How to market on r/smallbusinessuk

Can you promote on r/smallbusinessuk?

Yes, within limits. Promotion has to stay a small share of what you post, and the rules put a number on it. What the rules say:

“90% of your activity (posts and comments) on reddit should be engaging in discussion is not intended to promote your business/startup/project.”

Rule 5: 90% of your reddit activity must be non-self-promotional

“Do not advertise or promote your business or solicit business”

Rule 2

The rules

As the moderators wrote them, shortened where they run long.

1. Posts must be questions about starting, owning, and growing a small business in the UK/r/smallbusinessuk is a question and answer subreddit. You ask a question about starting, owning, and growing a small business and the community answers. You must be based in the UK and either run, or plan to run a…
2. Do not advertise or promote your business or solicit businessThis is a community for public sharing of information to help fellow business owners. Valued community members may mention their business where relevant when answering questions, but people posting here in a way that…
3. No blog links and blog contentBlogspam may be text articles, images, or video. Practically all content, small business-related or not. Sadly most of it is just there for SEO purposes. Exceptions: Allowed are links or quotes in comments and replies…
4. Posts must be detailed and contain your reason for asking and own experienceThis is not the place to research your blog post/B2B business Overly open questions, without specifics as to what you are trying to do and why you are asking, is likely to result in your post being removed. You must…
5. 90% of your reddit activity must be non-self-promotionalReddit's global guidelines state “It’s perfectly fine to be a Redditor with a website, it’s not okay to be a website with a Reddit account.” 90% of your activity (posts and comments) on reddit should be engaging in…
6. No multi-level marketing schemesIf your "business" involves people being recruited by other people and earning money based on a percentage of the sales of your recruits then it is not welcome here. We encourage you to read the subreddit resources in…
7. No comments of "just ask an accountant/lawyer/professional" implying that reddit is the wrong place"Just ask a professional" is a "valid" answer to almost every question asked, but it is absolutely vacuous and adds no value. The whole point of this subreddit is for peers to advise each other. Professionals aren't…
8. You must give enough detail to help us help youYou must give plenty of detail to answer your question. Don't make our community have to ask you repeated questions just to get the detail needed to give you an answer. You do the work to write everything out, your…
9. No discussion of unlawful activitiesIncludes criminal and civil law such as: Piracy Theft (including non-payment of services) Fraudulent loan defaults Customs fraud Tax evasion Hypothetical discussions are subject to the same rules.

Full text on Reddit: r/smallbusinessuk rules.

What people asked this week

47 of the 88 posts on r/smallbusinessuk in the last 7 days asked a question or for a recommendation. Here are 12, starting with people asking for a tool, a service or someone to hire.

• Do I actually need an accountant for my small business in the UK? How much should I expect to pay?
  r/smallbusinessuk · 20 Oct
• guys i found an platform can help the small business in uk that need software services
  r/smallbusinessuk · 19 Oct
• Has anyone used CommissionCrowd or Salesagents.uk to hire commission-only B2B sales agents for a new business?
  r/smallbusinessuk · 18 Oct
• London food vendors — how do you find places to trade?
  r/smallbusinessuk · 18 Oct
• Anyone seen this? Looks like scam posing as a fix to the php scare
  r/smallbusinessuk · 23 Oct
• Anyone here having real success with B2B cold calling? What conversion rates are you getting?
  r/smallbusinessuk · 22 Oct
• Which Public Liability Insurance Catergory for childrens social club?
  r/smallbusinessuk · 22 Oct
• Any other small business owners terrified at the moment?
  r/smallbusinessuk · 22 Oct
• How do you stop feeling like you should be doing something productive every evening?
  r/smallbusinessuk · 22 Oct
• Is it possible to bootstrap a car dealership along with my garage?
  r/smallbusinessuk · 22 Oct
• Are any other UK business owners tracking how their website appears in modern conversational search tools?
  r/smallbusinessuk · 21 Oct
• What’s a mistake that cost you money but taught you a valuable lesson?
  r/smallbusinessuk · 21 Oct

How to show up here without getting banned

• Help first, mention later. Answer questions on r/smallbusinessuk for a while before you bring up your own product, and when you do, say you made it.
• Be careful with links. The rules are specific: “If you want to refer to your web site do not explicitly link to it, just include the domain name, no " or "www" prefix, and definitely no link.”
• Keep promotion rare. The rules put a number on it: “90% of your reddit activity must be non-self-promotional.”
• Answer questions. 53% of recent posts on r/smallbusinessuk ask a question or for a recommendation. A useful answer is the safest way to get noticed.

More on how this works across Reddit: Reddit's self-promotion rules, explained and the full Reddit marketing playbook.

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