How we gathered thousands of users to our app for free, using Reddit.
Today I wanted to share how my team and I gathered thousands of users to our app braintingle (braintingle.io) with zero spending, all through the magic of Reddit.
As an overview, we basically became very involved in a few targeted subreddit communities, posted popular content that got upvotes, and eventually began adding a link to our app landing page or download page in some of our posts.
Here is the formula that worked for us:
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Find a few target subreddits: Make sure their audiences are people who would be interested in your product! (look for keywords related to your product).
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Go on YouTube and find an informational and insightful video on the topic discussed by the subreddit. We usually went for TED talks, and they almost always worked.
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Open your Reddit post with a hook: “I watched the best video on _______ and wanted to share what I learned with you guys…”
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Summarize the video using bullet points and short sentences. Take time with this part- your post should still be useful and valuable to a person, even if they don’t end up clicking on your product!
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Make sure to include a social validation point somewhere in the post (statistics, a quote by an expert) for credibility.
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Find a way to naturally connect the topic of your post to your product, and add a CTA and link to the product.
Example- if your video mentioned that meditation is crucial for your health, say something like: “If you want to start meditating but don’t know where to start, this free tool that my friends and I may help.”
Depending on the subreddit's rules, you may have to include this portion in the comments. If not, your post may be deleted by admin.
- Thank people for their time.
*** Keep in mind that you should only post promotional content like this in the community occasionally! For every 2 promotional posts, you should also be posting 8 non-promotional posts (rough ratio). The key is to be an active member that offers input and value, not just a spammer.
You can find a successful example of how we used this method here: https://www.reddit.com/r/getdisciplined/comments/ipzwdd/advice_if_becoming_more_disciplined_and_breaking/
Hope this helps!
you did it again also here .. pointer to pointer to your product
(:
haha true. and somehow it got me!
@tingle1295 I get it on reddit you would have "a hook" (short article) followed by the a link to learn more, but at least here on IndieHackers you should start with, first line or title, mention product name and perhaps link. the value and audience you get from IH is likely different than reddit.
indie hacker is 70% maybe 80% marketing platform/channel for the new
maker community and others
don't believe every info you read here
And that's fine, no reason for me to distrust nor believe anything off the bat, I just thought it's a great concept and I want to see what's it all about.
Perhaps more so with my recent experience of accountability buddies. Although I can say for sure you need at least one buddy to start accounting and that buddy is yourself.
@high_byte, thanks for the pointer, I am new for to this platform so am still in the process of learning.
Tingle is a pro!
Haha just to be clear, yes I am aware that this platform is used for promotion and am open to using this community to share my projects, if it would add value to a discussion or group. For this post, I wanted to provide a real life example to give you all a better idea of how to use this tactic.
Trust me, we've done this enough to know that "pointer to pointer" promotions have extremely low conversion rates :)
All good man!
Just remember who invented the term "pointer to pointer promotion"
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Great invention haha. We'd soon be seeing content like 'how to use pointer-to-pointer promotion to get traffic to your website'.
Thank you so much for sharing! There are some good points here. Free promotion is underrated, but when you do it cleverly, you can have amazing results. The challenge is to find content ideas, especially if you're offering something new.
Yes, that's right- no problem! Once you get involved in a community, you'll begin to have a better idea of what kind of content would do well.
That is great advice thanks for sharing
My pleasure.
Can you share screenshot examples?
Thanks for the idea :) Curious if you do any “vote seeding” for your posts (like asking friends to upvote your post once it gets live in order to get some initial traction)?
This is genius, will give this a shot immediately. We're trying to get more visibility on our company as we launch it, we'l take whatever help we can get.
Thanks for posting!
Glad you enjoyed it!
Super nice post! Just one quick question. Can you share an example of a non-promotional post?
Yes, here you go! https://www.reddit.com/r/getdisciplined/comments/iheees/advice_u_of_texas_says_phones_even_when_turned/
Awesome! Thanks for sharing
Thanks for sharing this!
You are welcome :)
Thanks for sharing this post - love how tactical it is :)
My pleasure!
I tried this same strategy but after few hours the mods asked me to delete the link from the post.
I might have to try some other subreddits or communities. Unofrtunately my application is very niche so there's not so many communities out there.
Thanks for the great post.
Hi @AustinShelby, yes it takes quite a bit of time to find subreddits with less strict rules. Also, if your app is niche- another way may be to create your own subreddit community. This takes a lot longer time, but can be an incredible resource for you in the future, since the people there will be there for your content. Best of luck to you!
Thanks for sharing this. I kept having my posts removed from forums XD
Haha yes it's all about trial and error. It's about finding the right communities! You can even send the moderators a message in advance to get approval, though they say no most times. Worth the try though.
What did you do if they said no? Most of my relevant forums were not keen on it but I was also too on the nose. Self promotion is against the rules in the forums I was interested in so does this method create an exception to the rule or would it simply not work in those communities?
For the most part, this tactic doesn't create an exception to the rule, so if the moderators said no, I just looked for other subreddits.
I do occasionally see some people get away with promotional content (especially if a post is in partnership with a well-known organization, or a good cause), so I wouldn't hesitate to ask the moderators!
Thanks for sharing this.
You're welcome~
this post is 120days old
Haha yes, it can be to a lot of people.
Hey thanks for sharing. I'll try this method for my website Bunklist.com
You are welcome! :)
Thank you so much for sharing this @tingle1295! I am thinking of using Reddit for my product ruttl as well. We are on the verge of launching so something like this might help us get bunch of new users as well.
No problem! Hope this works for you. Best of luck on your launch!
Thanks!
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