I think the most important point is in the final paragraph:

"Find the place where your tribe hangs out. Show up, help people out, talk about what you're doing, and the rest will take care of itself."

The article starts out sounding like it's about effective marketing, but as it progresses, the unavoidable conclusion becomes that it only works because he's sharing content relevant to HN, in a way that appeals to HN, because he himself is a HN user.

Marketing as an insider of the crowd you're marketing to is trivial. Marketing as an outsider is hard.