Self Promotion on Reddit
Hey everyone,
If you have a project that you think perfectly fits a niche for which there is an active subreddit and you want to share it there, what do you even do? Every subreddit has fairly draconian rules against self promotion, so I’m curious if anyone here has strategies.
I am NOT trying to sneak around barriers to spam people with bullshit, I don’t even have a product to sell yet. I’m just curious to hear thoughts from anyone who may have succeeded here.
Thanks!
This may sound unhelpful, but if you have good enough organic growth somebody may post it in the subreddit (and many other places) without your prompting
There are 2 kinds of subreddit: novices and oldhats. Oldhats hate being hawked to, but novices really enjoy any info. Ask oldhats what they use and why, what are the pain-points. For novices, offer free info that gently points towards your product. Redditors in general have an aversion to paying for stuff so use it more for knowledge and generating positive buzz by sharing valuable information.
But to you answer question:
I'd avoid self-promoting to a niche sub. You'd be in danger of getting banned immediately without any explanation. Just update your user profile with your project info and comment on each posts in the sub. Be helpful, provide value, and be fun. People will click on your profile for sure and DM you. But this method takes a long time to work and can be pretty draining.
1) Push marketing: buy ads on that subreddit
2) Pull marketing: add value to that subreddit. Post your content for free. Not a link to the content, but actually add content to the subreddit in the form of quality posts and comments. People who are interested will reach out in the form of DM's.
Just dump it on reddit like everyone does. Especially projects that do not sell something are mostly welcomed.
I have had success with Reddit for my SaaS. Of course it is a GIF application that makes memes so that is a natural fit for a number of communities on Reddit. A standard gif typically gets 5-30k views however there are one or two examples that reached much higher.
My iOS app had a lot of success on Reddit but I was careful about how I approached it (don't be sleazy and actually show some interest in the community) and spawned my own small subreddit where I post updates.
Follow the rules. Provide value beyond your project. Jump in with comments, not just link shares.
Lots of reddits are ok with 10% of your posts being self promotion. But if they aren't, then they aren't.
A community has the right to regulate itself, whether online or offline.
Buy ads and target that subreddit