How to use Reddit to get your first users (opens in new tab)

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.

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"

> 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.

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.

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.

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.

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").

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.

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.

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.

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...

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.

"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.

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!

But were they right?

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.

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.

Did you create Dropbox? :)

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/

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.

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.

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).

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.

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?

That's not a rule, its a guideline from a page that states its "no longer updated".

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

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

The rule only Applies to small businesses.

Big companies buy accounts that have been used for years.

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”.

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

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

Didn't tried it yet :)

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

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?

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

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

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.

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!

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.

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.

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

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!

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?

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.

Can't agree more!

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.

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

I wish you would blog about your experience as well.

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

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!

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

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.