Almost every website uses social media sharing buttons like ShareThis. These buttons are easy to install and designed to encourage users to share content on social media platforms.
Reddit is often included as a sharing option with these buttons. However, we recommend removing the Reddit alien share button from your website immediately, and here’s why…
Reasons to Remove Reddit Share Buttons
- More sharing on Reddit does not equal more traffic nor will it help your content reach the “front page of the internet”. Getting upvotes is less about quantity of shares and more about the quality of a Reddit submission (i.e. writing a good title, posting to the right subreddit, and the quality of the content being shared).
- These buttons encourage non-redditors or Reddit newbies to share your content. Reddit newbies often make poor submissions that are not only ineffective but could be viewed as spam, and thus detrimental to your brand.
- Experienced redditors do not need help sharing your content. The share button provides little value to the people who you want to submit your content to Reddit and know how to do so properly.
If you have a particularly Reddit-savvy audience, you could consider keeping the buttons, but this is an exception to the rule. Chances are a Reddit share button will not generate traffic to your website and could possibly even hurt your chances for engaging the Reddit platform in the future.
We have not seen a Reddit share button work for anyone, but if you have had success with a Reddit share button, we’d love to here about it. Please contact us here.
TL;DR
We’ve yet to come across a website that benefits form having a Reddit share button. These buttons should immediately be removed from your site. They encourage non-redditors to share you content which is very unlikely to generate traffic from Reddit and could cause Reddit to label your website as a source of spam. If an experienced redditor wants to share your content on Reddit, they will know how to do it.
