Start on LinkedIn if you can name the person who buys from you and their job title. Start on Reddit if your buyers ask for recommendations in public, in their own words. The two platforms answer different questions: LinkedIn tells you who someone is, and Reddit tells you what they need right now.
Neither one is better in general. The right one depends on what you sell and how your buyers behave. Below is what each platform is good for, what it costs in hours and risk, and a table that matches seller type to a starting point. On both, the messages go out from your own account, under your own name.
Identity versus intent
On LinkedIn you search for people. You filter by title, company, size and place, and you get a list of names. You know who they are, but you do not know whether they need anything today. It is a directory with a message box.
On Reddit you search for words. You look for threads where someone writes "can anyone recommend" or "what do you use for," and you get people who need something now. But most Reddit users go by usernames, so you rarely know their company or title, and many are practitioners or hobbyists rather than budget holders.
That is the whole tradeoff. One gives you a better target and a cold start. The other gives you a warmer start and a vaguer target.
Who you can find on LinkedIn
LinkedIn is strongest for white-collar roles at companies of any size: operations managers, HR leads, founders, finance directors, facility managers at commercial buildings, property managers. If a buyer has an office job and a company page, they are probably on it.
Three limits to plan for. Free accounts run into limits on search, and LinkedIn does not publish the exact numbers, so you may hit a wall mid-week. Inboxes are crowded with pitches, so a connection request with a sales message in it tends to be ignored. And LinkedIn's user agreement bans scraping and automation tools; accounts that use them can be restricted. Do the work by hand, or take the names from LinkedIn and reach people by email. How to find B2B leads on LinkedIn without Sales Navigator covers the manual method.
Who you can find on Reddit
Reddit is strongest where people talk in public about the tools and vendors they use. There are subreddits for small business owners, for accountants, for property managers, for developers, for restaurant operators, and for nearly every trade. In those places, someone asks "what do you all use for scheduling" and a dozen people answer. Your reply sits next to theirs.
Limits: you can't search by job title, a reply reaches only the people reading that thread, and every community has its own rules on promotion. Community size matters too: in a small subreddit your reply is easier to notice, and in a large one threads move quickly and sink fast. How to find B2B clients on Reddit and how to find leads on Reddit for a local service business go through the method for each.
Time per week and tone
A fair weekly budget for each is about three hours, spent differently.
- LinkedIn, 3 hours: 60 minutes building a list of 25 to 30 named people, 90 minutes writing short personal notes and replies, 30 minutes on follow-ups. Tone: professional and brief. Say who you are, why them, and ask one question.
- Reddit, 3 hours: 10 minutes a day finding threads and 20 to 30 minutes writing one or two good replies. Tone: plain, specific and helpful, like a person talking to a neighbor. Mention your business only when it fits, and say that you own it.
Reddit takes longer to produce a first lead, because you are building a history in a community. LinkedIn can produce a conversation in the first week, because you are writing to people directly.
Rules and risks on each
On LinkedIn, the main risk is a restricted account from automation or a burst of unwanted messages. Keep volume modest and personal.
On Reddit, the risks are removals and bans. Each subreddit has its own rules, and Reddit's site-wide rules ban spam and vote manipulation. Business replies can be removed or reported if they read like ads. Disclose that you own the business, follow the rules of each community, and never use more than one account, bought accounts or bought votes. If you use Rocketship's Conversations, it finds threads and drafts a reply and a DM, and you post from your own account. Rocketship never posts, votes or messages on Reddit. For the finer points, read self-promotion rules for business owners.
Seller type against platform
| Seller | Start with | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Local service business selling to households (roofer, cleaner, landscaper) | Reddit city subreddits, if your city has an active one; skip LinkedIn | Homeowners ask for recommendations in public. They don't look for contractors on LinkedIn. |
| Local service business selling to commercial buyers (office cleaning, HVAC contracts) | LinkedIn for names, plus email | Facility and property managers have titles and companies you can look up. |
| B2B services (agency, consultancy, bookkeeping for firms) | LinkedIn first, Reddit for niche communities | You can name the buyer's title; Reddit adds the ones asking in public. |
| Software for developers or technical users | Reddit first | Practitioners ask for tool recommendations and give blunt feedback. |
| Software for business teams (finance, HR, operations) | LinkedIn first, Reddit for feedback | The buyer has a title and a budget; users talk on Reddit. |
Examples to picture: Hector's three-person electrical crew in Tacoma sells to homeowners and gains little from LinkedIn. Ines's six-person firm cleans up accounts payable for mid-sized distributors, and she can name the controller at every one of her targets, so she starts there. Kofi has an inventory app for craft breweries and needs feedback from brewers before he needs buyers, so he starts in the brewing subreddits and asks questions.
Using both without doubling the work
Keep one sheet for both. Columns: name or username, where you found them, what they need, the date you wrote, and what came back. Use the same offer and the same few sentences about what you do, adjusted in tone. A sensible week for a B2B seller who wants both is two hours of LinkedIn and one hour of Reddit, then a Friday review: which produced calls?
If email is part of your plan, LinkedIn outreach versus email compares the two for early-stage sellers. For the other social channels, see how to find clients on X and a Reddit marketing strategy. Conversations handles the Reddit searching and drafting.
Which platform you pick matters less than whether the work gets done every week. Rocketship finds the buyers by name, emails them from your own Gmail, follows up, and books the meeting on its own. Plans that get you customers start at $24.99 a month (Launch), and every monthly plan starts with a 7-day free trial, card required.