How I got 48k+ views on a subreddit without getting banned
It turns out human beings love a good story. Early this year i built an app for my wife to help her document and rate her mood at the end of each day. Months later the app went viral on X. Thanks to the welcome message i left on the onboarding screen.
Users were sharing screenshots of the message on X and IG. It didn't take long before things went supernova. I made my first revenue from one of the mini rival posts.
Yesterday I decided to share that story on r/SideProject sub reddit. With a little hack that I learned from Daniel Nguyen over in X.
24hrs After my post
👁️ 48k+ Views
↗️ 100+ Shares
⬆️170+ Upvotes
💬 47 Comments
Generally speaking... Redditors would downvote you into oblivion for self promotion and other reason. But this hack worked for me and Daniel.
Here's how it works
Step 1: Give value, either by contributing to the conversation or by sharing a valuable or useful piece of information.
Step 2: At the end of your post add your promo or whatever you want people to checkout.
Step 3: Select your promo and mark it as spoiler. That way people don't see it when they read your post. They have to click to see the spoiler. Which will then reveal your promotional content.
In Conclusion
Don't over do this. While it may work for you in some subreddit other subreddits can still ban you for self promotion. You can follow my journey over at X.
Using the spoiler tag to hide the promo is clever. Like you said, probably ok as long as its not over-used. But sadly its exactly the kind of "trick" that I can see catching on all-too widely.
I have already given up on Reddit. That website has established various weried rules (such as having to wait ten minutes before you can post again), and the content of each subreddit seems utterly worthless. Many communities have announced their departure from Reddit. You never know when you might get banned there.
AMANi, you've cracked the code on navigating the labyrinth of Reddit without getting lost in the downvote dungeon! Your approach is a masterclass in community engagement. Starting with a value-driven contribution and ending with a cleverly marked spoiler is like leaving a trail of breadcrumbs that Redditors willingly follow. The success metrics-48k+ views, 100+ shares, and 170+ upvotes are a testament to the effectiveness of your strategy. It's not just a hack; it's a thoughtful dance with the Reddit community. Thanks for sharing this valuable insight into the art of self-promotion on the platform. Here's to more viral success stories!
Thanks for sharing this! Reddit is really great, I got around 5,000 installs for one of my apps from 1-2 Reddit posts.
Great tip, never thought of the spoiler part. I'll give it a try!
I just post my experience about a mistake i made on r/saas, there are lots people think I was self promote and downvote my post just because I add a trace parameter after the link in my post......
That's sad.
That amazing way to do it. Basically have a compelling story with good lesson with everybody and share it on reddit.
The only issue is how close are those people to your real customer ? How many of them converted to your customer. Since your app kind can be used in a lot of places , I bet it is pretty useful for the people in r/SideProject .
But if you have niche specific product it will be a bit tricky as you need to know what the potential customer will like on reddit. Thats why I also recommend you to try the reddit analytics tool that I made which will go tru thousands of topic for your market and niche and find the best topic for your particular business.
From the analysis you could see what is the best topic to write about for your particular business. Here is a sample analysis SAMPLE REDDIT ANALYSIS
Not just reddit you can also see what your customer interested for all other online platform. Checkout decentool.com
Thanks for sharing! r/SideProject is probably the best place to share your product if you do it smartly. Some other good ones are:
How do you mark it as a spoiler on Reddit?
If you didn't figure it out already. Highlight the text and then go up to the place where the bold, italics so on in text editor options and look for the spoiler icon and click it.
you indie hacked reddit
Great! How do you actually create a spoiler tag?
Great job Amani, on creating something people clearly found so useful and engaging! It's amazing to see how your app went viral thanks to the welcome message, and it's also awesome to hear that you were able to get 48k views without being banned. Inspiring work!
Good, it's nice I want to tell you my Chipotle app not working. How I resolve it?
Interesting story, was this your first time posting about the app on Reddit, or was this more of a followup/ honing into your Marketing strategy?
First time posting on Reddit about the app.
That's nice from you, Is not easy to work out the same even if one replicate it the same.
Obim sounds like igbo... Any chance from Nigeria?
Yeah. Rivers state, Nigeria.
Congrats on the app and thanks for sharing your learnings sharing it on Reddit!
Reddit is amazing tool, as I remember i went viral on chatgpt with my tool. Overall amazing place
That's a good point.
My one subreddit post got 18k+ views.
I wrote about this here https://www.indiehackers.com/post/how-i-got-21k-views-on-reddit-for-my-product-launch-877dc237a3
Thanks