I hear Reddit is a good resource for writers...is this so?

One of my contacts asked me today whether I had considered Reddit as a resource to publicise articles and reviews. She is a freelance translator, so I can see where web-based promotion would fit with her business.

Does it work for article links as well? I have a heap that could go up there if so, but I know nothing of how it works nor the site's attitude to blogs, marketing reviews and even evergreen articles.

Can anyone else chip in with their experiences?

I've never figured out Reddit. I'd like to know if it works as well. Hopefully someone knows

I'm active on Reddit.  Reddit can be a great place to share work--sparingly--if you're active in any subreddits there.  Reddit revolves around subreddits and generally, the best way to share on the site is to find (and be active in) the most relevant subreddit for whatever you're sharing.

Reddit frowns on spamming.  If you are not active on the site, or even if you are but you're not active in a subreddit, and you repeatedly post your own articles or work there, you will typically be labelled as a spammer, which can result in mass downvotes, deletion of your items, and in some cases, bans from subreddits.

On the other hand, if you're active and respected in a subreddit, you share work from a diversity of sources, then periodically sharing best examples of your own work that is most relevant to the communities you share in, can be a tremendous way of getting traffic.  I've gotten thousands of visits from items I shared in this manner.  But again, I share sparingly, and this is only my best work.  It's also unpredictable--I've had stuff I expected to blow up big, get downvoted into oblivion, so it can be surprising what does well. 

Maybe I could make a guide about what I've learned about reddit, and share it here.

cazort: 12/29/2014 - 11:18 AM

 

Maybe I could make a guide about what I've learned about reddit, and share it here.

Sounds like it could be a good idea, cazort. I guess reddit works like many sharing social media sites, you give shares, and you shall receive shares in turn.

Happy to read your article once it's up. As with many other articles I've read here, I will likely read and learn, and as knowledge is never wasted, come to form an opinion based on your input, as well as others' feedback.

WordChazer: 12/30/2014 - 02:41 PM

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Sounds like it could be a good idea, cazort. I guess reddit works like many sharing social media sites, you give shares, and you shall receive shares in turn.

Hmm, this may be a misunderstanding of what I said.

I actually think Reddit does not work this way.  I think it is a place where the quality of the post, and specifically, the relevance of it to the subreddit in which you share it, is more important than anything else.

I also think that being active in a subreddit, and sharing other people's works, are two different things.

If you do nothing but share your own posts, you will probably be labelled a spammer.  But if you show up and share a single item, and it's your own item, and it's an excellent match for the subreddit you post in, and people eat it up, you can get a ton of traffic!

I think reddit is a site where refraining from sharing low-quality work, or posts that are a less-than-ideal match to the communities you're sharing in, is really important.  Contrast this with twitter where you can dump a bunch of stuff without much negative consequence.  Even FB and Google+ are more like this.

I also think that, because the up/down votes are anonymous, reddit is a place where there is a lot less "tit for tat", and a lot less networking / relationship building.  It's more about the popular sentiment towards each individual item (and towards each individual user).  Sharing individual users' items may please those users, but on reddit, that has little effect on how the subreddit community feels about you...what matters is whether you're sharing items that the users like.

I need that article, I think.

I'm far from convinced that I have the time to be involved in something that sounds so complicated. I found that with StumbleUpon, where I never had the time to read anyone else's work because I was too busy posting links to my own. And in any case SU banned links from revshare sites a long time ago which was useless to me as at the time I was writing exclusively on revshare platforms.

At least with Twitter you will get people to come and read links so long as you don't spam them out with all links and no other interaction.

Yay! A fellow Redditor!  :)   I'll just add a huge +1 to everything that Cazort said.  Paul also wrote a Reddit guide for Wizzley writers.