I know, now you’re asking “Brooks, what the hell is Reddit and what exactly are you getting me into now?” Well, hear me out.
Reddit is one of those things that you didn’t realize was going on right under your nose, kind of like neighborhood swingers parties or free coupon swapping. These things are huge subcultures, but if you don’t move in the right circles, you’d never know.
Reddit is, in fact, a huge subculture.
Per the Reddit web site, during the month of October 2012, they had nearly 47 MILLION unique visitors, from 170 countries, viewing nearly 4 BILLION different pages. NOW do I have your attention?
“But how does that help me?” you ask. Well, lemme tell you. Basically, Reddit is a community where members post web pages and other members vote on them. Like StumbleUpon, Reddit members are a targeted audience – the people in the subcommunities actually want to see pages containing information that interests them. Check out the number of subscribers in each of these categories:
BOOKS – 177,627 (Subscribers) (for readers)
WRITING – 55,347 (for writers)
STORIES – 710
FREEBIES – 53,635
KINDLE – 9,529
FUNNY – 2,770,498
HUMOR – 177,044
Convinced this platform is worth your while? Then how about signing up for an account? It’s free. And fast. Just go to http://www.reddit.com/ and click on register in the upper right hand corner. “I’m going to have to set up a pretty profile and give them all sorts of info, aren’t I?” Um no, actually, you’re not. Reddit is really about content sharing, and not about social networking.
Now, Reddit will allow you to join subcommunities (subReddits), build your own, and do a myriad of other activities that are way beyond my usage. I use Reddit only to share my blog posts and other web pages I find interesting. Doing that is super easy.
Web sites and blogs (like Indies Unlimited) make it easy to post articles to Reddit with share buttons at the bottom of their posts. Many of them have an additional “share” button or drop-down arrow that needs to be clicked to bring up additional sharing platforms like Reddit. You can see how we do it here on Indies Unlimited in the screen to the right. Click on the drop-down arrow – then click on the Reddit logo. A new screen will open, bringing you and your link to the Reddit site.
The cool thing about Reddit is that it fills in most of the information for you. The only things you’ll have to fill in are the subreddit category and the captcha. Yeah, the latter’s a pain in the neck.
One idiosyncrasy of Reddit’s is that you can’t just go ballistic and start adding a ton of links at once. They have a time limit, and they’re serious about it. If you try to submit too many links in succession, they’ll tell you that you have to wait. Now click the tiny little submit button at the bottom left hand side of the screen that I managed to cut off of the screen capture.
The only thing you should put a little effort into happens on the next page. Type in a quick comment which may entice members of the group to click on your link. Then click “Save.”
Now, hopefully, other members will read your post and vote it “up” to the top of the subject heading. That hasn’t happened to me, yet, but I have noticed that Indies Unlimited gets a lot of traffic from Reddit – especially on the days we’re posting free eBook features to their Freebies category.
So, there you have it. A quick, easy way to share an article to a targeted audience. Not bad, eh?
OK, so I’ve created an account and picked some categories. Where the heck do I find the place to create a link to my website? Or am I missing something? And how do you add friends…by email address or what…it really doesn’t say what format to use when adding a friend? ugh…lol
Reddit’s really not like that, Linda. It’s not about the people, it’s about the info. There is no way to set up a profile. It’s all about the sharing.
Just great. My first attempt to use this program and I get a message that says if I do it again, my posts will be deleted as spam. I don’t think I like this.
You show the page to submit information such as link in your article…but I can’t find a page that looks like that. How do we get to it?
Linda, just use the Reddit button at the bottom of the blog post and that should take you there. That’s honestly the only way I ever use Reddit.
Okay. Did it! Not too difficult. Thanks!
OK…I noticed before that it says sometimes that I have submitted too many and then it is stuck…but today it let me do it! Will have to go in and out and try it. Thanks for the great information!
Patrick, it’s done the same to me. I think it’s some weird browser issue. So I usually ask someone else to do it for me when that happens LOL Thanks for stopping by!
Joined. Posted a link to my latest blog post in a suitable subreddit (browsing subreddits could be a new career, I think). We’ll see how it goes….
Great! Glad to hear it.
Based on you blog, I think I’ll finally do it! thanks!
You’re welcome, Jim! And thanks for the tweet, I just saw it. 🙂
Alright. I’m in. Where’s the swinger’s party?
Great! I think this’ll be a good platform for you. Lots of authors and readers in there!
Redditors are not going to like getting spammed with just links to people’s blogs/books. You really need to be a part of the community as well.
Come over and join us for the conversation, stay to promote your work! Reddit appreciates sincerity.
Just ask Woody Harrelson what Reddit thinks on people that try to use the site as JUST a marketing tool. 😀
You can’t ask him that. It’s not about Rampart.
Thanks for your input, Bre. I only try to post links that will be helpful and of interest to the communities when I do post.
“Just ask Woody Harrelson what Reddit thinks ABOUT people …” Even Indies know that.
Thanks for the support, Jon.
Now who has questions about my new movie Rampart?
If you want to make Reddit work for you then you will need to try joining the community, not just posting link spam. That is the fastest way to get banned from a sub reddit.
Each sub reddit is its own community. They each have their own rules located on the right hand side of the page. READ BEFORE POSTING!
Also, remember Reddit is mostly anonymous. We don’t care who you are, or what you did unless it’s interesting and posted in the right forum.
Crissy, thanks for the info!
To Whom It May Concern at Reddit, and anyone else, I’m don’t claim to be an expert about Reddit, and I do not endorse SPAMMING Reddit. I do believe the authors and other people reading this article are responsible enough not to do that.
K.S., some of the people at Reddit are like some of those who lurk around on LinkedIn; they have an inflated sense of their own worth and further inflate it by attacking others. My grandmother always taught me to stay away from any place where I wasn’t welcome, and from the comments some of these jerks posted, it’s clear we’re not welcome there. I say let the pigs have their sty.