Measure what worked

Upvotes aren't the goal. A post with 500 upvotes and no sign-ups helped your karma, not your project. A quiet post in a small, well-matched community that brings five real users may be worth more. Measure what you actually want: visitors, sign-ups, feedback, first customers.

Tag your links. Add a simple tag to each link you share, so your stats show where visitors came from. For example: yoursite.com/?ref=reddit-sideproject. Many analytics tools also understand utm_source=reddit&utm_campaign=sideproject. Use a different tag per community (and per post, if you post there often). Reddit often hides the exact page people came from, so without tags much of your Reddit traffic may show up as "direct" or unknown.

What to record for each post:

• the community, date and time, and the type of post (story, lesson, numbers, question)
• upvotes and comments after a day
• visitors from its tagged link
• sign-ups, or whatever action matters to you
• the main questions and objections (from chapter 7)
• whether it was removed or filtered

Review after a week or two. Look for patterns. Which communities sent people who signed up? Which types of post got replies? Which times worked? Do more of what worked, and drop communities that only ever brought upvotes or removals.