How to Submit a Post
To submit a post, navigate to the subreddit where you want to submit a post. Look at the top of the right sidebar, and you will see a button: “Submit a new text post.” Note that in some subreddits, the button text will be customized.
Click the appropriate button to access the submission form. If you are submitting a link, you simply need to paste the URL field link and add a title. If you are submitting a text post, you need to add a title and body. Your body text may contain links to external websites (see the subsequent section titled “Formatting comments and posts”).
Click submit, and your post will be posted to the subreddit. You can also schedule Reddit posts as well. You can confirm your submission by viewing the “new” tab in the subreddit and finding your post. If you do not see your post in the “new” tab immediately after you submitted it, that means it was caught in the spam filter.
A moderator should eventually approve your post (assuming it actually is not spam), but you can speed up the process by messaging the moderators about your post.
Find the “message the moderators” link in the sidebar of the subreddit and send them a message that includes the link to the post (go to your user page to find the post:https://reddit.com/user/your_username) and a note that you believe your post was caught in the spam filter. Remember to thank them for their time.
Sharing a blog post
Check the rules in your subreddit before sharing a blog post. Most subreddits allow links to high quality and relevant blog posts. Some subreddits have special rules, like your Reddit post’s title must match the title of the blog post.
Other subreddits prohibit direct links to blog posts and require you to share as a text post with the full text or a summary of the blog post included in the Reddit post’s body.
When you are ready to share one of your own blog posts on Reddit, do not link directly to the blog post, even if it is allowed by the rules. Instead, paste the full text of your blog post with a “source” link at the end of the post. Redditors will appreciate the post being shared as a text post and will be more likely to upvote it.
Sharing an image or video
When sharing an image or video, link directly to the media instead of a website that has the media embedded. For example, do not share a link to a YouTube video that is embedded on a website. Instead, share the direct link to the video on YouTube.com.
All images shared on Reddit should be uploaded to imgur.com or Reddit’s native image hosting service.
Imgur is free, easy to use, and you do not need an account to upload an image. Most importantly, Imgur is used by Redditors because it has the ability to handle large amounts of traffic that Reddit generates. If you want to control your images on Imgur, you should create an account so you can delete an image in the future if necessary.
Formatting comments and posts
When submitting a comment or post, you can use “markdown” to format your content. The two ways you are most likely to use markdown are to make text bold or create a link.
Bold text
Make text bold by wrapping it in double asterisks (**), like this: **This text, will be bold on Reddit**. Or you can just choose the option to bold text in the post editor.
Link text to a URL
Use this format to link text to a URL: [The link text goes here](http://example.com) With markdown, you can also make text italic, create bulleted or numbered lists, and more (see Appendix: Reddit formatting basics).
Additional Submission Tips
Before you submit your first post to Reddit, here are a few tips to keep in mind.
Do not start with a promotional post
We know you want to promote your website or blog post or some other piece of content that is related to your brand but take it slow. By promoting yourself in a Reddit post, you raise the stakes and risk being labeled as a spammer.
Since you are still learning how to successfully submit a post to Reddit, start with a post that is focused on giving the community something of value without promoting your business. Later on, we will discuss how to promote your business through a Reddit post properly.
See what is happening in your subreddit
In the previous assignment, you analyzed the top posts of your target subreddit. It is also important to look at the “hot” posts or the front page of your subreddit to see what the community is currently talking about. What questions are people asking? What problems do they have? What current events are they discussing? What is making them laugh?
Listen carefully look for opportunities to provide value based on what the subreddit is currently talking about.
Pay attention to industry news
Redditors want to stay up to date with industry news. Check Google, Twitter, and other social media for news articles and videos that are related to your target subreddit. Redditors will award you with karma and appreciation for sharing the latest news in your niche.
Search before sharing
Before you submit a link to a subreddit, check if it has already been shared by performing a “URL search” in the subreddit. Note the prefix “URL:” that is included in the search.
This search will find any submissions on Reddit that link to MarketersGuideToReddit.com. Just make sure you search for the exact and full URL of the content you want to post.
Submit at the right time
From personal experience and based on analysis done by others, the best time to submit a post to Reddit is at 9:00 am Eastern Time. That being said, this can change from subreddit to subreddit. To find out what time the top posts from your chosen subreddit are posted, use the Later for Reddit Analysis Tool.
In terms of days of the week, Monday – Thursday is ideal because that is when the most people are on Reddit.
Assignment 7.1 – Brainstorm 3 post ideas and submit one
For the previous assignment, you took notes about the top posts in your chosen subreddit. Find those notes and reference them for this assignment. Start the submission process by first brainstorming three submission ideas. These could be links to articles or videos, a question you want to ask, or a text post that shares a valuable experience or insight.
Write down the concept for each idea, why your subreddit will value it, and draft a title for the post.
Review your three ideas and choose the idea that you think will perform the best based on the notes you took in the previous assignment. Refine the title and body of the post and execute the submission according to the guidelines we discussed earlier in this chapter.
Check the post every 15 minutes or so to see if it is being upvoted and responding to any comments.
To complete this assignment: brainstorm 3 submission ideas, choose the one that you think will perform best based on your notes, and execute the submission.
