How to Make the Front Page of Reddit
My brother regularly makes the front page of the front page of the internet. Here’s how you can, too.
My younger brother is a standout. He’s always been charismatic, funny, and unbelievably popular. Which is why I’m not surprised that he cracked the code on Reddit, a site on which everyone on earth competes to be the most popular person on the internet, for 5 hours at a time. I got him to share his strategy, and interspersed his comments with his actual Reddit posts:
Q: How many times have you made the front page of Reddit?
A: In the past 2 months, 5 times.
Q: What type of content typically gets the most upvotes?
A: Jokes. Reddit has a very laid back community. Either you’re funny, your pet is funny, your pet is cute, or you took a great picture. That’s the front page stuff. I’m sure that every subreddit has it’s own criteria for what is a
“good” post, but they are so numerous, I couldn’t tell you.
Q: What are the top 3 qualities of content that makes the front page?
A: Appeals to a broad audience, is timely, is original. The more people who are likely to upvote you, the better chance you have at the fleeting fame that is the front page. If you are the first one making a solid joke/observation about the hottest topic of the day, people will upvote you. There is so much content on the internet these days. People are looking for anything fresh.
Q: What kind of business results (if any) have you seen from making the front page?
A: [Ed. note: My brother is voice talent for radio and TV ads.] I’ve been able to incorporate my work into the comment sections of some of my more popular posts. Those instances have increased traffic to my site a great deal. Also, it helps for me to build my brand, as someone who is creative. You can’t really put a price on that.
Q: How much karma do you have now?
A: Closing in on 26,000 in about 4 months of knowing what was going on.
Q: What’s been the most successful piece of content you’ve posted?
A joke about Lady Gaga’s song with R. Kelly in meme form. That was my most positive. Although, I’ve had a post receive over 25,000 votes, which is
nuts.
Q: Why Reddit? Why not make content for some other network?
Reddit is an interesting, and fun community. I’ve never experienced an online community with such an easily quantifiable reach. Facebook is only your friends. Twitter is a billion people who don’t care about you unless
you’re famous. The fact that Reddit is a community built solely on user
generated content, where everyone can vote on everything anonymously,
really gives you a realistic gauge on whether your content is being well
received. On Reddit, you definitely have the opportunity to be heard/seen
by the whole world.
