How One Reddit Post Got Me 83K Views and a New Client: My Reddit Strategy Revealed

I became interested in Reddit around one year ago when I read a post about a guy who had signed clients using Reddit.

At that time, I was trying to build my personal brand on X and LinkedIn, thinking that my potential clients could be there (business owner that wanted to scale their operations)

I was immediately shocked when I read that Reddit was the 7th most visited website in the world with 4B monthly visits, surpassing X (8th position, 3.4B visits) and LinkedIn (20th position, 1.4B visits).

At the time of this writing, Reddit has over 1.1B monthly active users. That’s almost 2x more users than X (650m) and 3x more users than Linkedin (310m)

With these numbers on mind, I decided to give it a try and commit to reading, commenting and publishing on Reddit for some months.

Interestingly, not only I ended up understanding the mechanics of Reddit but loving them.

As opposed to fast-content platforms like Twitter and LinkedIn, where your reach is heavily determined by a quite unflexible algorithm, on Reddit your reach is heavily influenced by the perceived value of your post by the community. Put it another way, when you publish on Reddit, your post has the same chances to be seen as any other member.

If your post is considered as valuable by the community you will receive upvotes and people will comment it, if your post does not provide value, it will be forgotten. In Reddit does not matter how many followers you have and how well your posts performed in the past.

Every post is a new start. In Reddit post quality is immensely more important than quantity. This is why the content you’ll find on Reddit is generally more insightful that content on other social media where posting recurrently increases your reach.

Still, Reddit is one of the most untapped opportunities for B2B businesses.

While most B2B companies focus on creating content on LinkedIn, few are quietly building valuable relationships and generating high-quality leads on Reddit.

In this article, I will explain my personal experience with Reddit. In particular:

1) How to play according to Reddit mechanics

2) The type of posts that have a high chance of getting reach. For example, this post that I created was seen by more than 85K people, which translated into signing a client from Australia to automate its booking system:

3) The type of posts that do not work. For example, in this post, I had 0 engagement:

4) How to identify the subreddits (communities) where your potential clients hang out, and the type of content that those communities consider relevant.

How Reddit’s Culture Works (and Why Authenticity Wins)

Content on Reddit is community-driven: users upvote what they find helpful and downvote what they dislike.

Authenticity is everything on Reddit. Reddit users value honesty, real experience, and transparency. Unlike on Instagram or LinkedIn, where self-promotion is common, Reddit does not tolerate that. Users are typically anonymous and can be brutally honest. They won’t hesitate to say that a post “is bulllshit“ if it does not provide value.

In essence, Reddit’s system rewards value and punishes spam, creating a culture where being genuine and helpful is the only sustainable strategy.

If you want to market yourself on Reddit, you must build trust first. The best approach is to participate sincerely: answer questions, share your knowledge, and contribute to discussions without immediately trying to sell something.

By being a helpful presence, you earn karma (Reddit’s points for appreciated contributions) and credibility. Then, when you mention your business, people are far more receptive because they recognize you as a community member who has already given value.

The anti-spam immune system

The vast majority of subreddits have rules explicitly against advertising or self-promotion. These anti-promotion rules contribute to the success of the subreddit (users go to the subreddit to learn, be entertained, or seek advice, not to see ads. otherwise they wouldn’t follow the community)

So whenever you do post about your services, you need to frame it as helping, not selling.

For example, take these two posts. In the first one, a user in r/SaaS shared a personal success story with lessons learned, making a soft mention of their business. The community received it positively. In the second one, another user simply wrote “Here is my SaaS.” That post was ignored (and even removed by moderators).

Posts That Attract Clients: What Works

The posts that work the best provide actionable insights and subtly mention a service at the end. This way, when people finally see your service link, they’ve already gotten value from you and are open to learning more.

For example, here’s a post where I break down step by step how to build a Customer Support Agent for WhatsApp (it got 17k views).

If you pay close attention, you will see that the post ends by stating there’s a link to the code and video tutorial in the comments. And if you have a look at the comments, you’ll see that the most upvoted comment is the link.

By doing this, I have given the community useful content upfront, and self-promotion comes only after delivering value. These kinds of posts can drive readers to learn more about you and can attract traffic that appreciates your expertise.

Thanks to this post, the video still gets views from that comment. So far, it’s been viewed 2.5k times, liked 102 times, and even brought in a lead that turned into a client (we ended up building a WhatsApp customer support agent for him).

Another proven strategy is sharing knowledge in relevant discussions. People often ask questions in niche subreddits, and if you give a helpful answer, it can spark interest in your services.

For example, take this post where a user asked how to become an agentic developer.

Since I’m an agentic developer myself and have been in that exact situation, I knew what could be useful to that person. On top of that, I’ve noticed from experience that these types of questions attract a lot of curious readers and even have the potential to go viral (I’ll explain how to assess virality potential in the next section).

So, I decided to write a detailed answer. Not just for the original poster, but also for anyone else who might land on that thread.

The result: my comment was upvoted 43 times (which is a lot for a comment), got 3,737 views, and brought me a couple of Reddit DMs. In this case, none of the DMs turned into qualified leads since they were mostly builders (which highlights why it’s so important to identify your ICP clearly and understand what type of content they consume).

What to Avoid: Posts That Hurt Your Credibility

Just as there are winning strategies on Reddit, there are also posts that fail to attract clients, or worse, hurt your reputation.

Obvious self-promotion never works on Reddit. A post that looks like an ad (for example, “Hire me now, I do XYZ!” with no other context) will always get downvoted or removed by moderators.

Reddit isn’t a classifieds board (unless you’re in a subreddit specifically for that). It’s a community. People hate feeling like they’re being sold to without getting any value first.

Take one of my very first posts on Reddit. I asked for feedback on an AI platform I was building. Looking back, it’s obvious why no one interacted. I was asking for something that only benefited me, while giving nothing useful to others. Plus, I dropped a link straight to my platform, which made it look even more promotional.

The result: 1 upvote (from a friend) and 0 comments.

Low-effort content is another credibility killer. This includes short and vague posts (like just dropping a link to your portfolio with no context) or generic comments that add nothing to the conversation.

If your posts look purely self-serving, people will either ignore them or downvote them.

Here’s an example: I once took one of my video scripts, repurposed it for Reddit, and hit publish.

Result: 0 upvotes, 0 comments.

Finally, not following subreddit rules can ruin your credibility fast. Each subreddit has its guidelines (often listed in the sidebar). Some explicitly ban any self-promotion.

Always read the rules and norms of a community. Respecting each subreddit’s culture shows that you care about the community, and you are not just there to exploit the audience.

Finding the Right Subreddits for Your Audience

Reddit is huge. There are communities for every niche, profession, and interest. The real challenge is finding the subreddits where your target clients hang out.

Here’s how I usually identify high-potential communities:

Community size

Self-explanatory. The bigger the community, the more eyes on your post.
I usually aim for at least 80k+ members.

Community activity

How often do people post?

There are plenty of subreddits with a big member count that are basically dead. Maybe the topic is outdated, maybe there’s already a better subreddit for that niche, or maybe the moderators didn’t do their job and people stopped showing up.

You don’t want to waste time posting in these kinds of communities.

Tip 1:
To check how healthy a subreddit is, set the filters to “New”. In a healthy subreddit, you’ll see multiple posts per day.

Community engagement patterns

Every subreddit has its own culture that shapes what type of content works best.

• r/AI_Agents values technical deep-dives and high-level discussions.

• r/entrepreneur prefers case studies with real numbers and transparent storytelling.

• r/SaaS welcomes detailed business breakdowns and growth strategies.

• r/marketing leans towards tactical advice and campaign insights.

Before posting in a subreddit, you want to understand what type of content the community values most. This will also help you see if your ICP is actually there.

For example, one of the subreddits I engage with the most is r/AI_Agents. By looking at the posts that get traction, it’s clear that the typical user is technical. It’s someone building these systems, sharing their progress, or asking for insights.

Tip 2:
By using the “Top” and “This month“ filter, you can check what kind of posts perform well. This gives you a benchmark for high-potential viral posts. If you write about topics that have gone viral in the past, chances are high your post will take off, because you’re writing about a validated interest.

Tip 3:
Another useful tool is the flair filter. Flairs work like tags for posts, and some communities use them to mark questions or requests for help.

It’s worth keeping an eye on these. If your ICP is consistently asking for help with something your service solves, that’s a strong signal (and an opportunity to provide value).

Putting It All Together (Final Tips)

Once you understand Reddit’s culture of authenticity and value, it becomes one of the most powerful platforms to connect with an audience that you’d likely not reach on other social networks.

If you’re thinking about getting started on Reddit, here are some final tips:

1. Be a Redditor First, a Marketer Second. Before you start posting, spend a couple of weeks being a member of your target subreddits. Read the top posts, upvote valuable content, and leave insightful comments on other people’s discussions. Build up some karma. This shows you’re there to contribute.

2. Follow the 80/20 Rule. Aim for 80% of your activity to be helpful contributions (answering questions and sharing expertise in comments). The remaining 20% can be your value-packed posts that subtly guide people to your work.

3. Solve, Don't Sell. Frame every post around a problem your audience faces. Instead of saying, “I built a tool that does X,” write a detailed guide on “How to solve problem Y (and here’s a tool I built that helps).”

4. Don’t Just Post and Ghost. When you publish a post, stick around. Respond to every single comment you get. Ask follow-up questions and participate in the discussion you started. This engagement not only boosts your post’s visibility but also reinforces that you’re a real person who cares about the topic.

5. Study the Winners. Before posting, go to your target subreddit and filter by “Top” of the “Last Month” or “Last Year.” Analyze what kind of posts hit it big. Are they detailed case studies? In-depth tutorials? Personal stories? Use these winning formats as a template for your own content. You’re essentially writing about a validated interest.

6. Treat DMs Like a Conversation, Not a Pitch. If your post does well, you will get Direct Messages. Don't jump straight into a sales pitch. Be a human. Ask them what they’re working on and offer more help. Let the conversation flow naturally toward your services only if it makes sense.

Success on Reddit comes down to a simple exchange: provide immense value upfront and you will earn the community's trust and attention.

If you’re willing to play the long game and prioritize being helpful over being promotional, you’ll unlock a channel of high-quality leads who already see you as an expert.