Imagine you are at a house party with a lot of people you don’t know. Being a good networker, you know that your primary goal for the party is to meet people and have fun. You invest your attention into others, learn about them, and when appropriate you might discuss your business or a project.
Poor Networking Skills
What if you instead get to the party and immediately start butting into conversations and handing out business cards without even saying “Hello”? Chances are everyone would be so disgusted with your behavior that they would toss your card in the garbage, even if your business was a perfect fit for them. If it was my party, I would ask you to leave.
Reddit is a Party
Every day, businesses are showing up on reddit and posting a promotional link without learning anything about the community they are engaging. Like the socially inept networker at a party, these businesses are dismissed by the reddit community and often banned from a specific community or the entire website.
Why Reddit is Different than Social Media
The key difference between reddit and other social media platforms is that every post on reddit is submitted to a community of people. Promoting a blog post on Twitter is perfectly fine because you are posting it to your own space and users opted-in to your space by following you. Reddit is completely different because you are engaging a community with every post and if you don’t understand the community, you will be seen as an intruder.
So leave the aggressive marketing tactics behind when you enter Reddit. Instead, take the time to get to know a Reddit community before you start passing out business cards.
