I'm Begging You, Stop 'Marketing' on Reddit
I see it every single week. A well-meaning founder or marketer discovers a subreddit full of their ideal customers. Their eyes light up. They write the perfect post announcing their life-changing product, hit "submit," and wait for the magic to happen.
Instead, they get buried in downvotes. Accused of being a "corporate shill." Maybe even banned.
Then they complain that "Reddit just doesn't work for marketing."
Here's a thought: maybe the problem isn't Reddit. Maybe the problem is your marketing.
The Problem with Your "Reddit Strategy"
Most advice on this topic treats Reddit like any other channel. A place to drop links, run campaigns, and "acquire users." It's no wonder that every post sounds like it was spat out by a PR intern who just discovered the word "synergy."
The real issue isn't that Redditors hate products—it's that they can smell a sales pitch from a different solar system. And when your "authentic story" is just a thinly veiled ad, people don't just ignore it. They actively punish you for it.
I saw a perfect example of this recently. A marketer for a fintech company was trying to reach migrants with a genuinely useful service. Noble cause. Huge audience. They jumped into some relevant communities to "promote" it.
Their result? Utter frustration. They couldn't build trust. They couldn't get traction. They were an organ transplant being rejected by the body. They were doing it all wrong.
What Actually Works: Three Steps That Don't Involve Selling Anything
Forget your content calendar and your campaign briefs. The path to winning on Reddit is about being a person first and a marketer second (or maybe seventh).
1. Shut Up and Listen
Before you even think about posting, you need to lurk. Seriously. Your first week—maybe your first month—should be spent reading.
Find the subreddits where your people hang out. And I don't just mean r/YourIndustry. Think about the problems they have. For that fintech company, it's not just r/digitalbanking. It's:
r/IWantOut(people planning to move)r/ExpatFinance(people dealing with cross-border money issues)r/PovertyFinance(people struggling with financial instability)
Read the top posts. Read the daily threads. Learn the in-jokes. Figure out what makes people angry and what makes them feel understood. You can't fake being part of the group.
The key: Your goal isn't to find a place to post your link. It's to understand the culture.
2. Be Genuinely Helpful
Once you understand the room, start commenting. But here's the rule: for the next 30 days, you are not allowed to mention your product. Not once.
Your only job is to be the most useful person in the thread.
See a question you can answer? Answer it in detail. See someone sharing bad advice? Politely correct them with better information. See a conversation about a problem you have deep expertise in? Share your insights.
People will start to notice. Your username will become associated with "that person who actually knows what they're talking about." This isn't marketing. This is building a reputation, one helpful comment at a time.
The key: Give away your knowledge for free, with no expectation of a return.
3. Make the "Soft Pitch" (Only When It's Actually Helpful)
After weeks of being a useful member of the community, you'll finally earn the right to mention what you do. This only works when someone posts a problem that your product is the perfect solution for.
But you still don't sell.
Bad Pitch:
"Hey, our app solves this! Check it out here: [link]"
This is lazy and immediately breaks the trust you've built.
Good "Soft Pitch":
"Ugh, that's a tough situation. The documentation requirements from traditional banks can be a nightmare for expats. It's actually the exact problem my team and I were trying to solve when we built our platform. We focused on letting people use alternative forms of ID. Might be relevant if you're still stuck."
Notice the difference? It's empathetic. It tells a tiny story. It offers the product as a potential solution, not a demand. Sometimes, you don't even need to drop a link. If they're interested, they'll find you.
The key: It’s not a pitch. It’s a helpful suggestion from someone they’ve learned to trust.
What This Actually Looks Like
Let's go back to that fintech marketer.
Instead of posting "Use our app!", they should have spent a month in r/ExpatFinance answering questions about transfer fees and currency devaluation. Then, when someone posts, "I'm moving to Germany and my bank is making it impossible to open an account," they can slide in with the "soft pitch."
The result isn't a firehose of low-quality clicks. It's a handful of high-intent users who feel like they've just been handed a lifeline by a trusted expert.
The Real Rules of Reddit
Forget the growth hacks. Here's what actually matters.
Read the room. Every subreddit is a different country. Learn the language before you try to speak.
Be a human. Share your own frustrations. Admit when you don't know something. Talk like you would to a friend.
Make your profile your landing page. When people click on your name after reading a helpful comment, your bio should make it clear what you do. No sales pitch, just a simple description.
Accept that you'll screw up. You'll say the wrong thing. You might even get a post deleted. That's the price of admission. Learn from it and move on.
The Long Game
This isn't a strategy for hitting your quarterly numbers. This is a strategy for building a brand that people actually like and trust. It takes months, not days.
The payoff is that when someone in your target market has a problem, you're the first person they think of. They don't see you as a brand; they see you as that helpful person from Reddit who happens to be building something cool.
And that's a connection you can't buy with ad spend. It's something you have to earn.