Reddit Question?

[TinFoilMan]

I have been lurking around in this forum trying to soak up as much marketing goodness as my tiny brain will allow. I have picked up lots of ideas, so thanks for that, however know next to nil about Reddit.

I'm looking for a course or guide or post that i can read that gives me an a-z of how to get jiggy with it on Reddit.
Things like:
Should I create a subreddit or just post to other subreddits?
When creating an account should it be under my name, a fake name, or the website i am primarily aiming to promote?

If somebody could point me in the right direction it would be much appreciated.

Ps - I tried to post this in the marketing section but mustn't have the authority yet.

 

[Ryuzaki]

You really aught to start using Reddit personally. It has it's own culture on internet savvy people and a lot of extremists who will go further than normal to expose you or get justice or whatever, partially because it earns them more karma.

The only way to really understand it is to use it yourself. For instance, if you go in signed up as your brand name, you're done before you started. They'll call you out, downvote you, ban your site, etc. There's even a sub-reddit called Hail Corporate where all they do is call companies out for trying to "traffic leak" Reddit.

Never use your real name on Reddit unless that's your brand. Reddit is built on anonymity and people will doxx you even without using your real name if you type enough details throughout your posting history, which can be scraped and analyzed by bots in mere seconds. There's websites that can do this for free.

The entire approach to Reddit, if you ask me, should be of "Hey, look what I found" or "Hey, is this true?" or "Hey, this is outrageous / interesting." It works best if it looks natural, and you have to be really slick. They will know. And even if you trick 99% of them, 1% will figure it out, and you have to hope they figure it out when it's too late. This applies mainly to trying to get to the front page.

If you're promoting on small and medium sub-reddits, and not big ones with default exposure to /r/all then it all still stands but you have some leeway.

If you're just trying to drop links, then you can do it in comments all day. Just go to threads that are a few days old and have at it, but that's the absolute wrong way of approaching Reddit. It's a traffic gold mine and that's all you should be thinking about.

For instance, if you can hit #1 on Reddit, you can expect about 50,000 visitors over a couple days if the thread links directly to your site, you can expect journalists to write stories about it or other bloggers (netting you expensive links), and you can expect even more traffic from social shares immediately and over time as people keep rediscovering your thread (because people like to browse the top posts of each sub-reddit, and you'll be on there).

None of that is a small feat. Not only does Reddit have a culture but each sub-reddit has one, and they have their certain buttons to push to get their emotions going. I've mentioned it before, but micro-copy in the title and making sure the image thumbnail is the right one is huge for gaining traction.

You also have to get past the weirdos who live on the "new" tab and downvote everything and [redacted]. To pull that off, a lot of people try to switch accounts and upvote quickly but the system will catch that due to the IP addresses and nullify it and eventually you can get banned. Some people go as far as to use VPN's. Others ask their friends or join upvote rings, but notice not much of that ever catches on, because it's easy to expose and they catch it. The only manipulation allowed on Reddit is from huge corporations and civil & political organizations paying them. If you watch long enough you'll be able to name exactly which companies and orgs that is too.

The best thing to do is to be compelling and be one of them. You can't go in swords blazing. You need old accounts, you need posts is that sub-reddit to get past automoderator, and you need karma before you can submit to most sub-reddits, often times karma from that sub-reddit itself (by commenting first). You have to disarm them in every way possible, because they're always looking for manipulators and outsiders.

As far as starting a sub-reddit, you can. But if I was going to do that and post to it, I'd do it from a branded account probably, separate from your other accounts, since you'll be posting your own stuff so much. I'd link to it here and there to try to push some page rank juice to it too.

But also, learn about Reddiquette and the ratio rules of how often you can promote your own stuff.

That's most of what you need to know. A lot of it may make zero sense to you because you need to actually use Reddit first. If you don't, you may as well not even bother on trying to get any heavy promotion done there.

 

[TinFoilMan]

You really aught to start using Reddit personally. It has it's own culture on internet savvy people and a lot of extremists who will go further than normal to expose you or get justice or whatever, partially because it earns them more karma.

The only way to really understand it is to use it yourself. For instance, if you go in signed up as your brand name, you're done before you started. They'll call you out, downvote you, ban your site, etc. There's even a sub-reddit called Hail Corporate where all they do is call companies out for trying to "traffic leak" Reddit.

Never use your real name on Reddit unless that's your brand. Reddit is built on anonymity and people will doxx you even without using your real name if you type enough details throughout your posting history, which can be scraped and analyzed by bots in mere seconds. There's websites that can do this for free.

The entire approach to Reddit, if you ask me, should be of "Hey, look what I found" or "Hey, is this true?" or "Hey, this is outrageous / interesting." It works best if it looks natural, and you have to be really slick. They will know. And even if you trick 99% of them, 1% will figure it out, and you have to hope they figure it out when it's too late. This applies mainly to trying to get to the front page.

If you're promoting on small and medium sub-reddits, and not big ones with default exposure to /r/all then it all still stands but you have some leeway.

If you're just trying to drop links, then you can do it in comments all day. Just go to threads that are a few days old and have at it, but that's the absolute wrong way of approaching Reddit. It's a traffic gold mine and that's all you should be thinking about.

For instance, if you can hit #1 on Reddit, you can expect about 50,000 visitors over a couple days if the thread links directly to your site, you can expect journalists to write stories about it or other bloggers (netting you expensive links), and you can expect even more traffic from social shares immediately and over time as people keep rediscovering your thread (because people like to browse the top posts of each sub-reddit, and you'll be on there).

None of that is a small feat. Not only does Reddit have a culture but each sub-reddit has one, and they have their certain buttons to push to get their emotions going. I've mentioned it before, but micro-copy in the title and making sure the image thumbnail is the right one is huge for gaining traction.

You also have to get past the weirdos who live on the "new" tab and downvote everything and [redacted]. To pull that off, a lot of people try to switch accounts and upvote quickly but the system will catch that due to the IP addresses and nullify it and eventually you can get banned. Some people go as far as to use VPN's. Others ask their friends or join upvote rings, but notice not much of that ever catches on, because it's easy to expose and they catch it. The only manipulation allowed on Reddit is from huge corporations and civil & political organizations paying them. If you watch long enough you'll be able to name exactly which companies and orgs that is too.

The best thing to do is to be compelling and be one of them. You can't go in swords blazing. You need old accounts, you need posts is that sub-reddit to get past automoderator, and you need karma before you can submit to most sub-reddits, often times karma from that sub-reddit itself (by commenting first). You have to disarm them in every way possible, because they're always looking for manipulators and outsiders.

As far as starting a sub-reddit, you can. But if I was going to do that and post to it, I'd do it from a branded account probably, separate from your other accounts, since you'll be posting your own stuff so much. I'd link to it here and there to try to push some page rank juice to it too.

But also, learn about Reddiquette and the ratio rules of how often you can promote your own stuff.

That's most of what you need to know. A lot of it may make zero sense to you because you need to actually use Reddit first. If you don't, you may as well not even bother on trying to get any heavy promotion done there.

Thanks Ryuzaki, I really appreciate you taking the time to answer so thoroughly. I will do as you suggest and get in amongst the crowd and have a play around on Reddit for a month or so to get a really good feel for it. Thanks again.

 

[SerpWolf]

I have been lurking around in this forum trying to soak up as much marketing goodness as my tiny brain will allow. I have picked up lots of ideas, so thanks for that, however know next to nil about Reddit.

I'm looking for a course or guide or post that i can read that gives me an a-z of how to get jiggy with it on Reddit.
Things like:
Should I create a subreddit or just post to other subreddits?
When creating an account should it be under my name, a fake name, or the website i am primarily aiming to promote?

If somebody could point me in the right direction it would be much appreciated.

Ps - I tried to post this in the marketing section but mustn't have the authority yet.

The advice given above by Ryuzaki is fantastic. Also remember that with subreddits, you can get a dofollow link from the sidebar. Posts don't go dofollow until a certain number of upvotes are achieved - but you can get a dofollow from the sidebar.

 

[fstop314]

My grain of salt. I have advertised on Reddit and tried various ad copies and images. In Digital Strategy Crash Course: Day 10 - Social Supremacy it states the following:
"Think long and hard about why people are even on that platform in the first place. 99% of the time it's to kill time and they are bored. Now-a-days they are addicted as well. People go to their favorite platform when they want something to do."

And it is exactly like that on various level. Why are people on Reddit? Or a subreddit? People on a subreddit have totally different reasons to be there then "weirdos who live on the "new" tab and downvote everything" as Ryuzaki noticed.

There're 2 ways to advertise on Reddit, one is like a normal post, people can comment and have a saying. The other can be locked and only clicked on. I did a normal ad post, people could comment and ask questions. It was a blast! It really worked like charm. You will always have trolls, mind you. BUT! no sales! I did the same normal ad post in another subreddit and it went horribly. People got very defensive and bashed like crazy.

I also did the closed post. People could only click. This is still the same ad copy and image. This one got far fewer clicks but did produce sales.

I stopped advertising because the CPM went up 250%. I would definitely advertise again for the following reason: now I know why people are on Reddit, to discover new products, to ask for help, to learn new skills. If you can understand this, you can get very creative. Especially the ask for help can be a gold mine. Nevertheless, let your ego go and be human, that's what I learned from my time at Reddit.