3 Great Reasons To Begin Posting On Reddit (And Not Facebook)
Some reasons to become active on one of the most fascinating (and controversial) spaces on the internet
Reddit: though typically considered to be one of the internet’s more obscure online communities, Reddit is growing in popularity and influence. Photo by Brett Jordan from Pexels
Reddit is one of the largest social media networks on the internet.
With more than 2.8 million discussion forums — known as subreddits — it’s a sprawling labyrinth of online discussion, with subreddits covering everything from current affairs to nice subjects like health support groups and geography-specific communities.
And although Reddit does tend to be US-centric, like any social network, its reach is truly global.
Did You Know? Reddit Has Its Own Search Language. Here’s How To Use It.
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If you’ve never thought about posting there, here are three great reasons why it’s worthwhile for you to consider doing so.
The Long Tail Of Communities Is Incredible
I’ve always wanted to learn about home networking.
And while I’d been dabbling around with routers and ethernet cables for too many years, I never quite had the confidence to try pull off something a little bit more elaborate.
A few months ago that changed.
After about 5 years of living with sub-par home internet in Israel, I decided it was time to implement something that could make home connectivity issues a thing of the past. I typically work from home. So it’s not an exaggeration to say that daily downtime was literally impacting my business.
How To Set Up A Backup (Cellular) Home Internet Connection In Israel
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Two things got me from where I was (sucky internet!) to where I wanted to be (insanely reliable home internet connectivity for the fraction of its usual price):
- Desperation
- /r/homenetworking
Reddit’s long tail of support communities is amazing. And many are populated by extremely knowledgeable posters.
You’re Creating Indexed Discourse On The Internet Every Time You Start A Thread There
Here’s a more unusual one but it’s actually one of my main motivators for participating on Reddit.
I frequently find that there are overlapping communities between Facebook and Reddit.
Increasingly, if that’s the case, I go out of my way to post on the Reddit community, even if it’s less active.
My reasoning?
Lots of Facebook communities have their privacy set to private. This effectively makes them part of the deep web — the part of the internet that isn’t indexed by search engines.
Creating “content” on Reddit in the form of discussion and questions creates more information that’s freely available on the internet for anybody who might wish to find it.
Every time I post a question on Reddit, I like to keep in mind that I’m not just asking a question on behalf of myself. I’m creating a question that may make it quicker for somebody with the same question to find the answer (because mine, and a chain of responses, will already exist).
Contrast: Quora. Which also hosts many questions and answers. But you need to be a member and login to access many of them. Reddit content is up and out there on the internet. A click away whether you’re a user or not.
Reddit May Be An Acquired Taste, But It’s Growing In Popularity
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Traditionally, Reddit is thought of as something as an unusual dark horse among the world’s social media networks.
It tends to be tech centric and particularly popular among an American demographic (because it’s a lot harder to see where users are based, there’s an annoying and virtually universal assumption on Reddit that every poster is based in the US. Many are not!)
Because most Redditors post anonymously — under pseudonyms (note: you there’s nothing stopping you from not doing this, or operating multiple accounts), toxicity is and hate speech has become a prevalent problem there.
Like any social network, there are good things about Reddit and less desirable qualities. But posting there can be a valuable and even educational experience.