Posting on reddit
Over the years, we've hacked together several products, and to check if anyone cares, we released them for free on reddit.
In this post we'll be sharing the statistics from each released product, and a summary of all our learnings.
Interesting Statistics
- 51.3% of our traffic was mobile *
- Performance for different media types:
- Video (41 upvotes/sub)
- Website (45 upvotes/sub)**
- Youtube Link (3 upvotes/sub)
- Text (1 upvote/sub)
* 51.3% is for all website visits, I suspect reddit users are even more likely to be mobile users
** While the website got more upvotes per sub, we only posted a website link once so results may not be accurate
Statistics
| Post | Upvotes/Sub | Upvotes | Comments | Views | Type | No. Subs Posted in |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Figma to Code | 65 | 783 | 42 | Video | 12 | |
| Automatic best practices in figma | 56 | 112 | 14 | Video | 2 | |
| Figma to Tailwind | 46 | 319 | 49 | Video | 7 | |
| No Code Web App Builder with export to tech stack | 45 | 90 | 15 | Website Link | 2 | |
| FJ Sync (Before building) | 33 | 132 | 15 | Video | 4 | |
| FJ Sync (After building) | 33 | 65 | 22 | Video | 2 | |
| Generate portfolio website | 17 | 100 | 21 | Video | 6 | |
| ezbackend | 3 | 16 | 4 | Youtube Link | 6 | |
| Tweak (2nd Round) (Removed login and forms) | 2 | 3 | 25 | 5195 | Text | 2 |
| Tweak (1st Round) | 1 | 2 | 7 | 938 | Text | 2 |
| ContenX | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1241 | Text | 2 |
Post content and descriptions
See more
| Post | Title | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Figma to Code | I made a Figma to React+TS converter focused on human-readable code, responsiveness and pixel perfection [TOOL] | https://packaged-media.redd.it/774przpba4r81/pb/m2-res_480p.mp4?m=DASHPlaylist.mpd&v=1&e=1694516400&s=8f43d9ddd9a8ca5e075af49639a9ba17f66f9387#t=0 |
| Automatic best practices in figma | Automatically Enforcing Best Practices in Figma | https://www.reddit.com/r/FigmaDesign/comments/w2tkqx/automatically_enforcing_best_practices_in_figma/ |
| Figma to Tailwind | I’m making a Figma to Tailwind converter focused on human readable code, responsiveness and pixel perfection | https://packaged-media.redd.it/r3cuf8psmf191/pb/m2-res_480p.mp4?m=DASHPlaylist.mpd&v=1&e=1694516400&s=ae2f7b10aa91a9a54cf6df589cd036e321e89671#t=0 |
| No Code Web App Builder with export to tech stack | Hey everyone! I'm making a No-Code WebApp Builder with Code-Exports to your tech stack of choice | www.firejet.io |
| FJ Sync (Before building) | I’m making a Design Tool that allows designers to directly update your code with a Figma-like UI | https://packaged-media.redd.it/l3jjpsyp3kw91/pb/m2-res_480p.mp4?m=DASHPlaylist.mpd&v=1&e=1694516400&s=fda7b6e7b4420e0ad6380cc0c59feb5a9213cc07#t=0 |
| FJ Sync (After building) | My friend and I spent the last 4 months building a figma alternative that exports to React + Tailwindcss | https://packaged-media.redd.it/fb33pexb0ria1/pb/m2-res_480p.mp4?m=DASHPlaylist.mpd&v=1&e=1694516400&s=8de4bafd0dc637150e7539f2cdb84dbec6b37646#t=0 |
| Generate portfolio website | [TOOL] I’m making a Figma to TailwindCSS converter, and I generated my portfolio website with it | https://packaged-media.redd.it/33u9vk9n27691/pb/m2-res_480p.mp4?m=DASHPlaylist.mpd&v=1&e=1694520000&s=d020a178140a2a26401a017a99fb4762b14755f9#t=0 |
| ezbackend | EzBackend - How to build a backend in 4 mins | https://youtube.com/watch?v=kQRRckdEFr8&feature=share |
| Tweak (2nd Round) (Removed login and forms) | What's wrong with my app? | Hey everyone, I launched my app here a while back to try get feedback, but I didnt really manage to get any feedback Ive removed all forms and logins, so it goes straight to the app's main page Any feedback would be appreciated! Thank you https://tweak.firejet.io/session |
| Tweak (1st Round) | Looking for feedback on no-code editor for coded sites | Hey everyone, my name is Philip. My friend and I have been working on a no code editor that can: Edit coded websites (For now react + tailwind) Update website copy Make small design changes, like colors Submit a pull request to developers based on the changes made Its currently completely free, and we’re hoping that it will be able to save you time and effort on back and forths with your developers. If you have any feedback, it will be really valuable to us. Thanks! https://www.firejet.io/tweak-get-started |
| ContenX | Roast my Side Project | Hey everyone, I made a free tool (No login required) that helps convert your content to match the writing styles required for various social media platforms like LinkedIn and Twitter For example if you already post on reddit, you can repurpose your content for other social media platforms Any feedback, good or bad will be appreciated! Thank you www.contenx.io |
Best practices
Use videos when getting feedback
Comparing the posts that included videos versus those that didnt, those with videos on average had more than 30 upvotes/sub each, whereas those without videos got less than 5 upvotes/sub
What we consider when making our videos:
- Text large enough to view on mobile
- Short ( < 2min )
- Include subtitles
Make sure your post is mobile friendly
Our ContenX analytics show the following results
| Device | Percentage | Total |
|---|---|---|
| Mobile | 51.3% | 121 |
| Desktop | 48.3% | 114 |
| Tablet | 0.4% | 1 |
Both your introduction video and product should work on mobile - otherwise, you're losing half your audience
Remove logins and only get feedback for free products
Self advertising is a huge turnoff for redditors.
I believe that reddit as a platform should be used to test if people want your product, and not selling. If you want to get people's feedback, make it as accessible to everyone as possible.
Don't link to youtube, post direct video on reddit
The time it takes for youtube to load, (especially on mobile), followed by any ads that your users may watch will cause significant churn in your funnel.
Don't use promotional language
Imagine reading the following post on reddit:
Introducing ezpets: Bridging Pet Owners with Wholesale Accessory and Food Sellers!
Hey Redditors! 🐾 We're thrilled to unveil ezpets - a two-sided marketplace designed to connect passionate pet owners directly with top-notch wholesale sellers for pet accessories and food. Why pay retail when you can access quality products at wholesale prices? Dive in, discover, and let your furry friends enjoy the best without breaking the bank. Your feedback is invaluable to us. Check us out!
The promotional - sounding language in the above post is highly likely to get readers turned off and get you outright banned from several subreddits.
Here are some improvements I can think of:
- Shorten 'Introducing ezpets' to 'ezpets'
- Remove the emoji
- Remove words like 'thrilled' and 'unveil'
- Remove exclamation marks
- Rephrase the 'Why pay retail when you can...' with a more factual statement instead of trying to be attention grabbing
The easiest way to understand the mindset of redditors is to use reddit yourself - and try to imagine how you would feel coming across your own post in the wild
Make something people want
Quite frankly, if you've made something people want, it will always be upvoted regardless of how poor your phrasing is.
For example figma to code tools - everyone loves them and there's been at least 5 seperate launches of figma to code tools on product hunt and all 5 of them were product of the day
Celebrate personal wins as part of the community
If you've put in alot of effort into your product, don't be afraid to show it.
For example, if you've spent 4 months building something, you can make a post like
"I've spent the past 4 months building XXX"
If you're building something technical, don't be afraid to share the technical infrastructure, and if you've had some traction, share that too - posts with more details and sharing of knowledge tend to be upvoted more
Our biggest mistakes
Posting the wrong link
Our ContenX post did particularly poorly because... we posted the wrong link like the fools we are. (www.contentx.io instead of www.contenx.io)
We only found out 2 days later, when we got our first comment saying:
"Why does your link say please purchase the domain"?
Posting the wrong video
For some reason our posts on building my portfolio website with our figma-to-code tool did reasonably well, but all the attached videos were accidentally cropped to be 2 seconds long.
If the videos were not cropped, they would probably be able to do alot better
Track click through
You need to know exactly how each post is performing and be able to compare them - by using a different tracking link for each platform you post on, you can see how your posts performs
Conclusion
Alot of people find their first users on reddit - see this video. When posting on reddit you must really ensure that your phrasing is not overly dramatic and salesy, and make sure you provide value to the community - otherwise you'll be downvoted and most likely banned.
All the best!