Create an Online Community Space for Your Geographic Community
This will mostly be about Reddit. I like Reddit, but if you are more familiar with Facebook or Google Groups or something else, you may want to go with what is familiar.
Working with something you already know will tend to be easier for you and prior experience with a particular technical environment and social media culture can be very valuable. Hopefully you can borrow ideas from this post anyway, wherever you choose to develop your online community space.
I recommend that you take some time to write up a profile of your geographic community and think about your goals for the online space. Design the space to serve those goals.
Be a bit leery of making it a space for "me and my friends." There is nothing wrong with creating a space for you and your friends, but it tends to do a poor job of serving the larger community or having a role in planning and development.
Looking at examples can be very helpful. Here are a couple I set up, one of which I still run:
I learned that the hard way. I set up a practice community under "my name" (an old online handle) intending to delete it only to find that's not allowed. Another time, I typoed the name. I suggest you double check your spelling before you submit it.
You may also be able to pick up an abandoned community via r/RedditRequest or r/SubredditAdoption. I've done both at times, which means I didn't personally name them and I was stuck with some funky capitalization in a couple of cases.
Once you have your sub set up, you can message the mods of the Global list of location Reddits and ask to be added (assuming you aren't already listed). Their sidebar has code you can copy and paste to add a link to their list to your sidebar as well.
If you really want to attract new members, you should go into Community settings and make sure it points to your location.
You can also email the mods of related Reddits and ask nicely if they will add you to their sidebar. (Make sure you add them to your sidebar first.)
It's a judgment call as to whom to ask, but don't automatically assume they won't do it just because their sidebar is currently empty. Moderation on Reddit is mostly unpaid volunteers and they may have just not about it or maybe weren't even aware it was an option.
When I took over r/aberdeenwa, I messaged the mod for r/GraysHarbor. At the time, it had no info in the sidebar at all and just had the default blue Reddit color scheme with no icon nor banner.
They added my sub plus a few others to the sidebar and also chose to supply a description in the sidebar. So my request caused them to further develop their sub.
However, not all of my requests have been honored. I've messaged some subs and asked to be added and never got a reply and never was added.
Also, keep in mind that even if they do as you ask, it may take a while for them to get back to you. Unpaid moderators tend to their duties as they can fit them into their lives and this can cause slow turn around times.
I recently acquired abandoned Reddits for three Alaskan communities: r/Seward, r/homerAK and r/AleutianIslands. I then added the same icon to all three, an edited version of the Alaskan flag (edited to make it fit the size/shape requirement for the icon space on Reddit).
I think until just a few days ago, r/alaska was the default blue color scheme with very little in the way of editing or styling (it did already state up top "Subscribed to by 5% of Alaska's Total Population!"). I logged into it yesterday and was weirded out to see they have apparently outright stolen my icon to use on their sub and also updated their color scheme and added a gorgeous photo for the banner.
I have mixed feelings about that. On the one hand, I have no copyrights to the flag of Alaska and they are as free as I am to use the flag (assuming the state of Alaska doesn't care to sue either of us).
On the other hand, I did spend time and effort editing it to fit the quirky format for the Reddit icon space and I wasn't asked and I don't seem to be getting credit in any way, shape or form.
Last, if you do setup a Reddit as your online community space, you should be aware that old.reddit.com and reddit.com have separate sidebar interfaces. You have to go into old.reddit.com and update that separately if you want all your visitors to have access to the same information in the sidebar.
Working with something you already know will tend to be easier for you and prior experience with a particular technical environment and social media culture can be very valuable. Hopefully you can borrow ideas from this post anyway, wherever you choose to develop your online community space.
I recommend that you take some time to write up a profile of your geographic community and think about your goals for the online space. Design the space to serve those goals.
Be a bit leery of making it a space for "me and my friends." There is nothing wrong with creating a space for you and your friends, but it tends to do a poor job of serving the larger community or having a role in planning and development.
Looking at examples can be very helpful. Here are a couple I set up, one of which I still run:
- r/ManhattanKS
- r/SewardNE
I learned that the hard way. I set up a practice community under "my name" (an old online handle) intending to delete it only to find that's not allowed. Another time, I typoed the name. I suggest you double check your spelling before you submit it.
You may also be able to pick up an abandoned community via r/RedditRequest or r/SubredditAdoption. I've done both at times, which means I didn't personally name them and I was stuck with some funky capitalization in a couple of cases.
Once you have your sub set up, you can message the mods of the Global list of location Reddits and ask to be added (assuming you aren't already listed). Their sidebar has code you can copy and paste to add a link to their list to your sidebar as well.
If you really want to attract new members, you should go into Community settings and make sure it points to your location.
You can also email the mods of related Reddits and ask nicely if they will add you to their sidebar. (Make sure you add them to your sidebar first.)
It's a judgment call as to whom to ask, but don't automatically assume they won't do it just because their sidebar is currently empty. Moderation on Reddit is mostly unpaid volunteers and they may have just not about it or maybe weren't even aware it was an option.
When I took over r/aberdeenwa, I messaged the mod for r/GraysHarbor. At the time, it had no info in the sidebar at all and just had the default blue Reddit color scheme with no icon nor banner.
They added my sub plus a few others to the sidebar and also chose to supply a description in the sidebar. So my request caused them to further develop their sub.
However, not all of my requests have been honored. I've messaged some subs and asked to be added and never got a reply and never was added.
Also, keep in mind that even if they do as you ask, it may take a while for them to get back to you. Unpaid moderators tend to their duties as they can fit them into their lives and this can cause slow turn around times.
I recently acquired abandoned Reddits for three Alaskan communities: r/Seward, r/homerAK and r/AleutianIslands. I then added the same icon to all three, an edited version of the Alaskan flag (edited to make it fit the size/shape requirement for the icon space on Reddit).
I think until just a few days ago, r/alaska was the default blue color scheme with very little in the way of editing or styling (it did already state up top "Subscribed to by 5% of Alaska's Total Population!"). I logged into it yesterday and was weirded out to see they have apparently outright stolen my icon to use on their sub and also updated their color scheme and added a gorgeous photo for the banner.
I have mixed feelings about that. On the one hand, I have no copyrights to the flag of Alaska and they are as free as I am to use the flag (assuming the state of Alaska doesn't care to sue either of us).
On the other hand, I did spend time and effort editing it to fit the quirky format for the Reddit icon space and I wasn't asked and I don't seem to be getting credit in any way, shape or form.
Last, if you do setup a Reddit as your online community space, you should be aware that old.reddit.com and reddit.com have separate sidebar interfaces. You have to go into old.reddit.com and update that separately if you want all your visitors to have access to the same information in the sidebar.