An animation I did 8 years ago has found its way to the front page of Reddit.com “the front page of the internet.”
It received 1.3 million views and 29,400 upvotes.
It was posted to Reddit by a prolific GIF maker and content curator with over 3 million karma (upvotes) to their name—which probably had a lot to do with the post’s success. Thankfully they credited me, and I also included my website address in the original video, so interested parties could find me if they needed to.
But I was late to claim the post on Reddit so I received almost no recognition (3 karma!). I was out of the office at the time, and couldn’t log in to my official account to take credit and engage with commenters. Most users were more interested in the omni-wheel technology than the illustration/animation itself, anyway.
Despite Reddit having 330 million users and more than 50 million daily visitors, visits to my site and Youtube videos saw only a modest bump. I received maybe 3-4 work inquiries from people who had seen the post.
Lessons Learned
Show Up Have an account on every social platform so you can be the one sharing your work, or at least be able to take credit when your work is shared and engage your audience. Use a password manager to always have your logins on hand.
Have a Strategy My business is focused on working with a select clientele to create custom solutions to solve their specific problems. I don’t currently have a strategy to engage or monetize a larger, more casual, general interest audience. This is something to consider.
Numbers Aren’t Everything 10,000 visitors to my site are less important than 10 potential clients. Getting in front of the right people is more important than getting in front of everyone.