Promoting On Reddit (or anywhere) By Giving Before Asking

The fundamentals of organic social growth aren't about underlying moderation , audience, or network dynamics, but about human dynamics. You'll always do better when you give before you ask.

In my last post I noted that my poker training app grew from 60 to 90 registered users. A couple weeks alter, it's grown to 250 registered users, still entirely from Reddit. None of this growth is paid. I actually tried a $100 paid campaign and got 0 results. All of my registration comes from just  organic promotion in subreddits.

It’s funny that I've gotten almost all my users from Reddit, since both the subreddits that I've promoted in have explicit rules against promotion.

The indie hacker community typically encourages audience building on Twitter and discourages thinking too much about Reddit.  On Twitter, you accrue followers over time, who have a good chance of seeing your future tweets. On Reddit, every new post starts fresh at 1 upvote in the /new queue, and Reddit users are notoriously hostile to promotion. Despite this, I’ve had far more success promoting on Reddit than Twitter.

There's a simple explanation. It has nothing to do with the underlying social network or any moderation rules.  It has and everything to do with the underlying social dynamics : Give vs Ask.

"Give vs ask" is a term I borrow from the Small Bets community, whose Newsletter Launchpad inspired the creation of this Substack.

Give Vs Ask

Giving is when you provide value to the community. The easiest way to give value is to provide some sort of useful information, such as an insight you've learned or a summary of useful content. Another way to give is to be genuinely entertaining.

Asking is when you ask someone to do something that benefits you, such as clicking a link, buying your product, or even something as simple as retweeting you. 

Breakout hip-hop/country crossover start, Lil Nas X got 320 million streams on his hit single Old Town Road. But how did he emerge from nowhere to becoming one of the biggest music streamers in the world?

It wasn't luck or being at the right place at the right time - he had a deliberate "give before ask" strategy that led to him growing on Twitter. Let's read his interview on amuse.io: 

“I’d post a funny meme and get 2,000 retweets. Then I’d post a song and get 10” - Lil Nas X

This led Lil Nas to stop dropping Soundcloud links and instead use his accumulating meme success as the front line of his marketing plan. He started getting (really) creative and solely writing songs that could easily be promoted through memeable* content.

His "give" was funny memes that entertained his target audience. His "ask" was people listening to his Soundcloud links. He actually had so many problems with the "ask" that he started strategizing ways to incorporate his "asks" into his "gives".

Tying back to my own social media strategy, the reason that my Reddit promotion work is because I regularly use my account to comment on all sorts of threads. I've always been an avid Reddit user so it's natural for me to participate in subreddits that interest me. I also regularly write some of the most highly upvoted posts to the subreddits I promote in. These are my "gives".

If a moderator wanted to ban me for occasionally posting a link to something I was working on (my "asks") , they'd be banning one of the lifebloods of their community for a minor infraction. 

It's not about Twitter vs Reddit. It's about "give vs ask".

I’ve struggled with Twitter because I don’t enjoy using it and don't do enough "giving" before "asking". If you're actively contributing good content to any online community, you'll get a break for self-promotion. If you "drive-by" with self-aggrandizing promotion and don't stick around, of course people don't like it.

This advice is almost certainly relevant to all sorts of other communities such as Facebook groups, Discord groups, Slack communities, and probably even in-person groups and corporate organizations.

Another Reddit Growth Tip

Here’s another big tip for organic Reddit growth

Oftentimes it's far easier to latch onto an already popular thread and get attention where people already are by commenting there, than it is to try to get people to your promotional thread. 

In last week's post, I wrote how I got #1 on the poker subreddit with 50k views and dozens of encouraging comments and only got 1 product signup. Then I made a small reply to a thread and got 20 signups. 

This week I wrote a reply to a reply to a thread and got 60 signups.

In my comment, I argue that anyone can still learn to win at poker if they apply deliberate practice in the same way that violinists, guitarists, and professional Starcraft players improve rather than "just playing". And it just so happens I have a product built to help you "deliberately practice" poker strategy.

Posts are overrated, comments are underrated. It does not matter whether your product is "the star of the show" with its own post. What matters is that your product gets someone's attention.

Charlie Munger and Poker 

In my "9 dimensions of Poker Greatness" post that got 50k views on the poker subreddit, I included "game selection" as a dimension of poker greatness. Game selection just means playing people worse than yourself, which is the least glamorous aspect of poker greatness, but the most important one if you care about actually winning money. I noted this could be re-framed in business as picking the right idea and market.

Louie Bacaj

runs The Newsletter Launchpad and left a comment on my last post relating to Charlie Munger, Warren Buffet's investment partner who recently passed away. While "poker advice and entrepreneurship advice is often the same" is an underlying theme of this newsletter, I was still astonished by how true that seemed when I read this Munger quote that Louie linked me that could be applied to poker verbatim: 

I want to think about things where I have an advantage over other people. I don’t want to play a game where people have an advantage over me. I don’t play in a game where other people are wise and I am stupid. I look for a game where I am wise and they are stupid. And believe me it works better. God bless our stupid competitors. They make us rich.

Going into 2024, it feels every software entrepreneur is trying to build the next great AI app. Poker had a boom in the mid-2000s, and while it’s had slow, sustainable growth since (the 2023 World Series of Poker broke the record for entries previously set in 2006), it’s certainly not as hot as something more directly connected to generative AI.

Ultimately, I want to build in a space where I feel like I have an edge, and I’m more interested in applying new generative AI tools to old domains than competing directly against the geniuses of that field. It was a little reassuring to have my business strategy validated by the thoughts of a leader of Berkshire Hathaway.

Recommendation

Check out this post by

Kunal Modi

Riding the Roller Coaster: My Nine-Month Journey

Deciding Between Returning to a $400k/Year Job and Continuing to Pursue $10k/Month Through My Product Portfolio.

Like me, Kunal is a former FAANG Software Engineer who left high paying corporate tech work to pursue indie entrepreneurship. And like me, his aim isn't the big bucks that big tech pays but a sustainable 10k in monthly revenue. In his post, he talks about what he's tried in the last 9 months, what's worked, what hasn't and what his plan is going forward.

Key Takeaways

• “Give vs Ask” is the concept that to promote on social media, you’re better off giving value to an audience in the form of information or entertainment before asking for things like clicking on a link you’re promoting

• Give vs Ask is applicable to most online communities, even ones that are "against" self-promotion, and perhaps to any community consisting of humans

• On social media such as Reddit, the comment sections of someone else's popular posts can be even more potent sources of growth than your "big" launch posts 

• The late Charlie Munger's business advice can be re-framed as poker advice verbatim