I've had remarkably decent success here on HN, but I also release all of my stuff completely free (no sign-in stuff, no ads, etc) so there's very little user friction.

One thing I can say from my experience is that you get out of social media what you put in. For example, the equivalent of “cold calling” on subreddits, HN, etc. tends to elicit a lukewarm response if you haven't shown that you are willing to participate in the community itself.

I think it can come across as torrent-level leechy.