Reddit seems to get a very polarized response from people here. It seems that most people have written the platform off, while others have recognized that it can be very effective -- if you do things right.
What are some successful strategies that you have found for using Reddit?
I don't claim to be an expert by any means (I'm not on anyone's top list for karma), but I have been informally researching a few things recently. Please let me know if you have found anything else, or if your experience disagrees with mine. Here are a few things I've found about Reddit?
1) Reddit loves original content
There seems to be this meme that Reddit doesn't like OC ("original content"). There are several such memes (some with varying levels of adult language), but you'll obviously be able to find a lot of similar sentiments very quickly if you search for "Reddit OC" or something like that.
I think that this is a misnomer, though. Reddit actually loves OC. On most topical subreddits (reddits devoted to a specific subject, rather than the default subreddits), the "top" selections will often be links to paintings and other artwork created by people.
So, what's the problem?
2) Reddit hates spam.
So, as one meme goes, "Reddit loves OC...it just doesn't love *your* OC." There can be many reasons for this (namely, that your content actually isn't as good as you think it is), but if we don't consider quality at all for a moment, the real problem is in something like this:
There are actually a few reasons why this is bad, but one main reason is that it is transparently spammy. There is utterly no way for a redditor not to come off like a spammer if their "Submitted" section on their profile looks like this, and yet, that seems to be how many people go about using Reddit.
What does Reddit view as spam?
Reddit's self promotion guidelines suggest that only 10% (at most) of your posting and conversation should link to your own videos.
My understanding from reading other sources (there is a blog post entitled "Reddit’s 10% guideline – a shadowban trap for excited gamedevs" that had one comment in particular that responded to a lot of the misconceptions the original author had...) is that the tools that reddit moderators and admins use includes relatively automated domain-checking, and in some cases, sub-domain checking (that is, the tools can show whether you are linking from one channel or another.)
The most interesting thing I found was the the 10% rule doesn't just apply to your own material -- it's saying that 10% is the informal limit for any domain/subdomain -- so you have to have a diversified source of submissions. (Exclusively posting someone else's material is just as bad as exclusively posting your own from the view of the automated tools.)
3) How do you avoid being seen as a spammer?
So, with all of the previous information, if you want to be successful on Reddit, then at the very minimum, you should be contributing content from a wide variety of sources. If you think that you can join Reddit *just* to link to your own videos, then you are going to have a bad time. The site simply doesn't work like that.
What I have personally found in my niche (video game music covers) is that there are a lot of other talented musicians around. What I noticed very quickly was that I received a much better response from sharing other people's songs than I received when I was only trying to share my own music.
Now, it seems really obvious to me, but when they talk about youtube and reddit as being social media, this is what that is about. Being social on social media means building connections with other people and appreciating other people's works.
What I noticed even more was that I would get better responses on my own posts if I posted them along with others. And what I noticed the most was that my posts would get the *best* responses if someone else posted about them.
This still hasn't been a perfect process. I still definitely have posts that "bomb." And I haven't been able to get anything on any of the default subreddits, so there is definitely a limit to the total amount of potential traffic here. So, for the past couple of weeks, I've been doing a few informal experiments, and this is what I've found additionally:
4) Experiment with how you title submissions
The main problem I had with the image I posted above was that the guy was clearly just posting his own material on a bunch of different subreddits...but the 2nd problem I had with that image was that he made no effort to change how he was framing those submissions. It was *exactly the same wording each time*.
I found when I was only posting my own material (and not very successfully) that it felt awkwardly to describe my own material, so I would often use very awkward, matter-of-fact descriptions like this person.
However, I found that when I was linking to other people's stuff, it was a far more organic process to talk about what things I specifically liked and disliked, and so on.
Different subreddits certainly have rules on how submissions should be framed, so you should definitely read the rules of a particular subreddit first, but as long as you are complying with the rules, then experiment with how you frame submissions by pointing out specific things about the submission that are interesting -- maybe a specific section, or something covered in it that may be of interest.
5) Be selective in the sub-reddits you select
The third issue I have with the image is that this guy is mostly picking self-promotion-specific subreddits like r/newtubers or r/PromoteGamingVideos. If you have had any success with these sorts of communities and subreddits, please let me know, but from my perspective, this is a really ineffective way about going about this because, for the most part, these are just filled with people who want to post their own stuff. So, no one is viewing, commenting, upvoting or downvoting...they are just all posting their own stuff in the hopes that someone else will click.
Reddit is a big enough site that there is usually a community for everything. I have found that the choice of subreddits to submit to can be very strategic. For example, big subreddits have more potential for success (because there are more potential upvoters), but they can also be very unforgiving, and if you post in a suboptimal time, you can find your submission being drowned out.
I have personally found the most success in going to targeted niche communities (and I have found this to be true on basically every social media site -- for Google+, Google+ communities specific to the game whose music I'm covering will be the most receptive. For Facebook, it's going to be a particular facebook group. And for reddit, it's a particular subreddit.) Keep in mind that you still have to pay attention to the subreddit particular rules, and you still have to diversify your submissions on a subreddit level, but you should always think about how you can present your submissions so that they would be of value to that particular subreddit.
This can be tricky for certain genres. For example, with let's plays, many game-specific subreddits are very wary of let's plays...because there are so many and most of them are not high quality. One thing you might want to think about is how you can present what you're doing in a way that people haven't seen before. So perhaps, it should be a how-to or a strategy guide or a tips and tricks video that you submit, rather than a straight let's play.
I would be interested in hearing thoughts from people in non-gaming genres. For example, I don't know what sorts of subreddits would be targeted toward vloggers or comedy youtubers. (I have heard that vloggers should look for subreddits specific to the areas they are traveling to...can any speak to that?)
However, as an example of my process...for video game music covers, I might pick the game or game series subreddit, the subreddit for that console, the subreddit for the game genre if that was a popular game for that genre, and so on.
6) Reddit is very time-sensitive -- so pay attention to when you're posting!
If you just post whenever you feel like it, you may be doing yourself a disservice. I don't know the exact science behind it, but my understanding is that Reddit placement isn't merely determined by sheer number of upvotes vs downvotes, but that it weighs upvotes by time. So, when a submission is new, getting upvotes quickly can matter.
As a result, you don't want to post something when there are few people on, because then it's unlikely that you'll get any upvotes.
So, you want to do some research into when the best time to post on any given subreddit is. My experience and basic research has been that around the time when people are going to work (so 9AM Eastern time) is effective for most reddits -- this makes some amount of sense to me now, but it was definitely not when I would normally think to post on reddit.
Keep in mind that different subreddits may have different times. You can use something like RedditLater to determine which times have gotten the most posts that have hit a certain threshhold of votes. RedditLater also has a service to schedule posts, but the free version of this is limited to one post each week, so I usually don't use this feature.
Share your thoughts!
As I mentioned before, I do not consider myself an expert. I still have posts that completely flop, and even now, I wouldn't say my posts are extremely successful. I usually look at somewhere between 15 - 30 upvotes per post.
So if you have any thoughts on getting to the next level, please share those. If you think anything in this post is not quite accurate, please feel free to offer corrections!
What are some successful strategies that you have found for using Reddit?
I don't claim to be an expert by any means (I'm not on anyone's top list for karma), but I have been informally researching a few things recently. Please let me know if you have found anything else, or if your experience disagrees with mine. Here are a few things I've found about Reddit?
1) Reddit loves original content
There seems to be this meme that Reddit doesn't like OC ("original content"). There are several such memes (some with varying levels of adult language), but you'll obviously be able to find a lot of similar sentiments very quickly if you search for "Reddit OC" or something like that.
I think that this is a misnomer, though. Reddit actually loves OC. On most topical subreddits (reddits devoted to a specific subject, rather than the default subreddits), the "top" selections will often be links to paintings and other artwork created by people.
So, what's the problem?
2) Reddit hates spam.
So, as one meme goes, "Reddit loves OC...it just doesn't love *your* OC." There can be many reasons for this (namely, that your content actually isn't as good as you think it is), but if we don't consider quality at all for a moment, the real problem is in something like this:
There are actually a few reasons why this is bad, but one main reason is that it is transparently spammy. There is utterly no way for a redditor not to come off like a spammer if their "Submitted" section on their profile looks like this, and yet, that seems to be how many people go about using Reddit.
What does Reddit view as spam?
Reddit's self promotion guidelines suggest that only 10% (at most) of your posting and conversation should link to your own videos.
My understanding from reading other sources (there is a blog post entitled "Reddit’s 10% guideline – a shadowban trap for excited gamedevs" that had one comment in particular that responded to a lot of the misconceptions the original author had...) is that the tools that reddit moderators and admins use includes relatively automated domain-checking, and in some cases, sub-domain checking (that is, the tools can show whether you are linking from one channel or another.)
The most interesting thing I found was the the 10% rule doesn't just apply to your own material -- it's saying that 10% is the informal limit for any domain/subdomain -- so you have to have a diversified source of submissions. (Exclusively posting someone else's material is just as bad as exclusively posting your own from the view of the automated tools.)
3) How do you avoid being seen as a spammer?
So, with all of the previous information, if you want to be successful on Reddit, then at the very minimum, you should be contributing content from a wide variety of sources. If you think that you can join Reddit *just* to link to your own videos, then you are going to have a bad time. The site simply doesn't work like that.
What I have personally found in my niche (video game music covers) is that there are a lot of other talented musicians around. What I noticed very quickly was that I received a much better response from sharing other people's songs than I received when I was only trying to share my own music.
Now, it seems really obvious to me, but when they talk about youtube and reddit as being social media, this is what that is about. Being social on social media means building connections with other people and appreciating other people's works.
What I noticed even more was that I would get better responses on my own posts if I posted them along with others. And what I noticed the most was that my posts would get the *best* responses if someone else posted about them.
This still hasn't been a perfect process. I still definitely have posts that "bomb." And I haven't been able to get anything on any of the default subreddits, so there is definitely a limit to the total amount of potential traffic here. So, for the past couple of weeks, I've been doing a few informal experiments, and this is what I've found additionally:
4) Experiment with how you title submissions
The main problem I had with the image I posted above was that the guy was clearly just posting his own material on a bunch of different subreddits...but the 2nd problem I had with that image was that he made no effort to change how he was framing those submissions. It was *exactly the same wording each time*.
I found when I was only posting my own material (and not very successfully) that it felt awkwardly to describe my own material, so I would often use very awkward, matter-of-fact descriptions like this person.
However, I found that when I was linking to other people's stuff, it was a far more organic process to talk about what things I specifically liked and disliked, and so on.
Different subreddits certainly have rules on how submissions should be framed, so you should definitely read the rules of a particular subreddit first, but as long as you are complying with the rules, then experiment with how you frame submissions by pointing out specific things about the submission that are interesting -- maybe a specific section, or something covered in it that may be of interest.
5) Be selective in the sub-reddits you select
The third issue I have with the image is that this guy is mostly picking self-promotion-specific subreddits like r/newtubers or r/PromoteGamingVideos. If you have had any success with these sorts of communities and subreddits, please let me know, but from my perspective, this is a really ineffective way about going about this because, for the most part, these are just filled with people who want to post their own stuff. So, no one is viewing, commenting, upvoting or downvoting...they are just all posting their own stuff in the hopes that someone else will click.
Reddit is a big enough site that there is usually a community for everything. I have found that the choice of subreddits to submit to can be very strategic. For example, big subreddits have more potential for success (because there are more potential upvoters), but they can also be very unforgiving, and if you post in a suboptimal time, you can find your submission being drowned out.
I have personally found the most success in going to targeted niche communities (and I have found this to be true on basically every social media site -- for Google+, Google+ communities specific to the game whose music I'm covering will be the most receptive. For Facebook, it's going to be a particular facebook group. And for reddit, it's a particular subreddit.) Keep in mind that you still have to pay attention to the subreddit particular rules, and you still have to diversify your submissions on a subreddit level, but you should always think about how you can present your submissions so that they would be of value to that particular subreddit.
This can be tricky for certain genres. For example, with let's plays, many game-specific subreddits are very wary of let's plays...because there are so many and most of them are not high quality. One thing you might want to think about is how you can present what you're doing in a way that people haven't seen before. So perhaps, it should be a how-to or a strategy guide or a tips and tricks video that you submit, rather than a straight let's play.
I would be interested in hearing thoughts from people in non-gaming genres. For example, I don't know what sorts of subreddits would be targeted toward vloggers or comedy youtubers. (I have heard that vloggers should look for subreddits specific to the areas they are traveling to...can any speak to that?)
However, as an example of my process...for video game music covers, I might pick the game or game series subreddit, the subreddit for that console, the subreddit for the game genre if that was a popular game for that genre, and so on.
6) Reddit is very time-sensitive -- so pay attention to when you're posting!
If you just post whenever you feel like it, you may be doing yourself a disservice. I don't know the exact science behind it, but my understanding is that Reddit placement isn't merely determined by sheer number of upvotes vs downvotes, but that it weighs upvotes by time. So, when a submission is new, getting upvotes quickly can matter.
As a result, you don't want to post something when there are few people on, because then it's unlikely that you'll get any upvotes.
So, you want to do some research into when the best time to post on any given subreddit is. My experience and basic research has been that around the time when people are going to work (so 9AM Eastern time) is effective for most reddits -- this makes some amount of sense to me now, but it was definitely not when I would normally think to post on reddit.
Keep in mind that different subreddits may have different times. You can use something like RedditLater to determine which times have gotten the most posts that have hit a certain threshhold of votes. RedditLater also has a service to schedule posts, but the free version of this is limited to one post each week, so I usually don't use this feature.
Share your thoughts!
As I mentioned before, I do not consider myself an expert. I still have posts that completely flop, and even now, I wouldn't say my posts are extremely successful. I usually look at somewhere between 15 - 30 upvotes per post.
So if you have any thoughts on getting to the next level, please share those. If you think anything in this post is not quite accurate, please feel free to offer corrections!
Last edited:
