Reddit is the internet's most underrated goldmine for digital writers.
If you know how to use it right, you can find thousands of:
• Content ideas
• Potential niches
• Engaging readers
But you need a method to the madness.
Last week, we chatted with Greg Isenberg, who's created his own framework for turning subreddits into startups, to discuss how we can use his process for idea generation & audience-building.
Here's the breakdown.
First of all, why Reddit?
Reddit is a community of communities with 52M+ daily active users.
People go there to find like-minded thinkers and talk about the things they truly care about.
And since it's a pseudonym platform, these folks share real questions, struggles & goals in their fave subreddits.
This makes each subreddit a potential goldmine for thousands of niches you can build an audience around.
And, of course, for pre-validated content ideas.
The trick is spotting and embedding yourself in the most promising ones.
Here's where Greg's 6-step process comes in handy.
Step 1: Find a promising subreddit
Your subreddit should meet these 4 criteria:
• Fast but steady growth
• Critical mass (+50k subscribers)
• You should be passionate about it
• You should have an unfair advantage
But don't be discouraged by the last bullet - your curiosity or obsession with the topic or space can definitely be an unfair advantage.
Here are some tools to help you find fast-growing subreddits:
• redditlist.com
• subredditstats.com
• frontpagemetrics.com
Step 2: Join the subreddit
But don’t just lurk.
Become both an anthropologist & a valuable member of the community.
Some tips for doing this well:
• Ask & answer questions
• Share valuable resources
• Learn to speak their language
• Study the posts they resonate with
Step 3: See what they want
Look for recurring themes & patterns.
Take notes as you explore, engage and immerse in the community.
And be on the lookout for common:
• Problems
• Complains
• Recommendations
Step 4: Build a closer space for communication
Once understand them better, you want to start creating more intimate relationships.
So create a more curated & less noisy place for them to hang out.
It can be a Telegram, a Discord, a Slack - whatever they feel more comfortable with.
Your goal is to make this new, closer space feel as their own special corner of the internet.
Step 5: Write something for them
So, now that you:
• Speak their language
• Understand their problems
• Know what they care about
It’s time to start writing.
Your goal is to write something that speaks directly & specifically to them.
Step 6: Write on top of what you wrote
The process doesn’t end after publishing that 1st piece - here's when the fun begins!
Now you've got to:
• Seek & gather feedback
• Learn from it
• And iterate
The key here is to get the community as involved & engaged as you can in this iteration process - don't write in isolation.
And that's it!
If you want to dive deeper into Greg's process, you should check this out:
In this conversation with Dickie Bush & Nicolas Cole, Greg broke down his framework in much more detail & share a ton of great insights & golden nuggets.