How do you deal with self-promotion hate?

This kind of drives me nuts. Yeah nobody wants to go to a Reddit forum and it's a series of endless text ads but where is the harm in saying, just once, hey I made this and it's in your wheelhouse, take a look I built it for the benefit of this subreddit and their interests. How is that a just cause to get you booted? Meanwhile, someone else sees your thing and says "Hey I saw this new thing, check it out" and that's no problem. If you were to ask the members of some subreddit if they think they are really tuned in and maybe early adopters, semi experts, etc. they would all say yes because WTH they are spending time gathered together with their like-minded pals to share and help and learn right? They discuss apps and products a high percentage of the time so why is it taboo to announce something new....

Posting on a self-promoting-friendly platform doesn't bring any attention to your project either since everyone on there'd be focusing on spamming rather than reading your ads anyways. You can try on Openland, it's a self-promoting friendly community for entrepreneurs and you'll understand what I mean.

Even if you are providing value, self-promotion should be done so very sparingly.

If you think about it, if you don't provide any value, it's legit spam. So, anyone who recognizes that is going to cloak their self-promotion in some other somewhat helpful content.

You have to ask yourself this -- Is your sole purpose for responding to a discussion to find a way to pitch your product in some way? If so, it's spam. So, if you get a little hate, then you just have to deal with it.

IH is a lot more liberal about self-promotion, so it's not the best community to use as an example. Most communities hate self-promotional posts.

As for ways around it:

• If you are trying to plug your products, then you should plug other comparable/competitor products first, and list yours last
• Never link to your website -- people can Google you
• For every 1 time you plug your product (thoughtfully), make sure you are contributing 5-10 replies on that community when you are not plugging your products at all. When people look at your community activity, if they see that you are contributing more than you are being self-promotional, they may be more forgiving
• Find others on the community who are interested in your product/service category, give them free versions of your stuff, and ask for their support in the community by mentioning your products from time to time, when/where applicable. Have them become your ambassador.