Last month I ran an experiment. Posted 20 times across 14 subreddits to see what actually works for driving traffic to technical content.
One post hit 226,000 views. Another got 0 upvotes and 44 hostile comments.
Same person. Same week. Here's what made the difference.
The numbers
From Reddit alone, in one week:
- 100,000+ views
- 15,595+ readers
- 1,700 hours of read time
Best post: 600 upvotes, 94.5% approval, 120 comments on r/webdev.
Worst post: 0 upvotes, 35% approval, 44 comments telling me I was wrong.
The one thing that mattered most
Third-person framing.
| Framing | Example | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Third-person | "someone actually calculated..." | 600 upvotes |
| First-person | "I made a contrarian analysis site" | 1 upvote |
Same content quality. 600x difference in results.
Reddit trusts discoveries. Reddit distrusts self-promotion.
"Found this breakdown" beats "I wrote this breakdown" every single time.
The post that hit 226K views
Title: "someone actually calculated the time cost of reviewing AI-generated PRs. the ratio is brutal"
Why it worked:
- Third-person frame ("someone calculated" not "I calculated")
- Specific number in title ("12x" ratio)
- Lowercase, casual tone
- Ended with a genuine question
The top comment got 156 upvotes: "We need an AI that automatically closes vibe coded PRs.. let them fight"
When your top comments are jokes agreeing with you, you've won.
The post that got destroyed
Title: "why would a company pay $1,500/year for SaaS when a dev can build it custom for $500?"
Posted to r/Entrepreneur. Business owners, not developers.
They didn't care about cost savings. They cared about reliability. I was speaking dev language to business people.
44 comments. All hostile. 0 upvotes.
Same article, different subreddits
This surprised me most.
Same "$599 Mac Mini" article:
| Subreddit | Upvotes | Approval |
|---|---|---|
| r/ArtificialInteligence | 412 | 81% |
| r/vibecoding | 148 | 69% |
264-point difference. 12% approval gap. Same content.
r/ArtificialInteligence wanted debate. r/vibecoding was tired of hype.
Subreddit culture matters more than content quality.
The AI-writing disaster
r/programming caught me.
Top comment, 120 upvotes: "God I hate reading all these LLM-written blog posts"
What they noticed:
- Em dashes (—) everywhere
- Short, choppy sentences
- Repetition of the same points
- Too much structure
If you use AI assistance, r/programming will find out. And they will make it the top comment.
The formula
After 20 posts, this is what consistently worked:
SPECIFIC NUMBER + THIRD-PERSON FRAME + GENUINE QUESTION = ENGAGEMENT
And this is what consistently failed:
FIRST-PERSON + PROMOTIONAL TONE + WRONG AUDIENCE = DEATH
The 97% approval trick
One post hit 97% approval. Highest ever.
What I did differently: gave free, detailed help in the comments.
Someone asked for feedback. Instead of saying "check my article," I spent 500 words auditing their site. Found broken code, inconsistent info, specific issues.
That comment got upvoted. Other people asked for help. I helped them too.
Free value in comments builds more trust than the post itself.
TL;DR
- Third-person framing — "found this" beats "I made this"
- Specific numbers — "12x ratio" beats "takes longer"
- Know your subreddit — same content, wildly different results
- Genuine questions — invites comments instead of judgment
- Free value in comments — the real trust builder
I documented the whole thing with screenshots, the disasters, and the exact patterns that worked. If you want the full breakdown: The Subtle Art of Reddit Marketing
Or just take the formula above and test it yourself. The third-person framing alone changed everything for me.
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