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_visitor 6y 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.

shakezula 6y 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 6y 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 6y 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 6y 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.
- main_gi 6y ago
  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 get any popularity. I think the rule is often instated for reasons really involving low-quality content and spam (but with more exterior objectivity), but it hurts the already-disadvantaged in the process. The only good thing that may come from it is having to focus on features and benefits of the product more since you can't just dump the link to the product, but again already-famous people/companies don't have to deal with that.
  - xavier_ 6y ago

hombre_fatal 6y 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.

munificent 6y 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.
- wolco2 6y ago
  It does when the dials are turned up. In your example the price of everything is too much to afford ever grabbing the food and running makes you a hero with strong morals.
  - munificent 6y ago
    I don't think anyone is literally going to starve to death if they are unable to deceptively pimp their own software startup on Reddit.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
xavier_ 6y 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

Kluny 6y 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_ 6y ago
Interesting! You mean facebook & instagram ads or groups/regular posts?
- Kluny 6y ago
  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 I left the business, anyway).
  - xavier_ 6y ago
    Woo, 10% conversion rate on FBads! It's huge!
    - 6y ago

basq 6y 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_ 6y ago
That's less drivable than ads for sure. I should probably compare the two ROI and see what's the more efficient!

VectorLock 6y 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 6y ago

I thought this was a good "Ask HN" on the topic: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25118624 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_ 6y ago
I missed that one! I need to hang out more here