Getting users from Reddit
Hi, I'm doing a project called www.BuyLocalized.com, we are a browser extension that shows made in the USA items on Amazon.
I'm looking for some feedback here, I'm a very regular redditor, but I've never tried to promote anything on there. Even though this project was really conceived over conversations and what I viewed as demand on Reddit, I've bombed really hard when I post there. I've tried a few different things, it just generates almost no traffic though, even though I seem like a great solution to the posts I respond to.
A few days ago someone made a big post about changing regulations so that Amazon had to disclose the country of origin for all their products. Woohoo! I thought, this is exactly what we are doing. They crossposted it to numerous subreddits, I commented in each talking about our project. In total even though combined the original submissions got thousands of upvotes, I don't think my posts got more than 20 website visits. I'm solving the exact problem that the posts are about, and I can only get 20 visits! So I'm hoping that you guys could tell me how I should have approached those posts, and maybe you have some suggestions on a way I could have gotten people more engaged.
You can see one of the posts here, and my response farther down the page (u/buylocalized). Here's an example where I got a bit of action.
Reddit is tricky. I have had some success on reddit in very niche communities for a music product. It could be a couple things in my mind.
There is tons of text on that page, lots of comments. I would read the post, scroll down get overwhelmed by the comments and leave. That shit is overwhelming. Your comment is kind of buried.
You're not explaining your offer clearly enough and succinctly enough. People want to read 1 or 2 sentences, if theyre still interested they'll ask to check out your company.
Users want Amazon specifically to make a change, not an individual. It might not be about individuals supporting the USA but more about Amazon showing that they support the USA.
People like the idea in theory but not in practice.
My take on it. Good luck.
In the few days since I've been thinking quite a bit more on this, and it touches on some of your points, particularly #4.
Ya that's just how reddit is though, ideally it's interested people who open and read the comments, and they are passionate and so willing to read a lot.
Ya it very well could be. There are multiple ways I can talk about the problem we are trying to solve, and it's morphed a bit since we started. Initially I described it as a tool to help you buy conscientiously, but explained my motivation for starting was unhappiness with China. Well since then it's gone US centric, to start with, and people are super pissed off with China. Adding some content talking about how it helps people stop supporting China has been working out well, and I will be adding more on that direction.
Ya sure it's aimed at the US gov, I still fix the problem though.
Reddit is really unhappy with the idea of an Extension. There are a lot of privacy concerns with an Extension. I've had multiple requests to make a website where people can search. The thing is I think it will be very expensive to make one that works well, and I'm extremely skeptical if people would use a website that wasn't really great. So even though they say they would visit a website that did the same thing, I don't believe them.
I once had a lot of success with a very manual process.
I looked for threads where they were discussing something related.
Then I wrote a private message to everyone who commented on the thread, something like "I saw what you wrote on the thread and thought you might like to check out this" with a link to the thread and my site.
This got me over 10% conversion with some very useful feedback.
Hope this helps,
Jonathan
I was reading that it's better to comment on a post than to message, because Reddit has a much quicker trigger finger on people who promote through PM's. I've been doing a very manual posting strategy, and it's worked for other channels. On Reddit though it has not.
Hey,
I just double-checked my list and sent about 160 users this PM and didn't get banned, even got some really nice feedback and cooperation :)
If you'd like to discuss this a bit more, I'm doing free 30-min consults now to community members: https://calendly.com/jonathanoron
Feel free to book me :)
Cheers,
Jonathan
Hi Jonathan, what is your service? Your website does look interesting, but I was wondering what the focus of your consulting is.
This is for a venture I was working on and shut down recently :(
Consulting pays the bills for the builds ;-)
Can be multiple reasons though ...