🪄 How I went viral on Reddit (with 300k views)

Hey,

The Startup Maester is here!

Welcome to the 7th issue.

Today's topics:

1. I went viral on Reddit (with 300k views and 505 upvotes)

2. A tool to find top tweets of any Twitter personality

3. One recommended video on Social Media OSINT to stalk anyone

I went viral on Reddit (with 300k views and 505 upvotes)

I wrote a post on Reddit yesterday that went viral.

It got to the top position of /r/Entrepreneur and got me 300k views with 505 upvotes. And its still going bonkers.

Was it a fluke? Or did I do the right things at the right time?

Well, you can manufacture virality and you can see that done by YouTubers like Mr.Beast or TikTokers like Jenny Hoyos.

You can even manufacture ads if you use the right words like The Ads Professor does for big brands.

And everyone from musicians like Taylor Swift to PR reps like Carrie Rose do it to get their brands 1000s of backlinks and millions in sales.

Heck, someone even wrote a book on how to go viral again and again titled Marketing Memetics which covers how you can manufacture virality. Mind you, the author himself has ran 8000 experiments with $50m in ad spend.

This isn't new. Ryan Holiday talked about it in Trust Me, I'm Lying and he built upon principles from Edward Bernays who is known as the "Father of PR".

So how did I go viral?

It came down to basically 2 things.

1. Say something unobvious

I basically said a controversial thing that nobody talks about but every big company secretly does (atleast when they are starting up) like spamming everyone with their app or product on an already big Social Media.

They either use vulnerabilities in the platform itself (like TikTok did with AppStore) or straight up do illegal things like Airbnb did by spamming Craigslist.

2. Posting when America wakes up

This little trick works across Social Media.

If you are from another country and haven't gotten any results on your posts or questions, this is why.

The most popular websites in the world are ran in US with mostly US contributors barring a few Chinese and Russian sites.

So if you post just when the US wakes up (from 6:00 am to 8:00 am) and before they go to their job, then you have a good chance of getting your post in front of people without doing any blackhat methods.

Note: I did go viral but I didn't post my link in there because /r/Entrepreneur is notorious about self-promotion.

The trick is to put your link 2 days later so you get SEO Juice from Google.

Shout-out to the Reddit Expert who told me this.

There's many other Reddit tricks I learned from the Expert but that needs a full post.

The great thing about Reddit is its like TikTok. You can go viral if you post quality content. Your followers do not matter.

Worst-case scenario is they ban you for self-promotion, in which case, go create another account. Its easy as hell.

Some subreddits have a 20-day aged account or a minimum karma requirement which you can game as well.

I'll write a guide on Reddit once I exploit the platform fully and learn all the details.

A tool to find top tweets of any Twitter personality

Twitter is a great place for intellectuals.

Some of the world's best minds are just a DM away.

And you can subscribe to their thoughts.

The best part about Twitter is finding their top tweets or finding tweets by their keyword.

You should obviously use Advanced Search on Twitter but if you don't know how this extension makes it much easy.

Its called Tweethunter X.

Just install it and search for keywords like on your favorite Twitter personality.

Note that Elon Musk broke search earlier this year to stop other companies from scraping Twitter data so you can only search past a few months.

Regardless, its helpful to quickly discover quality insights and thoughts on your favorite Twitter account.

One recommended video on Social Media OSINT to stalk anyone

SOCMINT (Social Media OSINT) is a field of OSINT specializing in using Social Media to find your target.

There's so much info we give out on Social Media that makes it really easy to stalk someone.

This short video peels back on how much information we are really sharing.

More often than not, even your simple clicks about a beautiful scenery can be used to find your location.

Beware what you share online.

Rabbit Hole Reads

1. The 8-hour Work Myth - Does working straight for 8 hours increase productivity for knowledge workers? Or there's a better alternative backed by neuroscience?

2. Using "Handwritten" fonts to increase sales - Use handwritten fonts for hedonic products. Use machine-written fonts for functional products.

3. How the biggest consumer apps got their first 1000 users - Most startups found their early users from just a single strategy.

Until next time,

Your Spells Maester!

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More Startup Spells 🪄

1. Focus is how you make money. Multiple bets is how you keep money. (LINK)

2. The AI Side-Hustle to make posters, thumbnails, or even t-shirts to sell on Etsy. (LINK)

3. Sneakily go after your competitor’s customers and employees (LINK)