I would second melannen's rec of fictional_fans as a place where you can ask questions and (once it exists) advertise your new comm. Creating promotional materials like a simple banner and one sentence description of the community with an html box for the code that other people can copy & paste for reposting also helps. If you're already noticing whispers of wanting, you can likely find a small handful of people willing to try it out, and honestly, that can be enough to start - you can build a core with them.
From my own experience, hosting regular events or activities can be very helpful for building community and giving lots of entry points for people to join wherever they might be coming from. Think about what they might be looking for, and what you can do as a mod, as a community space host, to help facilitate that.
For a fandom-specific community like the BNHA-specific one you're thinking of, are folks looking for a place to talk about the most recent manga chapter and/or tv episode? Are they looking for (or open to) discussion posts for rewatching or reading canon from the start? (Having someone liveblog their reactions or thoughts to earlier installments can be amazing discussion-bait - there's a vicarious pleasure in revisiting it from someone else's perspective.) A place to advertise recent fic updates? Roundups of links for related recs from the last month / week? (I know on LJ there used to be fandom-specific newsletter and fic rec communities much like the current excellent multifandom Rec Center email newsletter.)
I would recommend checking in periodically to ask your members for feedback, and lean into whatever people are particularly interested in that also works for you. Especially when a comm is new, comment on every post if you can - comments feed people's sense of engagement and their willingness to come back and participate more. Think about what pacing of community activity is sustainable for you, and whether you want to be the sole mod or eventually recruit one or more co-mods.
Hope you have fun with it! Sounds like you're taking the time to get it set up well, and it's a fandom with sustained interest. DW is definitely a great place for building a cozy welcoming community - and it has particularly good moderation tools compared to those other three platforms you mentioned.
no subject
From my own experience, hosting regular events or activities can be very helpful for building community and giving lots of entry points for people to join wherever they might be coming from. Think about what they might be looking for, and what you can do as a mod, as a community space host, to help facilitate that.
For a fandom-specific community like the BNHA-specific one you're thinking of, are folks looking for a place to talk about the most recent manga chapter and/or tv episode? Are they looking for (or open to) discussion posts for rewatching or reading canon from the start? (Having someone liveblog their reactions or thoughts to earlier installments can be amazing discussion-bait - there's a vicarious pleasure in revisiting it from someone else's perspective.) A place to advertise recent fic updates? Roundups of links for related recs from the last month / week? (I know on LJ there used to be fandom-specific newsletter and fic rec communities much like the current excellent multifandom Rec Center email newsletter.)
I would recommend checking in periodically to ask your members for feedback, and lean into whatever people are particularly interested in that also works for you. Especially when a comm is new, comment on every post if you can - comments feed people's sense of engagement and their willingness to come back and participate more. Think about what pacing of community activity is sustainable for you, and whether you want to be the sole mod or eventually recruit one or more co-mods.
Hope you have fun with it! Sounds like you're taking the time to get it set up well, and it's a fandom with sustained interest. DW is definitely a great place for building a cozy welcoming community - and it has particularly good moderation tools compared to those other three platforms you mentioned.