The Fish Are There. But Where? — The Fish Test: Reddit

Reddit interested me for a different reason from X.

Rather than being built mainly around individual profiles and followers, Reddit is organised into communities around particular subjects and interests.

That seemed potentially useful for the Fish Test.

If people were struggling to start an online business, find traffic, make their first sale or understand affiliate marketing, perhaps I could find communities where those problems were already being discussed.

But once again, simply finding a large community would prove very little.

The important question was:
Were people actually discussing the problems I was interested in, or was I simply looking at another large audience?

Reddit quickly produced something I had found much harder to see on X.

There were genuine conversations.

People were discussing problems with traffic, making sales, choosing what to promote and getting started online.

There were also people describing things they had tried that hadn't worked.

That was important.

I wasn't simply finding people promoting solutions. I was finding people describing problems.

This was much closer to what I had been looking for.

In terms of the Fish Test, the difference was fairly simple:

I could see the fish.

But that didn't automatically mean I had found a source of free traffic.

Finding people discussing a problem is one thing.

Being able to join those conversations usefully — and eventually give somebody a reason to visit my website — is something quite different.

That distinction became particularly important on Reddit.

Rather than immediately promoting my website or posting affiliate links, I made a contribution to a relevant discussion.

The intention was simply to be useful.

That matters on a community such as Reddit. Arriving only to promote something would tell me very little about whether genuine participation could eventually produce traffic.

So the experiment here was different from simply asking:

“Can I post a link?”

The more useful question was:

“Can I become part of a relevant conversation and contribute something worthwhile?”

Reddit gave me stronger evidence than X that some of the people I am trying to reach are openly discussing their problems online.

But it also highlighted another part of the Fish Test.

Finding the fish doesn't give me permission to start selling to them.

If Reddit is going to become useful to this experiment, I need to participate as a member of the community rather than treating the community simply as a source of traffic.

That means listening, contributing and measuring what happens.

Reddit has therefore passed an important part of the Fish Test.

I found relevant people discussing genuine problems.

What I haven't established is whether useful participation in those conversations can produce meaningful website traffic, leads or eventually customers.

That requires further testing.

For now, my Reddit finding is:

The fish are there. The challenge is joining the conversation without becoming another fisherman.

The experiment continues.