How To Use Reddit To Find Ideas As A Freelance Copywriter
When I’m writing something new, I find generating ideas doesn’t take much. I just need a spark and then my brain naturally explodes in a million different directions. Reddit is a great starting point for this – a million people, all with different views, and any one of them can help on the way to new ideas of my own.
Here I lay out in detail how I’ve used Reddit to improve my SEO content writing services, and, although this may sound like plagiarism (I hear you think), it doesn’t have to be.
The future of AI blog writing services
Reddit is my go-to for hard-to-find information on a subject, usually technical, when the intricacies of the question have been whitewashed by Google. Usually, people on Reddit are honest, opinionated, and well-informed. Warning: you may find yourself getting sucked into a black hole of addictive material. If you can fight through this, new ideas abound.
Here’s a recent example of a Reddit experience that allowed me to formulate an article idea.
As a freelance writer, I hang out in writer-y spaces. I recently read a discussion about ChatGPT and other free AI writers – will the software cause professional copywriting to cease to exist, and should we all be jumping ship? The tone was ominous. Here’s a feel for it:
The Reddit hive mind stepped in and the overall discussion ended with – no, of course this isn’t the end: ChatGPT is fine for some things, but it’s not actually very good, and often doesn’t verify facts very well. Also, its flair for language is severely limited.
This sparked my interest, and before long I was up to my eyeballs in ChatGPT and AI writers and testing the theory for myself. Sure enough, the software has a strange relationship with the truth, and when I requested sources from ChatGPT, I was given ten dead links. This led me to write the article on this site about Chat GPT and online content, where my feeling was, much like the discussion group, cautiously optimistic that there is still a massive need for blog writing services by native English speakers and will be for many years to come.
Reddit provided inspiration and a starting-off point, but extensive further research was needed before I could form my own opinion and get anything down on the page.
I’ve written previously on the idea of how to take steps towards goals. Ideas are not the problem, information is not restricted in this world, it is abundant - we are drowning in it. If you’re like me your brain is almost always revving into the red, and one new piece of information leads to a hundred connections and ideas. Reddit is perfect for this – it stimulates ideas and allows your brain to do what it loves - form connections and make sense of things. I often find an article is half-finished in my mind before I’ve even started trying to write it.
How to use Reddit for great sales copy
For me, good quality writing was always about being able to switch tone and voice to appeal to different people. I learned this studying English, and it stayed with me through life.
Reddit is great for this too - here we have one site containing thousands of different communities, all with their own communication styles, in-jokes, language, and memes.
You don’t have to spend long in a subreddit to absorb the language of the group. An example - I hang out in crypto spaces from time to time, and I quickly learned that crypto bros are all about profit, but with a real sense of risk management, which is couched in a kind of gallows humour. Their memes revolve around the idea that they are well-informed but invariably make the wrong decision every time, or the right decision only for the market to conspire against them.
Meme-driven language that generates sales
Crypto language on Reddit is very meme-driven and certain recurring phrases will pop up. For example, someone will comment steady lads, with reference to the Luna fiasco, as per below.
Do Kwon famously tweeted ‘Deploying more capital - steady lads’ as Luna was circling the drain. Another example we can see is pamp eet [pump it], a meme referring to the so-called composite man or market makers, seemingly omniscient and always one step ahead, ready to destroy your position at the drop of a hat with superior liquidity.
For freelance writers specialising in sales, this is perfect for incorporating into copy. A phrase like steady lads alone will grab attention and signal to potential customers that they’re amongst allies. What you do with it is then up to you. Something like “CryptoInvest now offers 5% interest on staked Solana. Pamp eet” is along the right lines. It’s simple language, referring to the ‘pumping’ of your crypto that is now earning 5%, but it’s codified in the inclusive language of a community. Some of the best article writing services use these techniques.
The job of a writer isn’t always what we want it to be. Good content writing often feels like work, especially with the ever-increasing demands of organic SEO and free AI writers looming on the horizon. It can feel like working at a blog writing agency would be easier, but ultimately having control of your own work and creativity is why many of us ended up here.
Language is part of who we are, and through Reddit you can uncover the subtle patterns of communication between different tribes, tease them out, and use them to bring authenticity to your SEO content writing.
Struggling to get started? Check out my other recent blog posts on living lightly and getting things done, and the rise of Chat GPT, and if you’re looking for a writer, just get in touch.
