There are plenty of social sharing sites out there these days and joining at least some of them can do wonders for your branding.
However, the Reddit community (and it is very much a community) will teach you one of the golden rules of using sharing sites and social media to spread your blog: don’t spam your posts and expect to get positive feedback, or even interest.
Reddit hates people who only submit their own content, and they also take a strong stance against what they believe is “gaming the system” by using Reddit simply to get visitors to your blog.
There is a way to submit posts to Reddit and gather huge numbers of visitors to your blog, but you have to tread carefully.
In this post I will go over some of the key things that are important to keep in mind while using Reddit to promote your own endeavors (and particularly, your blog posts).
1. Know your audience: the typical Redditor
If you are unfamiliar with the Reddit community, might I suggest that you take a second to take a look at how it all works.
In a nutshell, Reddit allows users to submit anything in link form (links to single images, webpages, etc.)
We will go into detail into the mechanics of submitting a post later, but first you have to realize that a majority of Redditors fall under a few demographic categories (Reddit actually calls a large part of its userbase ‘The Hivemind’, because they tend to share similar opinions).
So what does your typical Redditor look like?
i.) Liberal thinking: usually split between the more popular Democratic party and a smaller section made up of Libertarian thinkers. While these are two distinct political groups, both of them have similar causes that Reddit embraces.
ii.) Young and technologically inclined: most Redditors fall somewhere between 16-34 from my best guess and nearly all Redditors actively embrace technology and internet marketing tools.
iii.) Mostly male, but with a active female community: largely made up of the subreddits that embrace female interests. While the “mainstream” subreddits such as Pics and Funny get dominated by male humor and it is obvious to anyone browsing the site that the sex difference is something like 80/20 in favor of a mostly male audience, the female presence on Reddit is nonetheless quite significant and they are an active and important part of the community.
Knowing this, you should also know that posts that focus on images also tend to do well on Reddit.
Redditors in general are very opposed to submitting your own site, so I would caution about making mention that the content is your own in your title.
It is better to just let people assume whatever they want about who created the content; your job is to make the title enticing to click on and genuinely interesting.
Which leads me to my next point…
2. Present the article with an interesting title & photo
Given that you don’t have much other than the title to convince people to look at your post (some subreddits will show the first image), you have to make your blog title catch people’s glances.
Creativity and wordplay will shine here; you should make your title fairly long, but get right to the point. Try being descriptive on some of the most interesting points in your post.
Asking a question is an effective way to get readers to click, as it is a way to get them involved in the post by allowing them a response rather than just presenting something.
Also, generally speaking, the more controversial the article in question is, the better. Get users to ask questions or debate about a topic, and they will want to check it out and leave comments.
As for images, angel investor Gabriel Weinberg stated that he felt his DuckDuckGo submission (actually a paid submission) to Reddit did quite well due to the image he chose in addition to a number of other things.
The image, being circular and orange, stood out against the plain white backdrop of Reddit and stood out against the square thumbnail images that Reddit offers.
Moving on, what kind of posts do best on Reddit?
I’ve found that…
- Personal stories / heartwarming tales / personal challenges or facing incredible odds are the most popular;
- Educational sites and stories that have unusual or obscure facts about history, science, or technology;
- Photography, art and comics (especially related to anything nostalgic, pop culture);
- Politics (both in the U.S. and worldwide) & Religion (especially atheism);
- Video games (console and MMORPGs);
- Technology (especially computers & programming);
- Science & History (writing had a subreddit, but is not as popular);
- Music (of all genres);
- Marijuana (funny enough, it has two popular subreddits devoted to it!);
- Food & Fitness.
These are typically the subjects with the most popular subreddits.
For instance, the r/gaming subreddit is one of the biggest on the site and a “default” subreddit (all users see it on the top of the site, regardless of being logged in).
The most well-received posts will be original and either have a strong personal story or be completely factual – Reddit thrives off of extremes.
Don’t post everything that you write; save it for the really wild stuff or things that you write that contain a deep personal story.
Redditors like hearing from real people, not “how to” posts unless the posts contain really creative images.
3. Post in the correct subreddit!
A subreddit (sometimes referred to simply as a ‘reddit’) is the way Reddit organizes its post content.
So you should definitely check to see if your post general theme falls into one of the subreddits offered by Reddit (99.9% of the time it will).
Choosing the right subreddit can be somewhat tricky, and here’s why:
You want to pick a subreddit that has enough viewers, but isn’t so crowded that your post will be lost in the shuffle.
Posting anything but an Imgur link in the r/pics subreddit, for example, will usually lead to your post being buried amidst a huge amount of submissions.
But if your post features, let’s say, a ton of new pictures on the latest gadget, posting it in the r/Technology subreddit would bring in users who are not only interested in that specific category, but who also will pay attention to most new posts there because it isn’t as crowded as r/pics or r/humor.
To check how many people have added the reddit to their front page, just open another tab, and after the regular Reddit address, type in /r/reddit-name.
For example, to see the reddit about technology, you type reddit.com/r/technology. To the right, you will see the number of people who have the reddit on their front page.
Make sure you choose a reddit that’s relevant to your link and has a fair amount of subscribers.
The other reason for submitting to niche subreddits and not the big ones is that you can make the top post more easily in these smaller subreddits.
So, if you make it to the top of r/WordPress with your post, that is still 3000+ subscribers to the WordPress subreddit that could potentially click through (just make sure your post is excellent, and has to do with WordPress specifically!)
4. Be an active member of Reddit
I have noticed that on numerous occasions users commenting on your submission will check your Reddit profile and submission history (which is public).
Your page has records of your links and your comments, so you need to make sure that it doesn’t make you look like a spammer.
Remember to post links to other interesting content on the Web — not just your own blog posts.
Redditors generally have disdain for people constantly promoting their own stuff and rightfully so: you should use the community to your advantage only if you are going to be an active contributor, not just someone who only submits your own stuff.
So remember to view Reddit as you would your Twitter account: post things of interest in addition to your own work. That way Redditors will be more inclined to check out submissions with your account name.
5. What to do if your initial submission fails
This part is so important I had to make a separate section for it.
On Reddit, timing is everything.
That being said, even if you post at the best time (early morning on a weekday), the first few voters can ruin your submissions success.
Reddit staff often jokes about this themselves, as posts that were submitted a few months ago are seen again later with triple the votes.
So you must understand that if your first few posts don’t do well and you are following the guidelines here (and posting in the correct subreddit), you might just be having bad luck.
So what should you do?
Wait a while to re-submit: Redditors hate “reposts”, or seeing the same post again in a short amount of time.
When you do re-submit, delete your original post so that it doesn’t appear under your user profile.
To give you a real life example, my guide on WordPress SEO bombed the first time I submitted it to the r/WordPress section. It got 2 downvotes right away and went nowhere.
The next time I submitted it with a better title, and the first two people “upvoted” it.
The result?
About 18 total upvotes and the top post in the r/WordPress subreddit, which brought me over 400 visitors.
Only about 5 of those visitors became email subscribers, but hey, it was a nice traffic boost and only took me a few seconds to submit.
And if you hit it BIG on a large subreddit, you can get thousands of visitors (the most I’ve had was 20,000 in one day, huge traffic! It was in the r/TodayILearned subreddit).
Overall, Reddit can be a powerful source of traffic, but they are a tough crowd, and you gotta play your cards right and be patient if you want to win big.
Concluding: is Reddit worthwhile?
Reddit is certainly a tougher crowd than Digg ever was.
Success on Reddit really depends on your niche, how you present your post, and a little bit of great timing.
When pitching to Reddit, remember that you are dealing with one of the toughest crowds on the net.
Your post might get a few nasty comments, it may even totally flop the first time around.
If, however, you follow the advice above and really start to understand what Redditors are looking for (something that is insanely informative or entertaining), you can reach the front page of a bigger subreddit.
And when that happens, you’ll start to realize Reddit’s potential, as thousands of new visitors check out your site from a single post.
Gregory Ciotti
Gregory Ciotti is the founder of Sparring Mind and the marketing guy at Help Scout. Get more from Greg on the Help Scout blog or add him on Google+.
Image credit: http://www.businessreviewcanada.ca/
Thank you for this article. It was very informative and will definitely help me out as I recently started using reddit myself! And like you said yes it is a tough crowd but as I use it more, the more I get interested in the actual content being posted and the community itself. Its still hard to find the right category/subreddit sometimes though.
Hi Ana,
Excellent post. We are planning to use reddit to increase vistors to our site. This blog gives us some excellent pointers.
Any thoughts on using paid version of reddit?
Thank y
Chris
No, Chris; I’ve never tried it before.
Great article. I have used reddit a few times and I can say that I haven’t had a lot of success with it. But that’s because I only submited my own articles in order to draw visitors to my website. I guess I need to change the way I work with reddit from now on if I want to get any results.
Wow! I just stumbled this article and I love it! Thank you Gregory! I haven’t been using reddit yet as a “traffic generation tool” but I think after reading this I might give it a try =)
Hi – glad I found this post…I signed up to be on your email list.
Someone is submitting my blog posts to Reddit and I am getting a lot of traffic but very high bounce rates from that traffic. Im a bit confused by this…is it worth the time to go in and become an active member? I signed up and checked it out but wasnt very impressed with the content. I even tried submitting a link from my site myself so I could test the response. I got a big spike in traffic and an equally big bounce rate. Any advice would be greatly appreciated as my blog is fairly new and I DO want to provide valuable content to my readers and would hate to be negatively impacted in Google rankings because of Reddit.
Thanks
Victoria
Great post and hopefully it will help me use reddit more efficiently. From my short experience with it, it seems that the community is very picky and prefer certain types of topics and if your niche falls out of that, well good luck or just move on. I did not had much luck with legal topics, although some of them I personally found to be quite interesting.
I’ll definitely follow your tips and try some new methods, I’m even going to try different topics, other then my regulars. Choosing the right image might just do the trick, however sometimes it’s not easy to nail it, especially if you don’t want the image to be misleading.
Well, there is much to learn, and partly that’s the beauty of it. Thanks for sharing your insight and experiences.
No problem!
Reddit is definitely one of the trickiest social bookmarking sites to do well on.
I saw this advice on ThinkTraffic: “In addition to sharing the posts on my Twitter and FB account, I submitted every post of mine to Reddit, StumbleUpon, Sphinn and Hacker News.” Thought I’d try to learn a little about Reddit before trying it, read this, and…… yeah, glad I looked into it a little before trying it, because it sounds a whole lot harder than the above advice makes it seem. Think I’ll skip Reddit for now.
That’s why I stay away from it as well, Mary. lol
One thing I’ve learned about Reddit while monitoring a client’s brand online is that if you are catering to a very narrow niche, you’ll find it’s easy to interact naturally and be accepted.
If you offer original content that is tightly focused on the subreddit’s topic, presented in an open, friendly way, you’ll be ok. I’ve found that being there to respond to comments is highly appreciated, and rewarded. 🙂
100% true, great insight Ginger.
This is great. I got quite good number of traffic from Reddit last time but not anymore. I didn’t know that they often look at your profile to see whether you are just a spammer or not. I’m going to clean up my reddit profiles and submit more links (outside my blog) and hopefully I can get good traffic again one day by being genuine to the community
Hey Gregory very well explained article, the only mistake i made every time on reddit was, I never selected a suitable subreddit.
Hi Gregory,
I not that into Reddit but I do have an account. From the stats, Reddit is not one of the traffic sources for sure. I only use it when I submit my content via OnlyWire.
Thanks for the good tips to analyze the demographic of Reddit.
Cheers,
Ming
Haha, great way to put it, they most definitely are, and that’s why most people get disheartened when they submit and fall flat most of the time.
Hi Gregory,
I have tried Reddit, but that was a long time ago. It wasn’t much of a success. I spent some time submitting other people’s stuff, and some of mine. I didn’t think much of what type of content I added (just things I enjoyed), and I didn’t do much with the titles either.
I’m going to give it another try. Thanks a lot for sharing this.
Merry Christmas.
No problem, and Merry Christmas to you too!
I must admit that in one particular case my VPS reached bandwidth limit, because Reddit traffic. I’ve received more than 3000 unique visits in less than few hours. Definitely one of the best social bookmarks out there.
I never used Reddit community but I had experienced for Stumble Upon its better way to increase blog traffic.
While the quantity of the traffic is good, the quality is not so much, you’ll get very few subscribers out of thousands of page views.
Never had much luck with Reddit, I now know why 😉
How does your Reddit traffic compare to similar actions on Digg or SU?
I do pretty well with StumbleUpon, but that is a bit more random (I include a button for the service at the bottom of posts, but besides submitting, there isn’t much you can do).
I don’t use Digg that much, but considering how divided the topics are now, I’d say it should be easier to break the front page with the right kind of content.
Hey Stacy, while Reddit does sometimes downvote new posts, I should clarify that sometimes downvotes come AUTOMATICALLY from the Reddit systems that seeks to “mask” the true amount of votes (so spammers can’t take advantage of it).
The thing is, these downvotes don’t necessarily effect the vote total, they are just done to prevent bots from figuring out the Reddit system in totality.
Reddit as a whole IS a pretty encouraging community, but you have to get a bit lucky and definitely land on the right subreddit.
Thanks for commenting though and I’m glad the post was at least useful for you. =)
Hey, thanks a lot for these tips and guidelines about Reddit, Gregory. Appreciate it very much.
-Jean
Hi Gregory, I’m not a fan of the interface on Reddit so I haven’t spent much time over there. Thanks for all the details about what’s popular and what isn’t because I think I made the right decision since most of my content doesn’t fit in any of the categories you mentioned. After all, I would only use the site to submit my own stuff and since that is not what the site is for, I don’t want to waste my time and get banned in the process. 🙂
I am just starting to get into Reddit…Thank You for the valuable Tips, as you say they are timeless….Greg Avery
It’s not easy, so don’t go in expecting instant results.
Remember to cater to the Reddit crowd, and NEVER come off as spammy, and you will do okay.
Never had a success with Reddit … Need to work smart and a bit hard to draw traffic from Reddit.
Anyways a great share Gregori …
No problem Salman, glad the post was useful for you!
Hi Gregory,
Quite informative post, I’ve submitted few pages to reddit but didn’t get any result as I only got down votes. I think now I know what I was doing wrong there. I think I was submitting in wrong sub-reddit in a hope to get huge traffic. Thanks for clearing my mind, I’ll do it in better way.
No problem!
Submitting to the right subreddit is definitely key, it’s part of the etiquette (or “Redditiquette”) of being a user there.
I’d evaluate a few subreddits where the post might do better and submit again.
I have had a reddit account for years. I use it sparingly. It is a community you need to visit to get the hang of. I don’t use it that much anymore, but occasionally add a link. Not too long ago I tried to submit and it would tell me I submitted too many links and to wait I forget how long. I waited and tried again it still said the same thing. I waited a day and same thing. Finally after waiting something like a week it let me post one. Not sure what the deal was with that as I only submitted 1 in the past week+ at the time. Whether they were blocking me for adding 1 submission I don’t know. Reddit could use a little upgrade, style, and redesign. It has been the same old boring look for along time now.
It’s definitely tough Ray, no denying that.
That “block” that you are seeing is because you’ve submitted a bunch of posts recently that were downvoted, you usually don’t get this kind of block when you have a decent amount of “karma” and your posts usually garner a few upvotes.
My pleasure Oliver, it’s certainly not for everyone, but as can be seen, it can be a great benefit for a lot of people.
I think for new bloggers, Facebook, Twitter and Google+ are enough. For established blogs, Reddit may be worth a shot.
I agree and disagree.
If your blog really fits the mold described above, then you should submit your best posts to Reddit right away.
I don’t think there is ever a right “time” to submit to Reddit, it’s more about what kind of content you are creating, and whether or not it’s going to appeal to the average Redditor.
I actually agree with Faizan on this one, Greg. I think that new bloggers have so much to learn and so much on their plates that learning how to use the networks that drive the most traffic first is paramount.
Once you have an established strategy for that, then you can move on to other networks.
IMHO.
Ah, well, if we are talking about “brand new” bloggers who have yet to dabble into the essentials, then yes.
I guess I sort of answered the question in terms of a “new blog” rather than a “new blogger”.
The Redditors seem like a highly daunting crowd but this should be a challenge that all aspiring genuine bloggers should rise up to. Automatic bloggers will not thrive here because from what I read here, I am now under the impression that Redditors have bionic noses and can smell a faker from several miles away.
I would say you are exactly right Reese!
It’s a tough crowd and a tough barrier to break, but the rewards make it worth the effort.
Hey Gregory,
I hate Reedit. I can not even figure out how to edit my profile!
But if you’re right, and I do not doubt you, I better try to figure out this social network once more.
Thanks anyway for a very detailed article. I just wish you had also explained, how to identify the correct /subreddit.
It is not that straightforward, to me at least; just like I finds the whole site is pretty messy.
But each to his taste – if it can bring tons of readers to my site, I will be willing to accept almost anything 😛
Regards,
Michael
Hey Michael, it’s true, Reddit can be a bit confusing, and it’s definitely not for everyone.
Reddit works in the same way that StumbleUpon works well for some sites (and some posts), but not for others.
One thing I’ve learned, it’s not good for marketing sites, all of my blogs outside of the marketing niche have done exponentially better on Reddit than my marketing blog.
I just wanted to shed some light on a very misunderstood platform. =)
I think when I first signed up for Reddit way back when I was first getting started online (years ago) and I was signing up for multiple social media networks, I signed up for Reddit and made only about four posts before I began to get an error every time.
(when Reddit bans you but won’t tell you)
To be honest this initial bad experience, do my own lack of knowledge at the time, has kept from giving the service another chance.
With this in-depth post on the lady use Reddit the RIGHT way I may give this service another chance as part of my social networking strategy.
It’s definitely worth consider Steve, Reddit is an admittedly tough crowd to crack.
For instance, in my post that got me 20,000 visitors in a day, I was discussing a unusual law that Finland has: Redditors love the strange, weird, funny, and are typically very averse to “traditional” forms of content marketing.
If you want to appeal to them, you definitely have to fit (what they call) the “hivemind”, or appeal to their demographic without looking like you are doing so.
Tough to crack, but like I said, depending on your niche, the traffic rewards can be immense (think of it like a hot post on StumbleUpon, except Reddit users will actually share the post!)
wohhoo, im the first to comment, I havent used much of Reddit, but def. will be using much more of it after this post. Thanks alot
Thanks for the comment Tran, just remember to play nice over there and definitely follow the guidelines mentioned here, they are a very tough (yet very rewarding) crowd!
I’ve never joined, or was interested in Reddit. I don’t think my personality would be suited for the community you just described. I write about different things, and most of my topics may not do well with the male-dominated Reddit community.
That said, it was nice to actually learn in a nutshell what Reddit is all about. Thank you.
It’s true that Reddit is a very “particular” and strongly opinionated community Anne, sometimes you are able to find a subreddit that will be interested in your topics, and sometimes not.
For my blogs/sites that DO fit into Reddit’s interests, posting there can be really rewarding traffic wise, for very little work.
My pleasure giving you the run-down on what Reddit is about, glad you enjoyed the post.