Be warned, getting exposure for your Music on Reddit is not easy and this tool requires extra care to get right

Chances are if you are an active internet user, you have heard of Reddit although I wouldn’t be surprised if you haven’t because if you look at the site, you wouldn’t be blamed for thinking it was still in beta testing based on the look of the site but how wrong you would be. Reddit is a long-running, invaluable resource for many internet users looking for new and interesting information online and if you know anything about the Macklemore success story, can play a key role in the success of an independent artist/musician.

Now we are not trying to sell any fantasies. Reddit is not the kind of community you can expect to visit once, post a bunch of links, and be an overnight success. For one, your music has to be good. No amount of fancy marketing shpeel is going to cut it in the Reddit community. Plus there is a protocol, a certain reddiquette one must follow if they are to be well received and get real exposure for your music on Reddit.

So What Exactly is Reddit?

Well I think the best way to describe Reddit is to say it’s a community. A community of users who enjoy sharing and discovering fresh, valuable and authentic content. There is definitely no room for spammers or spam-like behaviour on this community, it just doesn’t go down well. At last check, Reddit was getting over 18 million unique visitors per month and these are active, engaged users.

Users on Reddit provide all of the site’s content and every bit of content gets voted on by the rest of the community. When you post something there will be a corresponding up and down arrow next to it where other users can vote the content up or vote it down. Every submission is then assigned a score based on its number of upvotes subtracted from its number of downvotes. Activity that looks like spam or self-promotion tends to get overlooked very easily.

This is how the scoring system works. Submissions are ranked on the site’s front page based on its score. As a submission receives a higher score, it will gravitate higher up the ranks and with a monthly quota of over 18 million users, you can begin to understand how powerful that is. The front page of Reddit is constantly changing and displaying new and interesting content.

Another important thing about worth mentioning with regards to exposure for your music on Reddit is “Karma”. This is how Reddit ranks its users. You’ll earn karma points for the links you’ve submitted as well as for the comments you’ve submitted (“comment karma”) and these are directly related to the amount of upvotes your Reddit activity gets

While karma is itself not really usable for exerting any level of influence, it can be seen as a badge of honour and may lead other Reddit users to believe that you have stuff worth listening to! Building up a good dose of Karma before you do much self-promotion is definitely a good thing.
How To Use Reddit

In order to be well received by the Reddit community, there are some general rules that you should adhere to in order to make the experience better for everyone. We would recommend following these tips to avoid any confusion or negative reception. The last thing you want is to submit your link or post and have it downvoted into oblivion because you presented it the wrong way.

This should go with saying really but always submit original content. This is probably the most universally accepted rule and expectation for Reddit users. The whole idea behind the site is to have new and interesting content so resubmitting something that’s been on the site before is not only a waste of other users’ time, but it’s degrading the integrity of the site

This does mean that you cannot resubmit that you think didn’t get the attention it deserves. Sometimes great content can go unnoticed for any number of reasons, the important thing is not to be disheartened and to be sensible abut how you make the resubmission. There will be different subreddits that you can submit the song to until you find one that recognises its value. Once it is well received by the community or widely exposed, please do not submit it again.

Reddit has its own page on Rediquette here which is well worth checking out before you get stuck in.

Please, please, please try and avoid attempting to cheat the system, it will not work and will only lead to your account being banned. This ranges from activities like creating multiple user accounts to upvote your own posts, setting up groups where you upvote each other’s posts, to outright asking/bribing people for votes. Reddit is about sharing content that people honestly like and fairly voted for based on its value so your underhanded marketing tactics will not work here.

Presenting Your Musc

So you’ve worked on some new material and are finally ready to showcase your material and it really is all about how you showcase your music. You need to present it with style and attention to context. Your title should be descriptive and attention-grabbing. Saying ‘please check out my new song’ is really not the way to go to get the attention of the Reddit community. Think of something more along the lines of ‘Today I wanted to strangle my boss with the telephone cord but instead wrote this song while sitting at my desk’. Something like this is more likely to get people interested. At the same time of course, you don’t want to get so creative that you stray from the truth.

Here are some places that you can submit your music to;

radioreddit
musicinthemaking
ThisIsOurMusic
listentothis

As always, good luck with getting exposure for your music on Reddit and making a living from doing what you love.