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Your discussion thread was approved but people don't interact with it. What can you improve?

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The struggles you may face in terms of Product Hunt discussions are:

– Your post wasn't approved

– You do not know what to post about ()

– Your post was approved, but nobody interacts

And you would like to fix it.

Well, I can outline the possible things you can improve:

  • Make sure you are formatting the text (paragraphs, bullet points, bold, italic font, images, quotations)

  • You can spark an initial conversation by tagging someone when you mention him/her in the text

  • Ask a question at the end (and ideally highlight it so people will not overlook it)

  • Start the initial conversation – e.g. start the first comment so it looks like someone already interacted

  • If someone comments – engage back as soon as possible

  • Make sure that you are posting on the days that have higher traffic

If you have your own findings, what would you add to the list? :)

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That's all good advice, but it seems that without very many followers your chances are not good, like on any social media.

In p/general, with the default Trending sort, the top 3 discussions are yours. I'm not saying that your discussions are not interesting, but other people post very interesting things and don't get any attention.

E.g., I was the only one commenting on some days ago, and it only got 6 upvotes. I experienced similar things myself.

 This matches something I have been tracking on my own account. Two threads submitted the same day, one in general with no links at all, one in self-promotion with three links, rejected within about a minute of each other with the identical generic notice. Different forums, opposite content profiles, same outcome. The second rejection landed roughly a minute after submission, which is not a human reading it.

Comments on other people's threads post and stay live with no issue the whole time. So whatever gates thread creation is not reading the content of the thread at all, it looks like a property of the account itself, more likely accumulated interaction history than raw follower count, since a young account with almost no followers can still get comments through fine.

If that is right, the fix for a stuck account is not a better opening post, it is spending weeks doing exactly what this comment section is doing right now. Nika, did your first threads get approved before or after you had built up a comment history here?

 I'm not sure about this, I had some posts in p/general approved and some rejected. It may also be that they changed the algorithm of course.

BTW, I think in your own product's forum, I think it's easier approved.

You’re giving some great advice, Nika, but I think the most valuable one is consistency: showing up and posting every single day.

The second is timing your topics around the start of the launch day. From my experience, when I post early in the morning, I usually get 10–15 replies. When a topic goes live 8–12 hours after the launch day starts, I’m lucky to get 2–3 comments.

 I can definitely confirm this observation!

 you're doing incredible job recently, have to admit it! Keep the momentum!

 Thanks a lot! I really enjoy the communication here =)

   Likewise, when I registered on PH it was about learning about new products people are building and preparing for my own launching. Lately, I enjoy discussions and threads more than product launches. The most exciting part is meeting new people and having a conversation.

I haven't found a way to get approved in p/general yet =)

But for more interactions, I can share my opinion. I think it's good to have threads with question titles, so the community can answer immediately without reading the whole thread.

   yes, it's difficult or impossible sometimes to get approved, experienced that also

 Where do you usually post? Under your product’s topic?

 Well I don't post that much, but a post in my own product's forum got approved without problem. In p/general I had one rejected without explanation, and not approved even after asking 2 times, again without explanation. And it was nothing promotional.

 I’ve had many rejected =D