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Comment by enumjorge | Hacker News Reader

Does anyone else have experience posting on Reddit for marketing purposes that they can share? I haven’t done it myself, but my understanding is that most subreddits frown upon self promotion posts. The article makes it sound like it’s as simple as posting to the right subreddits to get views, but I’m skeptical.

The author also mentions getting 400 visitors as an example of success. 400 visitors is nice, but given that people have reached the top of Hacker News or Product Hunt, gotten massive traffic spikes but then saw little to no conversions, it doesn’t strike me as particularly noteworthy.

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I created my own subreddit and if you look at the sidebar, it is clearly promotional content. I post my own stuff and have links to my website in my sidebar. It works pretty well and I don't get complaints. Its a fashion sub so I cross-post pictures, but otherwise just post my own stuff and answer people's questions. It helps that I promote other businesses as well, not just my own links.

Overall, I found it a good marketing tool for my side project and a way to not get into trouble with other mods. You can see it here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Watchbands/

I keep trying to promote my Video Hub App: https://videohubapp.com/en/

This makes sense most-naturally when a user asks for "what's good software to organize videos?" So I answer honestly: "I created this app, this is what it does, I think it may fit your requirements".

I'm an independent developer and have never spent money promoting the app. Today my GA shows 70 visitors coming from Reddit this week. Usual number of visitors from all sources is 70 per day.

I got 400 visitors from a small subreddit (/r/nocode). I got a few thousands visitors from a post on /r/startups or /r/Entrepreneur several times!

But you're right, a big subreddit gives you about the same amount of traffic than HN.

The benefit may be long-term trickle of visitors. I once recommended my app as an answer in a Reddit thread, and it is still getting me a few visitors per week.

Really depends on your app and where you promote it. About 5% of my visitors buy my app, and that's probably because they come from targeted Reddit comments (or organic searches for the specific thing my app offers).

That's true, I still get a few visitors per day from the post I made on /r/nocode.

If your post is in the top of the month/year/all time it will bring you visitors on the long term. (I guess they're also better on Google search. Not sure tho)

Do what big corporations do. Buy old accounts and astroturf.

Aldi had great success posting "hauls" until they were caught astroturfing. They likely are still doing similar but smarter with their accounts.

> Aldi had great success posting "hauls" until they were caught astroturfing.

Is there a decent rundown of this anywhere? I tried a couple of google searches but didn't find much.

(I often get the feeling this is being done by various companies, especially on Reddit, but I find it hard to distinguish between astroturfing and sincere consumerism. Especially when they are probably working in combination: astroturfing to set the tone, then genuine community members jumping on the bandwagon and acting as unwitting accomplices. So I'm interested to read case studies wherever it has provably happened.)

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