Reddit Archives - Desert Kite

“So where are we all supposed to go now?”

July 5, 2023 by John Bejakovic

A couple days ago, an article on The Verge by David Pierce picked up steam and then really started chugging along, tearing through any obstacles in its path, and demanding the attention and concern even of slack-jawed layabouts who were minding their own business just moments earlier. The title of Pierce’s article:

“So where are we all supposed to go now?”

Pierce was writing about how social media — first Facebook, then Twitter, now Reddit — are dying. And what, he wanted to know, will be next?

I know all about this because I’m a painfully contrary person. After about 20 years of resisting social media, I am now getting on social media full on.

First, I got on Twitter a couple months ago (under a pseudonym). That’s how I came across that runaway Verge article. And I will also most probably get on LinkedIn in the next few days (under my own name).

I figure what others, smarter than I am, have already figured out:

Maybe social media is a cesspool, and maybe it’s now dying to boot. But there are still billions of people on there. I only need a small and select fraction of those people to do very well.

My ultimate goal — as you can probably guess — is to get these people onto my email lists, either this one that you’re reading now, or my new health newsletter. That’s how I can write to them regularly, with something interesting or valuable, and build a relationship, and even do business and exchange money for my offers.

So what will come after Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit? Where are we all supposed to go now?

I don’t know, and I don’t particularly care. Because I use a mental shortcut known as the Lindy Law, which says that you can expect technology to survive on average as long as it’s already been around.

Email has been around for 52 years, longer than the Internet as we know it.

Will email still be around 52 years from now? Who knows. I figure its odds are better than any new technology that comes out today or tomorrow.

But you probably knew all this before. What you might not know — something that surprised me yesterday — is that there’s an email platform called Beehiiv.

I promoted Beehiiv in my email yesterday, and I gave people a bit of a carrot-and-stick to sign up for a free account on Beehiiv using my affiliate link.

I got lots of people taking me up on the offer, and I got lots of people thanking me for cluing them in to Beehiiv. That’s the part that was surprising to me — so many people had not heard of Beehiiv before.

I personally use Beehiiv, I’m very happy with it, and that’s why I’m happy to recommend it. As for why you might want to try it for your new newsletter or project, here’s my best case for that:

===

Beehiiv is slick and it has a buncha tools that other email providers don’t have. Like a nice-looking website, straight out of the box, that doubles as your email archive. A referral program. Recommendations from and to other newsletters. An ad network if you want to monetize your newsletter that way.

Just as important:

More than any other email platform I’ve directly used or indirectly heard about, Beehiiv is stable and reliable. It doesn’t crash. It doesn’t lock up. It doesn’t fail to send out emails you meant to send and it doesn’t sneakily send out emails you didn’t mean to send.

But really, try it out for yourself and see. Maybe it’s not for you. Or maybe you will love it.

There’s no risk either way. Because Beehiiv is free to start using and to continue using indefinitely — for sending emails and for the website.

You only have to pay something if you wanna upgrade to some of the fancier growth and monetization tools — which I’ve done, because it’s well-worth the money for me, and because I’ve decided to stick with Beehiiv for the long term.

So like I said, I encourage you to give it a try. But—

I know that encouragement, and good arguments, and lists of shiny features, are often not enough to get people to move.

So I’ll give you a bit of a carrot-and-stick too.

Over the past two months, I’ve grown my new newsletter from 73 subscribers to 1,109 subscribers.

And if you try out Beehiiv using my affiliate link, I will send you a recording in which I talk about all the stuff I’ve done to grow that newsletter — what’s worked, what hasn’t, what I plan to do going forward. (I’ll even tell you some stuff I’m planning to do to grow this daily marketing newsletter that you’re reading right now.)

Also, here’s another thing I promise to give you:

I had some deliverability problems early on with my new newsletter. It turned out not to be Beehiiv’s fault. Rather it was that I had failed to set up my DNS right. I fixed that, and my deliverability problems got fixed. But I went one further.

I also came up with a little trick to increase my deliverability going forward and even to increase my open rates.

This trick has nothing to do with DMARC or DKIM records. It has nothing to do with trying to game Gmail. It’s just plain old marketing and psychology. And it’s allowed me to actually increase my open rates while my list has grown quickly and sizeably.

This trick is not complicated — it takes all of five minutes to implement.

And if you take me up on my offer and try out Beehiiv, I will send you a quick writeup of exactly what I did, and how you can do it too, to have the kinds of deliverability and reader engagement that other newsletters can only wonder at.

So that’s the carrot. The stick, or the threat of it, is that there’s a deadline, 24 hours from now, at 8:31pm CET on Thursday, July 6.

If you’re interested, here’s what to do:

1. Head to Beehiiv using this link: https://bejakovic.com/beehiiv

2. Sign up for a free account. You don’t have to sign up for anything paid. I am counting on Beehiiv’s quality and service to convince you to do that over time.

3. Once you’ve signed up, forward me the confirmation email you get from Beehiiv — and I will reply to you with 1) the recording listing all the things I’ve done and will be doing to grow my new newsletter and 2) a write up of my little deliverability and email open trick. Do it before the deadline — 8:31pm CET on Thursday, July 6 — and you get the carrot, and not the stick.

Ideal positioning for coaches, consultants, and I would also add, copy chiefs

August 23, 2022August 22, 2022 by John Bejakovic

Back in the days before mammals evolved, I used to lurk on Reddit, specifically the r/copywriting subreddit.

It was almost entirely a giant waste of time. Each day would be a new pile of worthless posts like:

“I just rewrote this Heinz ketchup ad, what do you guys think”

“Ugh how do I get clients”

“Is it really true that copywriting can make you millions”

But, every Mercury retrograde or so, a little bit of gold dust appeared among all the mud and sand.

So for example, somebody once asked a question about the “essential Dan Kennedy.” In other words, out of the millions of words of written content and thousands of hours of recorded seminars and courses that Dan has produced, where to get started?

One guy, apparently a big-time DK fan, wrote up a very thorough comment in response.

I won’t reprint it here. You can look it up on Reddit if you’re curious.

But at the end of his 1,052-word comment reviewing the best Dan Kennedy material, this guy added in something unusual. Something that wasn’t created by Dan. In fact, a Hollywood comedy.

“This is a movie that Dan has said shows the ideal positioning you want to have as a coach or consultant,” the Reddit DK fan wrote.

“Aha!” I said. “Finally something to pay for all those wasted hours on Reddit.”

The movie in question is called The Muse. It was made in 1999 by Albert Brooks, who also stars in the lead role, along with Sharon Stone, Andie MacDowell, and Jeff Bridges. It even features cameo appearances by Martin Scorcese, Rob Reiner, and James Cameron.

I watched The Muse a couple years ago, right after reading that Reddit post. I rewatched it again last night.

It’s cute but not great. But that’s not the point.

The point is I can see why Dan recommends it as an illustration of the perfect positioning for any coach or consultant.

And I would also add, maybe even the ideal positioning for for any highly successful copy chief.

At least that’s what I thought a few weeks ago. I was reminded of The Muse while listening to a certain very successful copy chief talk about the yearly retreats he takes his team on.

During the retreat, this copy chief and his copywriters don’t talk copy or marketing.

Instead, they just go for hikes and listen to music in synchrony. It reminded me of the aquarium scene in The Muse.

Anyways, if you are a coach, consultant, or maybe even copy chief, The Muse might be worth a look. Or not.

What’s definitely worth a look, or not, is my daily email newsletter. There tends to be a lot of mud and sand, but occasionally some gold dust in there as well. In case you are curious, you can sign up for it here.

Reddit vs. Hacker News: How to get better customers, clients, readers, and business partners

February 25, 2022 by John Bejakovic

Paul Graham is a computer programmer, writer, and early-stage tech investor.

His startup fund, Y Combinator, helped start a bunch of famous companies, like Airbnb, Dropbox, DoorDash, Instacart, Zapier, and Reddit.

The total valuation of all Y Combinator companies is now over $400 billion. Y Combinator owns 7% of that, or roughly $30 billion.

Really, the only reason I know this is because I’ve been a regular reader of Hacker News for the past 14+ years.

Hacker News is a news board. Graham started it in 2006 as a way of sharing interesting ideas and getting connected to tech talent. Today, Hacker News gets over five million readers each month.

I’ve been thinking about creating something similar, just with a different focus. So I was curious to read Graham’s 2009 article, What I Learned From Hacker News, about the early experience of creating and running HN.

This bit stood out to me:

But what happened to Reddit won’t inevitably happen to HN. There are several local maxima. There can be places that are free for alls and places that are more thoughtful, just as there are in the real world; and people will behave differently depending on which they’re in, just as they do in the real world.

I’ve observed this in the wild. I’ve seen people cross-posting on Reddit and Hacker News who actually took the trouble to write two versions, a flame for Reddit and a more subdued version for HN.

Maybe this only stood out to me because something I’ve thought and written about before.

Your content, marketing, and offers select a certain type of audience. That much is obvious.

What is less obvious is that your content and marketing and offers also change people. Because none of us is only one type of person all the time.

So if you want an audience that’s smarter, that’s more respectful, that’s more thoughtful and less scatterbrained, then make it clear that’s what you expect. And lead by example.

This can be transformative in your everyday dealings with clients, customers, readers, and prospects. And who knows. It might even become the foundation on which you build a future online community.

If you found this interesting, you might like my email newsletter. You can sign up for it here.

Flat-Earther accidentally proves deep truth about Reddit users

February 4, 2022 by John Bejakovic

Over the past 24 hours, one of the top five post on Reddit has been:

“Flat-Earther accidentally proves the earth is round in his own experiment”

It’s a video of a guy, doing an experiment in his back yard, at night, with a lamp and a couple of styrofoam boards.

You don’t need to follow the precise thinking of this modern Galileo. The gist is this:

If the earth is flat, as the guy believes, then the lamp will be visible in one setup with the styrofoam boards.

But if the earth is curved, as the Illuminati want you to believe, then the lamp will be visible in a second, different setup.

Result:

The guy does the experiment with the desired, flat-Earth setup.

Nothing. The lamp is invisible.

The guy moves the lamp, to the control, Illuminati setup.

Suddenly, the bitch lamp becomes visible.

“Interesting,” the flat-earther says. “… interesting…”

Over the past four days, I’ve been talking about denial, and the ways we all do it all the time.

Today I got one more denial strategy for you. It’s the most useful one for marketers. It’s called rationalization.

That’s when we are faced with a fact we cannot or will not stomach, and so we explain it away.

Apparently, the flat earther in the Reddit video explained away his experiment results. Uneven terrain… twigs… branches… possibly a tear in the fabric of time and space.

Rationalizations like this are not particularly interesting. But like I said, they are most useful for marketing.

In fact, there’s a whole powerful school of marketing called reason why. It’s all about rationalization.

But this email is not about reason why marketing or making people believe what they already “know.”

Instead, I just want to point out that, when people fervently explain something away… they are probably denying a deep, uncomfortable truth.

Such as the millions of people on Reddit, upvoting that flat-earther post.

Some of those Reddit users are cackling (see my email yesterday about humor as a denial tactic).

But many are rationalizing. Like Reddit user ringhillsta, who wrote:

“The fact that there are people out there who actually still belives that the Earth is flat is scary and funny at the same time and i feel a bit sorry for them. Must be hard being that dumb lol.”

So what could be the deep and uncomfortable truth that ringhillsta is trying to deny?

Who knows.

Perhaps it’s that we’ve moved into an era where we have almost no direct experience with the “truths” in our lives.

Instead, we get them all second- and third-hand, through college textbooks… Neil deGrasse Tyson… and various mainstream subreddits.

And if anybody ever stands up to question that, there’s a ready-made rationalization to sweep away that person. “Dude what are you some flat earther? I feel sorry for you. Must be hard being that dumb lol.”

Anyways, this denial mini-series has been going on for borderline too long.

So I promise to wrap it up tomorrow, and bring it full circle to where we started from.

Or is that impossible? Maybe it’s all just a straight line… and we will fall off at the end.

Only one way to find out — read my email tomorrow. You can sign up here to get it.

Roast me

November 4, 2019 by John Bejakovic

Every few days, a “Roast me” post appears on the front page of Reddit, and it never ceases to amaze me.

If you don’t know the “Roast me” concept, let me explain. A person takes a selfie, posts it on the r/RoastMe subreddit, and then hundreds or thousands of internet strangers compete to come up with the most creative and hurtful ways to insult this person, based on the selfie alone.

I’ve stopped looking at these posts. I’m so insecure personally that I get vicariously uncomfortable even while reading about other people being humiliated.

It boggles my mind. Why would anybody want to get roasted? According to my calculations, you can’t win anything except for a nervous tick. But you can certainly lose any self-acceptance you managed to scrape together over the past half-dozen years.

And yet, day after day, people keep going on r/RoastMe and voluntarily getting their old wounds reopened, and new ones slashed in. And this brings up a very important point about human nature, and ties into something I wrote about yesterday:

The fact is, people only ever do things for a reason.

Of course that’s true for everyday “normal” behavior. But it’s equally true for every stupid or self-defeating or incongruous thing that people do.

Unless somebody is schizophrenic or completely psychotic, they will have a reason deep down for what they are doing. And that reason is not just that they are dumb or weak-willed or forgetful. No. They actually have a goal. And their seemingly nonsensical behavior is getting them there.

For example, one of the most fundamental human drives is the need for consistency. We have a mental model of how the world works, and we don’t want to see that mental model rocked or undermined.

So if somebody secretly believes that they are unattractive (and except for a few lucky narcissists, this includes all of us), what better way to get that confirmation than by having random Internet strangers mock your teeth, eyebrows, or breasts?

Similarly, another fundamental human drive is the need to be significant. To be noticed, relevant, unique. And if you’re not getting that need fulfilled in real life, if people are simply passing you by and not taking notice of you, well, there’s a home for you on r/RoastMe. For the low price of your self-respect, you can get the momentary attention of hundreds of thousands or maybe even millions of people.

If you’re looking to persuade people, you’ll have to start looking out for stuff like this. Because it’s not intuitive. Like I said, even though I know people only do things for a reason, I’m still amazed each time I see a new trending r/Roast me post.

I would never do that. And so please don’t write to roast me. But if you want to say something flattering, then definitely send me an email.

Beto O’Rourke illustrates clever Joe Sugarman idea

September 14, 2019September 13, 2019 by John Bejakovic

I just listened to a discussion about how to structure an unusual sales letter.

The product on sale is a training video for an AR-15.

That’s a short-barrel assault rifle, in case you don’t know. I didn’t, so I had to look it up online.

A few minutes later, I went on Reddit. And I felt like I was having deja vu.

Because right there on the front page, there were two (countem: 2!) stories about Beto O’Rourke and AR-15s.

Apparently BO’ said something about revoking gun rights in the Dem debate last night.

And one Texas politician tweeted in response, “My AR-15 is ready for you.” (Which I guess you could take in two ways. The obvious, threatening way. Or the conciliatory, “You’re right Beto, come pick up my AR-15” kind of way.)

Anyways, this Beto catfight would make a perfect hook right now for an ad or an advertorial to precede that AR-15 sales letter.

And that’s a general thing you can try to do with all your promotions.

It doesn’t have to be the day’s fleeting news, and it doesn’t have to be as tightly connected to your product as Beto is to AR-15s.

It can also be general current trends that have nothing to do with you or your product.

For example, I remember reading how Joe Sugarman once wrote a press release for snowmobile rentals at a ski resort.

This was back in the late 1960s, when the Women’s Lib movement was dominating the news.

So Joe, intuitive marketing genius that he is, wrote a press release that said:

“Ski Resort Bans Women Snowmobile Drivers”

Why? Because they drive badly and cause accidents.

If I remember correctly, it caused a nationwide uproar. The ski resort was forced to revoke its female-centric ban. But during and after this whole uproar, snowmobile rentals also exploded at the resort.

Something to keep in mind if you’re trying to drum up publicity for your offer.

And if you’re running ads or advertorials, and you want more ideas besides tying them into current news, then check out the following:

https://bejakovic.com/advertorials/

Copywriting and luck

August 23, 2019August 20, 2019 by John Bejakovic

I just saw a cute video of a frustrated husky.

The husky is having a fit because his owner is pretending to eat one of the husky’s milk bones.

I saw this video in a Reddit post titled, “No, that’s not for you!” The post currently has 21K points and over 200 comments.

And the interesting thing is hiding down in one of those comments. It’s a table that somebody put together of the 24 other times this exact same video was posted before.

Those other posts of the same video range from having 29 points and 1 comment…

To having 81.5K points and 938 comments.

Maybe these fake Internet points don’t mean much to you.

So let’s multiply by 10 and change it into cold hard greenbacks. By that math…

The least successful husky post would have earned you $290, enough to buy a Kindle Oasis, Amazon’s “most advanced Kindle ever with a 7” screen and sleek ergonomic design.”

Not bad. On the other hand…

The most successful husky post would have earned you $815,000, almost enough to buy yourself a McLaren Senna, an “extremely track-focused hypercar” and “McLaren’s most calculated masterpiece.”

Keep in mind, the video was the same in both cases.

The substance was identical.

The only difference came down to title (“”WTF, that’s not yours” vs. “GIMME GIMME DARN :(“) and the time of the posting.

In other words, a bit of copywriting…

And a lot of luck.

So what’s the point of all this?

Well, I actually intend it to be inspirational.

Because if you’ve got decent copywriting (can you guess which of the two titles was the winner and which the loser?) and if you simply keep plugging away until you get lucky, then you too might get a husky post that gets tens of thousands of fake internet points.

Or if that’s not your game, maybe you will come up with a for-real offer that makes hundreds of thousands of dollars overnight. If you need help figuring out how to write decent copy to promote that offer of yours, you might like the following:

https://bejakovic.com/advertorials/

Marketing lessons from a k-whore

January 23, 2021June 27, 2019 by John Bejakovic

New technology brings about new social phenomena.

Such as, for example, karma whores. These are the people on platforms like Reddit who post tons of cheap content, often pulled from other sites. Their one goal is to stock their treasure vaults full of fake Internet points, also known as karma.

I read a confessional by one self-admitted karma whore, Brian Burlage.

Of the roughly 250 million Reddit accounts, Burlage’s account is currently 13th in terms of karma. And here’s something to think about: each of his 8.2 billion karma points represents a click from some Reddit user who approved of one of Burlage’s posts or comments.

So what can you learn from such a peak performer? Here are a few lessons:

#1. Stop fighting over scraps

Initially, Burlage lurked on Reddit’s true crime communities. When he decided to become a Reddit titan, he started focusing on massive, mainstream subreddits about cute animals, video games, and interesting photos.

LESSON: Yes, it’s possible to make money in the “teach your parrot to talk” market. But it’s never going to be the kind of money that you can make in massive markets such as health or finance or marketing.

#2. Put on the right mask

From the beginning, Burlage decided to have a joker personality on Reddit. He’d post puns and wisecracks and memes. And he says half the battle was simply choosing a good username: dickfromaccounting.

LESSON: Before you make a move in your market, spend time thinking about how you will position yourself and the angle you’ll decide to take. Like Burlage says, it’s half the battle.

#3. Turn creativity into a chore

Burlage started maintaining extensive notes on his phone, compiling jokes and bits of dialogue that he’d heard, which he could then apply to his Reddit karma whoring.

Eventually, his daily routine involved scouring the Internet for hours until he’d rounded up enough good material to get three or four viral posts on Reddit.

LESSON: Much of what looks like creativity, spontaneity, and inspiration is simply drudgery and work. The good news is that, with enough work, even drudges can effectively become creative.

#4. Nerd out, my little engineer

Burlage became a student of the unique personality of each of the subreddits he would post to. He was seeking to figure out exactly what each community wants. And he would obsessively test what works and what doesn’t:

“This was a process of trial and error. I studied the rates at which my viral posts were upvoted minute by minute, hour by hour. I posted at different times of the day to determine when users were most active. For every viral post I made, I deleted a dozen others that failed to stick.”

LESSON: More drudgery. There’s no way around studying your market and testing your marketing approach. But if you take it seriously, you can get to being 13th out of 25 million.

#5. Pay no mind to the growing void in your soul

Here’s a bit of reflection from Burlage after he became a Reddit star:

“As much as Reddit had helped me to fill empty time, it exposed a more significant emptiness within me. Attention on Reddit, after all, is like quicksand. Every post I shared made me feel closer to getting out, but the effort that it took to make those posts plunged me deeper into the pit.”

LESSON: Well, Why expose yourself to the whims of a quicksand platform like Reddit, or Facebook, or Instagram?

Pull your audience out of the quicksand. Form a more direct, more permanent, more meaningful relationship with them. And start competing for real dollars instead of various Internet points.

That’s how I see it.

By the way, if you’re looking to make a more profitable, more meaningful relationship with fleeting customers, you might find some ideas here:

https://bejakovic.com/advertorials/

A quick catalogue of forbidden parts of the human psyche

March 20, 2019 by John Bejakovic

The Roman playwright Terence wrote two thousand years ago:

“I am human, and nothing human is alien to me.”

Well, if you want to persuade people, you better have the same attitude.

You see, when people make buying decisions, it’s often deep dark instincts that are actually at work. And if you ignore those monkey and lizard hallways of the human brain, you won’t make as many sales.

But how do you know what weird and nasty things are actually lurking in the mass mind?

You look on the front page of Reddit. Or at least that’s what I did over the course of several weeks, while tracking forbidden emotions and ideas that kept coming up over and over. Here’s a partial catalogue:

#1 Disgust

The subreddit r/WTF features bizarre and revolting images or videos. And yet, the posts frequently go viral and make it to the front page. Example viral post:

“Tugging an enormous abscess out of a cow”

#2 Schadenfreude

There seems to be a strong human instinct to take pleasure in others’ misfortune or mistakes or stupidity. However, the world today has become a democratic place with a lot of concern about minimizing suffering. How to square the two? You have to direct your schadenfreude to appropriate targets. Example viral post:

“Steph Curry blows the open dunk and then airballs the 3”

#3 Indignation, anger, judgementalness

Indignation and judgmentalness are incredibly popular, and several subreddits specialize in them. Two that frequently make it to the front page are r/ChoosingBeggars and r/trashy. Example viral post:

“Kurt Cobain suicide letter t-shirt” (from r/trashy)

#4 Defeatism

American society is all about success and unfailing optimism. At least outwardly. On Reddit, the defeatist attitude often resonates very well. Example viral post:

“When the romantic beach getaway with your hubby doesn’t go as planned” (a video of a middle-aged woman looking on as a bunch of drunken college girls in the bar dance to Baby Got Back)

#5 Breasts

Of course, sex sells. But in the mainstream mind, it’s no longer ok to publicly stare at a woman’s breasts or ass. This holds on Reddit, too. You won’t find pictures of sexy girls on the front page — unless they are somehow disguised. For example, by being a vintage movie star. Example viral post:

“Scilla Gabel, Italian actress and Sophia Loren’s body double, 1957”

Now a disclaimer for the end: These forbidden parts of the human psyche are powerful. But you probably don’t want to clobber your readers over the head with them.

Instead, you will want to introduce them in subtle ways to make your marketing message most effective.

In case you want to see how I’ve done this in several successful email campaigns, you’ll want to get a copy of my upcoming book on email marketing. You can sign up for a free copy of it here:

https://bejakovic.com/profitable-health-emails/