Strive to spread the word about your community wherever you can. Starting from large specialized conferences, ending with user group meetups. Online and offline. When you give a speech, share a story that is about the community itself: the mission and problems being solved, the core mechanics of the platform, social norms, etc.
You’ll likely be able to find some users who are willing to speak on behalf of the community. Support these volunteers in any way you can:
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By providing them additional information, statistics, previously unknown technical details, etc. Any information that might help them to prepare a good speech.
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By providing them swag. Prepare and send the speakers the necessary handouts that they can share with the audience after the speech. Notepads, stickers, t-shirts, etc.
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Tell the story about the speech to the community after with photos, videos. Make it appealing to others to speak as well.
This is a fragment of a draft of the book “Lessons Learned While Working On Stack Overflow”. Read the full book on kindle or the paperback version.