Reddit: How Do You Break Into Big Subs Without Getting Instabanned?

algospider

algospider

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Hi,
so I’m building a platform for a niche audio community (won’t say the niche here, but it’s one of those communities that lives almost entirely on Reddit).
Naturally, the biggest subs in this space get a ton of traffic… and of course that’s where I’d love to promote what I’m building.
The problem? I get banned instantly for anything that remotely looks like marketing.

Posts, comments, even “hey check this out” gets auto-removed. Mods are super strict, which I get, because these subs are all creator-focused and they want to keep things clean... it makes growth nearly impossible.

So what I ended up doing:
  1. I started my own subreddit as a kind of neutral space.
  2. Every day I post some “Daily Highlights” (basically a disguised version of creator rankings, but I keep it anonymous enough not to look like promo).
  3. Then I DM the creators who show up in those highlights just to let them know. Not pitching, just “hey, you popped up today, nice work.” That surprisingly opens a lot of conversations.
But here’s where I am having trouble:
All the real traffic sits in the big subs — and I have no clue how to get visibility there without tripping the self-promo alarms.

Has anyone here actually figured this out? I feel like everyone says “Reddit is gold for niche communities,” but nobody talks about how tough it is if you’re building something for those communities and the subs don’t allow any kind of external links.

Curious if anyone found a way to crack this without burning accounts.
 
Sometimes, thems the breaks. Just because it exists doesn't mean it's exploitable. Take this forum for example. No spam or self-promo, ever, unless through official channels.

With that in mind, have you checked what it would cost to advertise your platform directly in these subreddits? And maybe its even cheaper if you promote your subreddit itself.

It sounds like they may be watching a feed of comments and threads, otherwise you could go into old threads that haven't been auto-closed for new comments, and drop comments in those. I enter Reddit through old threads all the time through Google, and I often search through old threads on Reddit itself. You could plant seeds this way, especially by using Google to first see which threads are ranking there.
 
@Ryuzaki thank you for your awesome answer!

Do you just Check Rankings or do you use any Tool to sort out Posts?
 
algospider said:
@Ryuzaki thank you for your awesome answer!

Do you just Check Rankings or do you use any Tool to sort out Posts?
Click to expand...
You could automate some of the process but I wouldn't automate the posting. I'd do that manually.

For finding threads you could the basic "site:reddit.com" or even tag on specific sub-reddits, and do all this manually, or you could probably fire up something like Scrapebox to grab the top 20 for a ton of keywords and then de-dupe the list. You could then write some script to go through and find which threads say "comments are closed" or whatever phrasing they use, and get rid of those too. This would get you a list of open threads to deal with.

Scrapebox might be able to do this part, though I'm not sure. I know it has the means to find text on the page, especially specific anchor texts. Not sure if you can get it to do text-only without an <a> tag wrapped around it. I actually just searched it and apparently there's a "Page Scanner Addon" that has "PageMustContain" or "DoStepIf". So you can definitely target specific footprints and then categorize them to filter them out.
 
hey OP... did you get any traction from Reddit ADs...?

Was it expensive ... ?
 
I tried some paid ads there. wasn't worth it.

The problem for me was reddit does not allow targeting per thread/post and CPC in my niche is quite high to justify the roi.

but curious if anyone tried reddit ads and how they went.

I'm trying to dig in other forums too and not depend on reddit for social leads.
 
I think the safest approach is to build credibility before promoting anything. Be genuinely active in the big subs, contribute useful content, and follow each sub’s self-promotion rules. If links aren’t allowed, don’t try to work around the rules with disguised promotion. You can also ask the mods if they have any approved way for creators or tools to share their projects. It may take longer, but it’s much safer than risking bans.
 
The problem I found with Reddit traffic is they are a bunch of know it alls who will try to be witty and make puns all the time. In order to succeed on Reddit, you must blend into their way of life. Think about who these people are, what they like/dislike.

They drink Pabst blue ribbon, wear flannels and listen to Mumford sons in their garage while working on art projects. In order to succeed there you need to fit that group and deny all other groups they oppose. This is where a subtle troll can really succeed on reddit. Try something like

"My partner and I were at an LGBTQ rally (I know.. I KNOWW! I said wouldn't get political last weekend but that second steel reserve got me in a hussie) and there was this rep cap wearing Good Ole Boy politely talking about Peter Theil's Gegorian philosiphy and the coming of the antichrist. Of course I didn't have time for this bc I need to wake up tomorrow and buy my second used toyota hybrid on fb marketplace (yay me!) so I walked right over and socked him in his mouth! He didn't get up of course and I got away clean. I don't typically advocate or engage in political discourse but I know someone here feels me. Rant over.

TLDR was having a peacful protest and some trumper punk got caught with a see ya later yesterday after I had one too many steelies"

Check out CCarter's thread on Ragebait trolling. If done correctly you can slip in what you need and get a lot of traffic in the process on reddit bc those guys cannot help themselves in a big way
 
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Joe Wee said:
Try something like

"My partner and I were at an LGBTQ rally (I know.. I KNOWW! I said wouldn't get political last weekend but that second steel reserve got me in a hussie) and there was this rep cap wearing Good Ole Boy politely talking about Peter Theil's Gegorian philosiphy and the coming of the antichrist. Of course I didn't have time for this bc I need to wake up tomorrow and buy my second used toyota hybrid on fb marketplace (yay me!) so I walked right over and socked him in his mouth! He didn't get up of course and I got away clean. I don't typically advocate or engage in political discourse but I know someone here feels me. Rant over.

TLDR was having a peacful protest and some trumper punk got caught with a see ya later yesterday after I had one too many steelies"
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this is great.
but what is the purpose of a post like this.... just to build up your account and gain trust? I dont see how this would send traffic
 
You can work links in there doing similar stuff. I emboldened the kw I would use but you might serve it a little better as if you were giving a review or something like that after gaining trust. If you can get past the auto mods you can 100% use this sort of thing to post links
 
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