I got my first post removed from Reddit, but my second post got over 50,000 views. Here’s what I learned.
When I made my first Reddit post, I thought I had it all figured out. I wrote about a frustration I had and mentioned the tool I was building to solve it. A few hours later, my post was removed for self-promotion.
It was a tough pill to swallow. I felt like I had failed. But after talking to some other founders and reading the community rules, I realized my mistake: I was leading with my product instead of with value.
So, for my next post, I changed my strategy completely. I went all-in on a pure value-add approach:
- I found an interesting topic in a different subreddit.
- I used my tool to analyze over a thousand comments.
- I created a simple bullet-point summary of the most surprising insights.
- I didn't mention my tool at all in the post itself.
The results were insane. The post exploded with over 50,000 views and 100+ upvotes, and it generated a ton of engagement. The best part? The most valuable comments were people asking me how I did the analysis.
It was in those follow-up comments that I was able to talk about my process and casually mention my tool. It felt natural, and it was a direct result of providing pure value first.
So, my main takeaway is this: on platforms like Reddit, your value is your currency. Focus on giving away your best insights for free, and people will be curious enough to find out who you are and what you're building.
I'm curious, have any of you experienced a similar learning curve with marketing?
