Don’t focus on looking for ways to find new members. Focus on ways to make people who find the fediverse want to stay. Accomplish that by putting something here that they like to see and want to see again.

When they join the Fediverse, or when they come to visit and consider joining, they’re going to search for the stuff they want to see. They might look for memes, but more likely, they’re going to look for their hobbies. If the only hobbies reflected here are gaming and programming and the fediverse itself, most people are not going to want to stay, the userbase is going to develop an even heavier bias towards certain types of people, it will become more alienating to other types of people, and it will stagnate.

Make an effort to post about and comment about other things. Cooking, movies, TV, sports, fashion, hair, plants, decor, architecture, history, religion, travel, a nearby city or town. Join those communities. Remember, when you see a cool article about nutrition, or a cool video guide to Copenhagen that you think people will enjoy, share it here. Post it, even if the community is small and you don’t think people will care, because we need to seed communities with something. This is what I’ve been doing in a few communities, but mostly in !malefashionadvice. It’s been frustrating, I haven’t really been able to build the community up yet, but it’s okay.

While we’re at it, don’t alienate people by posting, commenting about, or upvoting things that… suck. Keep all forms of bigotry at the door. If you’re a hardcore libertarian or tankie or militant atheist… I’m not going to tell you to stop believing what you believe, but try to cool it, like 10%? Please? Nobody wants you breathing down their throats with extremism.

And… I’ve done this too, but let’s make sure that we’re not focusing too much on meta posts. They can be worthwhile, but they also are not what new people want to see.