How to write a marketing post on Reddit

Now that you have found a subreddit to find your users in, it’s time to start marketing!

Let’s talk about the simplest way to do it, creating posts.

Posts must be structured correctly so Reddit users don’t see it as spam or a sales pitch.

They can see sales posts from a mile away, so the main point I’m driving home here is to create value for the readers on Reddit.

But remember to always read the sidebar/rules before you even start writing.

This is part of a series about how to market on Reddit:

Part 1: how to find your users on Reddit

Part 2: How to write a marketing post on Reddit

Part 3: How to market your product in the Reddit comments

Part 4: How to convert engaged Reddit users to customers

Estimated reading time: 2 min 30 sec

Background

Hey I’m Miguel!

I'm a new grad software engineer living in NYC and a part-time indie hacker. I built Journey Plus, an interface for Midjourney, that was recently acquired!

I used to be a pre-med student, but then I switched to computer science in the spring of 2021, my sophomore year. That's how I got started writing code.

I started with C++, and now I'm mainly building web apps with Next.js, TypeScript, and Supabase.

Write a great title

This advice applies to all forms of text-based social media.

You should put 90% of your effort into writing a good title that catches people’s attention.

If people don’t understand or aren’t intrigued by your title, they won’t even bother reading it.

You can experiment with a friend:

1. Write 5 different titles

2. Show them to your friend

3. Ask them which one they would want to click on the most

Give lots of value in the post

Good posts on Reddit read a lot like blog posts, long-form and value-packed.

Here is a good example of one.

You can see how the original poster frames the content by showing what worked for him, what didn’t work for him, and what he learned.

I also do the same here in the post I made for Journey Plus.

This post got me around 500 users to our landing page, but none converted since I didn’t pick the right subreddit at the time.

The goal here is to write something that you as a reader would organically share with others or bookmark.

Those types of posts perform well across platforms in general.

Great formatting is important

No one wants to read a wall of text. It’s overwhelming and frustrating to do so.

I focus heavily on good formatting in my own content:

• 1-2 max lines per paragraph

• Lots of spacing via new lines

• Hierarchy formatting using headers and bullet lists

You want your content to be easily scanned so readers can cherry-pick the knowledge they want from the post.

I always use multiple text elements (headers, italics, bold, etc.) to keep the content visually interesting.

Cross-posting

This can be quite tricky, not all subreddits allow cross-posting so I would read the sidebar of that subreddit before trying to do so.

You can always contact that subreddit's mods to get their approval for the crosspost.

Always be cross-posting to other relevant subreddits for your content.

Engage with the comments

If your post starts to get traction, you will naturally get comments.

Engage and have deep thoughtful conversations with other Redditors in the comments, and keep adding more value.

Doing this will help get your post more reach and show other Redditors that the thread is active.