Recently, SocialSci was recommended in a Reddit thread “Does anyone know of a reputable website where you can actually make money?”

In less than 48 hours, we had over 2000 Reddit-reading visitors directed from the thread and just over 750 participant signups—a remarkable overnight feat since our signup requires users to authenticate via sms and answer 5 security survey questions.  It is worth noting that the thread never made it to the front page of Reddit! These new users helped our researchers answer over 180,000 scientific questions in 2 days!

What we think happened…

The subreddit, http://reddit.com/r/frugal, is a 68K person community, which means it has a serious following.  /r/frugal is a targeted subreddit where people are conscious about money saving techniques. This consciousness appeals to people who are motivated to take action and save/earn money. Its top rated threads will be instantly placed before, potentially, 68K people.

I first noticed that Socialsci.com was the top voted comment in a thread late Saturday night. This particular thread topic is common on /r/frugal and I assumed Socialsci would be buried. I awoke to a thread with 200+ upvotes and a healthy discussion about SocialSci. It’s the discussion, I feel, that added to our trustworthiness and motivated people to register for SocialSci.

The thread had many of our users chiming in, answering questions, and revealing how much they have actually made.  These users were most likely recruited from one of the many Reddit ads we have run in the past. The combination of user validation, top comment position, and the thread being in a popular subreddit led to a nice surge in participant signups at a 37% conversion. 

SocialSci.com offers a way for academic researchers to survey participants from around the world. We wanted to share these numbers to add to the overall knowledge of what being mentioned in a somewhat popular social thread could achieve.

-Leon 

& The SocialSci Team