How to properly market on Reddit (and get over a million views)

6 min readMay 4, 2022

I’m going to be outlining the various methods I used in marketing my board game on Reddit. Obviously your mileage may vary.

This method takes a LOT of time.
However, if done correctly, you can get millions of views on your page.

If you want an immediate solution to “how can I get the most traffic to my page in the least amount of time” then this is not the article for you. May I suggest buying some advertisements?

Here are some of my posts that got to their respective top pages on Reddit.

Quit my corporate job… (/r/getmotivated, 20k upvotes)
/r/ama post 1 (11.9k upvotes)
/r/ama post 2 (2.4k upvotes)
i treated my girlfriend to a nice dinner… (/r/entrepreneur, 1.1k upvotes)
PSA about cats…(/r/cats, 2.9k upvotes)
My loft bed (/r/DIY, 1.7k upvotes)

My most upvoted post of all time. A picture of me holding a newspaper that I was featured in.

Over 1.5 million views on the above image.

1. Use your personal Reddit account.

Reddit hates self-promotion with a passion.

If they catch even the tiniest whiff that you are only posting to promote your product/game/service/whatever, then you will be downvoted into oblivion.

“It’s perfectly fine to be a Redditor with a website, it’s not okay to be a website with a Reddit account.”

So when naming your Reddit account, try not to use anything that might tie into your company / game / product. Even better if you use Reddit personally and have a completely unrelated username.

Log into this account on your phone as well so you can use that as your main account when endlessly browsing through Reddit on the toilet.

Learn from my mistake and use a different username.

Make sure to put your name on your user profile so people can see that you are a real person and not a /r/hailcorporate account. Write a short blurb about your background.

2. Pin your most popular / relevant posts to your profile.

Do not link to your website on your profile. Some subreddits have rules against that. Instead, try some of the following types of posts:

A post that people can read to get to know about you / your background.
Your most popular post / any related posts.
A post about something that you’re working on. (Not a direct link to your website / game)

Don’t do any direct self promoting here. Don’t link to a website, a sales page, a landing page, buy-now page, etc.

3. Join all subreddits that are related to your personal interests. Become a member of the community.

Playing a video game? Join the subreddit.
Live in a popular city? Join their subreddit.
Love to cook? Join relevant cooking subreddits.
Watching a popular Netflix show? Join👏 the👏 subreddit👏

Some subreddits are mostly image based, while others are text based. Try to keep them varied. Browse the subreddits in your downtime and comment whenever possible (this part is easy if you’re a Reddit addict like me).

Even if you normally just lurk, you should try to build the habit of commenting on posts that are relevant to you. Be helpful. Be kind. Offer advice or encouragement.

4. Use your free awards. They are free and unlimited.

See something funny? Inspirational? Sad? Give the post or comment your free award. You get a new one every so often and they are free, so go out there and spread some joy.

5. Read the subreddit rules. VERY IMPORTANT.

Some subreddits have stricter guidelines on what is acceptable to post and what isn’t. You have to read it carefully before posting.

You don’t want your stuff getting deleted.

Once you get on the bad side of a Reddit moderator, chances are you will never recover from that.

6. Post to the communities you’ve followed.

Post as much as possible. Create a bank of content you can post at any time without thinking. Start taking photos of your every day life. Take photos of the food you eat, the museums you visit, the shows you watch.

It’s extremely important that when a random person navigates to your post history that you look like a regular person, NOT a company account.

Start posting to relevant subreddits. Reply to every single comment. Show that you care and engage with whoever messages you.

I have a folder dedicated to images or ideas of what I can post at any given time.

It doesn’t matter how many upvotes you get or how many people comment. It also doesn’t matter that your posts get deleted by moderators. Just keep posting relevant content to relevant subreddits.

Official rules regarding self-promotion.

Example ideas:

Post pictures of your cat to /r/cats. (or dog to /r/dogs)
Post a short review of your recent board game session with friends to /r/boardgames. Add some nice pictures.
Ask a question you’ve been pondering about to /r/nostupidquestions.
Post a picture of what you ate at that hip restaurant on /r/food.
Talk about your day in /r/casualconversation.

7. Carefully plan your promotional content.

Once you have an idea for a promotional post for your game / product. Decide on what subreddit you will be posting it on.

Make sure that it’s relevant to the subreddit
Doesn’t break any posting rules
Is easily digestible at a glance

Use the website LaterForReddit.com to figure out when is the best time to post to that subreddit.

Use any of the below websites to schedule your post at that time.

8. Reply to every single comment.

Once you post, there will be some comments on your content. Try to answer as many questions as you can. Be kind and offer help or advice. They took the time to write a comment, so return the favor by writing a response.

This is the exact type of comment we are trying to avoid.

You will inevitably get people calling you out for marketing or promoting your content. Make sure to kill these comments with kindness. Do not get annoyed. Think about it from their perspective, don’t you hate getting subtly advertised to?

But if you put in the effort to provide value to the communities or subreddits that you are a part of, then you will find that these types of comments will naturally go away.

And that’s it!

Hopefully this article has been helpful to you. I know that it’s a lot of work, but you can definitely get a ton of benefits from this type of marketing. It’s not so bad once you develop a habit of posting / commenting. Especially if you’re already addicted to Reddit like I am.

UPDATE (June 2, 2022) — I wrote a follow-up article on what to do when your post starts trending

UPDATE (June 3, 2022)—I wrote another follow-up article on what NOT to do.

Thanks for reading! Want more tips?

This article is part of a series of marketing tips that I wrote. If it helped you in any way, please let me know in the comments or by email at 1min@unicornwithwings.com! So many people have helped me on my journey and I’d love to pay it forward. No strings attached at all.