genuinely how does everyone post on reddit to promote?

TLDR

Reddit promotion feels like a lottery I keep losing, and shadowbans are hitting accounts that did everything "right." I've been digging into why extreme-content creators get flagged even when they follow every rule on the sidebar. Here's what I've figured out so far, and what I'm doing instead.

Why do accounts get shadowbanned when they haven't broken any rules?

Here's the frustrating truth: Reddit's spam filters don't really care about individual rules, they care about patterns. And the pattern that rings the alarm hardest for adult creators is simple - you post, people upvote, you never comment, your only link is a monetized one in your bio. Even old accounts with decent karma get caught in that filter. Shadowbans are applied by automated systems first, humans second, so questions like "did I break subreddit rules?" often miss the point entirely. The ban doesn't come from the subreddit. It comes from Reddit's own anti-spam layer looking at your account behavior across the whole platform.

For creators whose content sits on the graphic or extreme side, there's an extra layer: higher report rates. Even if mods aren't explicitly reporting you, users are. Enough user reports on any post and the account gets reviewed automatically. You can be beloved in the comments of your own posts and still trip that wire, because the people who hate what you make hit the report button faster than your fans hit the upvote. Volume matters more than sentiment.

The other unspoken factor: verification age and karma mix. Reddit's filters tend to trust accounts with a broad activity history - commenting in normal, non-adult subreddits, engaging outside of promotion entirely. An account that only exists to post content, no matter how old, looks like a promo account to a machine.

What actually works instead of grinding against the shadowban system?

Honestly? Diversify and stop treating Reddit as the whole funnel. The creators who survive Reddit's filters treat it as one channel among several, never the foundation. That means building presence on platforms designed for adult discovery rather than ones that tolerate adult content grudgingly. Live cam platforms are underrated here - they're built for exactly this kind of audience-building, and you're not fighting an algorithm that's looking for an excuse to erase you. I've been warming to xlovecam for this reason: the audience is already there looking for adult creators, you can be graphic within the platform's rules without fear of a silent ban, and it converts attention into actual income instead of just upvotes.

If you do keep pushing on Reddit, a few practical adjustments help: build genuine comment activity in unrelated subreddits over weeks, space out posts heavily, rotate accounts slowly rather than burning one to the ground, and accept that some shadowbans are simply bad luck. But treating Reddit as a lottery ticket rather than a business plan is the healthier mindset.

Where is this all heading?

I keep wondering - as more creators hit these same walls, will Reddit ever clarify its filters for legitimate adult creators, or will the ecosystem just quietly migrate to purpose-built platforms? And for anyone reading this who's been shadowbanned with a clean record: what did you actually do to claw your way back, if anything? I'd genuinely love to know, because right now the answer seems to be "stop depending on Reddit," and I'd like to be proven wrong.