Got Some Huge Haters Because of my site...

[Inhibition]

Felt like I needed to get this off my chest because it has been bothering and eating away at me a bit...

So I have this site in a niche that I admit I'm not the biggest expert at, but that's alright because I want to learn more about it and it's fun.

There is also a huge subreddit for this niche which is made up of some really weird people - there's the regular users that comment and participate in the daily discussions and for the most part are pretty in-tune with each other.

But I'd say 90% of the people on this subreddit are just lurker, and I'm guessing beginners like me because every time I post an article of mine to this subreddit it reaches the front page and usually the #1 post and stays there for a day.

This usually gives me a ton of traffic and converts pretty damn well in terms of revenue, it's awesome.

But the regulars ABSOLUTELY HATE IT.

The reddit comments section for the article is an absolute bloodbath of people calling it trash, uninspired, etc
Sometimes it will get reported so much that it will get automatically deleted and I have to contact a mod to revive it (which they usually do because it hasn't broke any rules).

I'm not going to lie and say this doesn't destroy my confidence, it does. It makes me second guess what the hell am I doing in this niche and maybe I should concede and I'm just not good enough.

I would actually hate posting articles on there even though I'd make a good chunk of money just doing so, I could feel the seething hate through the screen and it was having a real impact on me.

It's gotten pretty bad now. This group of regulars have basically banded together and made a meme out of my site and downvote anytime I post an article so it never has a chance to reach anywhere. I've seen them blatantly talk about it.

At this point it's probably wise to abandon the subreddit and forget about it. But goddam, I didn't think random people can hate something so goddam much just because it was maybe more beginner friendly or not their cup of tea.

It sucks a lot.

 

[darkzerothree]

Make sure to not only post your content.

Post links or short posts that point to OTHER interesting content.
Then mix yours in.

 

[Inhibition]

Make sure to not only post your content.

Post links or short posts that point to OTHER interesting content.
Then mix yours in.

Hmm. That's a good idea.
I think a part of the hate is that a lot of them recognize I'm just blatantly advertising and it ticks them off.

 

[Michael]

As dark's said, try contributing more non-commercially for a while. Maybe try like a 20:1 ratio.

At the end of the day though, the fuck cares what some keyboard warrior says?

I did a leak on a sub full of experts like yours. The content I posted was pretty inaccurate, and the peeps of Reddit weren't shy to tell me that either. I was originally pretty embarrassed, but in the end I was just reading through the comments and editing the article accordingly. Free proofreading, lol.

Not to mention the hateful comments were just contributing to the exposure I received.

Try and sift through the comments, distinguish who's trolling, who's providing legitimate feedback and keep cracking.

 

[doublethinker]

In one of my early experiments at a political niche, I got a few "public letters" by facebook and twitter users, which I couldn't respond since they blocked me too (see the irony?). They also hadn't read the article, just the title.

I theorized that they were just using my site to propel their own "social justice warrior" status.

Still made me flush. It's hard to turn down the noise on these things.

 

[Mahjong]

As I know, first rule of free traffic driving, is "Building Trust".
So you should at first post a couple of very good not "good", very good content.
At least respond to one of their major issues with a very good "answer" to the "issue".

Still now you can fix that by refurbishing your next content to accommodate those Reddit audience, usually I don't bother to drive traffic from Reddit, cause it is filled with trolls and penny less content junkies, you don't expect having a better ROI from there.

P.S: This is my opinion, including the advice I've put up on this side comment.

P.S 2: I practice English by polishing it, don't bother with my mistakes, my advice still active and the best I can give you, I've been writing in Chinese, now just switching the market to an English audience.
Differences between western audience and Chinese one, the latter use mobiles like hell and 70% of that traffic is on mobile usually gamers are the only driving force for desktop traffic in china. (still my prospective, but may my fellow Chinese friends on this forum disagree with me)

 

[built]

Been there done that. Reddit users will make your life hell

 

[Mahjong]

P.S 3: Use "medium" better audience there, and you can drive a good amount of traffic out of there, you can also attract intelligent readers who they will soften a bit and relief you traffic pain!
(I meant they share your stuff and you can avoid the pain of re-sharing it by yourself)

- Don't hope to get your link posted as a referral source of information on someones article, contact those who you find are able to drive traffic to you and ask them to just read your content if they find it interesting, you can push a suggestion to them, if they like to write their next blog post about your ideas and including a referral source to that. (I'm still talking about free traffic here)

- Make sure to use those shining photoshopped images and colored logos, banners and avatars, people love that, don't also forgot to write very good content.

 

[Inhibition]

Been there done that. Reddit users will make your life hell

No kidding. They're a different kind of smug asshole.

 

[turtle]

Still now you can fix that by refurbishing your next content to accommodate those Reddit audience, usually I don't bother to drive traffic from Reddit, cause it is filled with trolls and penny less content junkies, you don't expect having a better ROI from there.

Alot of people get this one wrong with reddit. The ROI can be tremendous.

Reddit never was and will be a platform to gain monetary rewards from it per se. Instead it should be treated as a platform to present and potentially get your content distributed outside. That's the point where the real magic happens.
No matter how small the subreddit is, you should always keep in mind that there will be one influential person browsing the sub. If he deems your content to be worthy the snowball will start to roll.
Don't focus on how much you can instantly reap from the reddit community. Focus on the few influential people.

 

[Mahjong]

I don't have all the time to wait for an influential person to appear and pick my content.
In OP's case he has no more time to waste on Reddit cause isn't a beginners place to start driving traffic from, he can attempt to fix the situation but he will not get any further unless his content attracts the attention of people whom they post on that specific Subreddit.

Your point is completely valid, but when bad decisions consume your time, you don't play fair in that case.
You check what you did wrong, correct it and try again or avoid Reddit until you're able to change people's mind on that specific sub.

Influential people don't use only Reddit, they use Twitter, Medium, Quora, Instagram, Pintrest...
You can choose and try to drive those traffic out of those, you may catch the attention of someone there.

P.S: This is my opinion I don't force it on anyone of you don't take it seriously.

 

[chanilla]

How about trying something outside the box??
Why don't you just humble yourself (publicly at least) and turn them into your piers?

It's pretty simple really, you do this with flattery. Put together a roundup, but for christ sake don't call it a roundup... pick a nuance of your industry you haven't written about before, and create a story about what you learned from each of those "experts" nitpicking your stuff.

They can still attack you personally, but picking apart their own synopsis isn't something they can do to that piece... after all, it's their own teachings.

This content should be selfless, focused on building up those around you, and providing the best industry knowledge possible.

Can it backfire? Yeah, but you seem like this bothers you quite a bit, so why not turn them into amicable associates?

 

[turtle]

@Mahjong My reply wasn't targeted at OP. I was merely jumping in to give some feedback on your statement, because I still see people making claims like you did.

Reddit should only be used when everything is 'perfectly' aligned.
It's not a place to test the waters. It's a place where your final battle begins.

 

[darkzerothree]

I use Reddit to not only drive traffic but to inform me about real user intent.

What normally happens is that you get content like "10 ways to improve MSSQL server performance" or "HP Inkjet 245 troubleshooting guide"

What you WANT to know is real-life PROBLEMS the users face.

The queries you want to rank for is

"MSSQL error ABC12476276"
or
"PC LOAD LETTER"

Guess where you find these candid conversations?

 

[Mahjong]

@turtle I know you've talked only with me, let's be frank, if you don't value time you can't do anything in this life.

My point was I don't rely only on Reddit, it appears to me like the OP is heavily relying on Reddit.

 

[CCarter]

But the regulars ABSOLUTELY HATE IT.

#1. So What? Like SO THE FUCK WHAT? You are going to guilt yourself into wanting to be "liked by everyone" and therefore destroy a potential revenue source? Are you fucking kidding me?

If you don't have haters you aren't pushing hard enough.

If you go to a place that has the potential to send you 100,000 to 1,000,000 visitors in a single day - do you honestly think NO ONE is going to hate you? Do you think not a single person is going to "dislike it"? Do you think NO ONE is going to try to bring you down to their level cause they are jealous?

Imagine all these celebrities and people in the public eye that get criticized every single day. Poor Trump can't go a day without the fake news criticizing his victories. He campaigned on dismantling Obamacare, he's doing it, and the fake news is wasting so much energy on him while he SUCCEED and DOES IT!

Now all the liberals are raw and emotional and will start hating me... fuck them. "Fucking CCarter, he's always playing with my emotions." - That means I have power over you if you have put me into a compartment in your brain.

#2. Haters will spread your brand for you. USE THE HATE to become greater. You can even taunt them if they are trolling within your content pieces and get them to spread your message even further and farther. The reality is some people will not like your content, and that IS OKAY. They will HATE YOU and band together - THAT MEANS YOU ARE IMPORTANT ENOUGH TO HAVE A HATER FAN CLUB. THAT MEANS YOU ARE IMPORTANT TO THEM. When someone focuses on YOU, YOU become their life. YOU CONSUME THEIR THOUGHTS. YOU HAVE POWER OVER WHAT THEY TALK ABOUT, WRITE ABOUT, AND GO TO SLEEP THINKING ABOUT. YOU HAVE POWER over what they think about when they are navigating their favorite subject.

#3. You should be doing a 10:1 ratio at the very least, just reddiquette - 10 "other shares" versus your 1 share. 20:1 will at least quell down the haters, but I wouldn't even bother.

Feel free to post links to your own content (within reason). But if that's all you ever post, or it always seems to get voted down, take a good hard look in the mirror — you just might be a spammer. A widely used rule of thumb is the 9:1 ratio, i.e. only 1 out of every 10 of your submissions should be your own content.

Sauce: https://www.reddit.com/wiki/reddiquette​

If they are ganging up on you then you are striking a raw emotion, use that hate. Take their criticism and improve your content. Then start throwing jabs at haters within your content to get them riled up even more, spreading your brand even further than "love" can ever.

#4. Haters hate themselves first and for most. Think about all the racists, homophobes, and general people that "hate" "others". They do this out of fear. It's something internal and personal to them where they had an experience that had led them to wasting their time and energy towards hate. Imagine these idiots sitting on a computer, keyboard warriors, spewing their hate towards a brand or an "other" - literally trying to blame the "other" for their own financial or relational circumstances. They can't get a girl cause "XYZ girls are into ABC guys", LOL. They can't get a job cause "People are hiring DEF people instead." - These are all excuses for their own failures. The hate people have is always a reflection upon an internal struggle they have. It literally has nothing to do with the person or focus of the hate.

If someone hates me cause I can jump into a BMW one day an a Benz the next day, do they really hate ME, cause they don't know me - or rather do they hate that I CAN jump into different cars and THEY cannot? It's more so THEY cannot. It's why poor people "hate" Rich people - cause they WANT TO be able to have the freedom and opportunities "Rich people" have. What they don't realize is by wasting energy hating something, it means they are mentally creating barriers from becoming it, and if they are close to arriving, at being rich, they will eventually sabotage themselves - cause they don't want to be "hated" by random strangers - Give me a fucking break. Fuck random strangers.

#5. Imagine going around the world and wanting people to "like you" all the time. That's not only mentally exhausting, but people will find shit to hate about you just cause they don't want to like you. These strangers on the internet that hate you are just that, random faceless people in a crowd that don't matter. They sit in the sidelines of life and see you entering their niche and getting attention and start hating cause YOU had the BALLS to do something they didn't. YOU had the balls to create a website and generate traffic from THEIR thing. They don't hate you, they want to be you.

But don't waste any energy towards wanting people to like you, it'll wear you down. Tell people to fuck off and "No" constantly, and you'll feel a new wave of energy and freedom you've never felt. Just don't give a fuck.

And if you can't get past this cause you were imprinted to "CARE WHAT PEOPLE THINK ABOUT YOU" - focus on this thought process for your project: The idea that you are making $1,000 to $10,000 a month from a project that you are a newbie at, while the hater waste their time on Reddit all day, you'll be generating money off that niche. (After all they are on Reddit ALL DAY - where do you see them in 10-20 years?) In a years time you would have made $12K to $120K in that niche, while the keyboard warrior will be STILL on the sideline keyboard warrioring themselves at their 9 to 5 wasting their time and life. In 5 years time you would have made $60K to $600K in revenue, while that same keyboard warrior will STILL be doing nothing but living that hell of the 9 to 5 they are clearly miserable at. Most of those people will be a faded memory in that time period and will simply stop focusing on you as life goes on - meanwhile you pocketed $600K in the time period.

They will be erased from memory.

They won't even be a footnote in history.

#6. When I launched a certain software, tons of people wasted time in their skype chats hating on us and certain ways we did things. What they didn't realize is maybe some of the things the audience agreed to, but the hate still helped spread the word further than we could. And those audience members checked out our site - and you know what We gained a lot more customers. There were open debates where audience members came to our defense and signed up either out of spite for the haters or they saw we provided a new angle. Ironically several people thought we manufactured the "hate campaign" - Perhaps...

And here is the most important lesson - nearly 3 years later, we have been growing and breaking MRR records every other month, and do you know where the haters are? Silenced on the sidelines, 99% of them have 9 to 5 jobs they go to and clock in every day. They were really hating because they saw us elevating up and out of the mud and they never took the leap to do it themselves. I could have come out with an APP that solved World Peace and they'd complain I was taking jobs away from the military... give me a fucking break, these people are the people I'm suppose to care about? The only people I care about are people using my software and visiting my websites. If the haters drive more traffic - thanks!

If people are talking about you, then you are important and matter. Hate is POWER. Kanye West said it best: "Everybody gon' say somethin' I'd be worried if they said nothin'" (Father Stretch)

DO NOT CARE about what these people on the sidelines of the game of life say. They are simply commentators. They'd rather comment left and right about everything you are doing wrong, instead of getting in the game themselves.

Think of yourself as the Kanye West of your industry - read their comments, use the stuff that is useful to better your content, your understanding of the industry - and most importantly KEEP PUSHING UPWARD. Because if you don't, you will give up and always wonder "What if?" "What if I kept going and ignored the haters, how high would I have gotten? What type of financial freedom would I have? Could I have taken on CCarter himself? (Probably not)."

You fucking people need to stop letting these NOBODIES stop you in your tracks during your ascension to the top.

 

[Mahjong]

Think of yourself as the Kanye West of your industry

Even in china they hate Kanye

This is a joke

Thanks to CCarter for his/her advice it's logical for me, and a nice way and prospective of viewing things. I didn't thought this way, you've encourage me to waste a couple of days penetration those Reddit subs.

 

[turbin3]

​

Haters? LOL Silly peasants. BTW, you like my smoking jacket? It's made of 100% pure hatred and keeps me warm at night. You should try one on, you might like it.

 

[Inhibition]

I know I was being stupid and illogical but I wanted to post this because I feel like it's a normal hurdle to come across for most people in this industry - and also as a way to get a nice helping of logic from the senior members here and oh boy did CCarter just deliver exactly that, thank you.

 

[Melker]

BAM @CCarter! That's how you bring out the lurkers to sing HALLELUJAH!

 

[GMerov]

Great thread!

In 2010 I created colored bacon ... yep, that's me, Neil Caldwell, hi there.

At the time little did I know that bacon was/is a religion. And as such I was messin' with god's perfect food. Seven years later, I still receive a shit load of negativity! Everyday.
But, that one act of creativity (conceived btw when I was hungover) opened, and continues to open, doors that for me would otherwise have been locked or well guarded.

Negativity, positivity, it's all good.

When what you do with your life provokes no action or reaction ... just sits there lame ... then that becomes a problem.


The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.
Oscar Wilde

.

 

[Ryuzaki]

I'm not going to lie and say this doesn't destroy my confidence, it does. It makes me second guess what the hell am I doing in this niche and maybe I should concede and I'm just not good enough.

This is giving up because you found the worst group of people on the internet, and you're allowing them to validate or invalidate your emotional state. You shouldn't even let your wife or girlfriend do that. Nobody should be able to penetrate your Thick Face.

At this point it's probably wise to abandon the subreddit and forget about it.

Here's the thing about the average person, as especially the Redditor. People are tribal. They are absolutely frightened by change. This is one reason you're getting this reaction.

You are a predator and you're only there to eat off of their plates and they know that. You know that. This is a second reason you're getting this reaction. You didn't prime your target. And you kept pushing until you created terrorists instead of disciples.

You should cool it and contribute for a long while. Two things will happen. People will learn your username and come to associate good things with it and cut you some slack later. And the other is that, like all other online communities, the users will cycle out and you'll be posting to a new group who doesn't know to hate your site. Patience & Priming is crucial in tight-knit subs with protective neckbeards.

At the end of the day though, the fuck cares what some keyboard warrior says?

Absolutely. You're posting in the poison of the internet. What do you expect? All you need to worry about is the dollars. That requires manipulating these people so that they don't ruin your chances, but what it doesn't require is caring to the point where you're talking about giving up. There's 99 places to traffic leak from, who cares if Reddit ain't one.

Don't hope to get your link posted as a referral source of information on someones article

Absolutely Wrong. Some of the strongest links I have is because I've written truly journalistic, new information and it hit #1 on Reddit. You get that much exposure and you've done someone's job for them. The crowd validated your work, you wrote it, and some big site with a writer who can't form an idea that day will summarize or rewrite your work and link to you.

Many of us here have done this more than just a handful of times. You wouldn't believe the backlink profiles I've seen from some of these guys sites. They don't brag and boast about it like I do, but their work puts mine to shame.

Alot of people get this one wrong with reddit. The ROI can be tremendous.

For sure. The ONLY problem with people's problems with Reddit is they aren't matching their monetization method with the demographic.

 

[Inhibition]

Awesome post Ryuzaki. And completely agreed, I was posting on this subreddit at least once every week and it was making a lot of money, reddit traffic is 100% monetizable. If the users or admins saw how much money it was making it would freak them the hell out even more.

I'm going to cool it because I have been abusing it and come back with a stealthy game plan. Love you guys, cheers.

 

[Golan]

I could feel the seething hate through the screen and it was having a real impact on me

Don't take it so deep under your skin. This all is only a bunch of electrons wandering around in copper, you know. Isn't worth your real life health.

 

[infoslob]

BAM @CCarter! That's how you bring out the lurkers to sing HALLELUJAH!

HALLELUJAH!