What's the best way to spread the word about Feddit.uk and get more people involved with the instance?

In my opinion, thinking about getting people on an instance is probably the wrong way to go about it. The miracle of federation means it doesn't really matter who is on which instance anyway, and having more people on one instance does bring drawbacks (extra workload for the admin, extra muscle needed for the server, etc.).

What's more important is managing to promote involvement in specific communities on this instance. Looking at Reddit, the really big UK centric subs were the main United Kingdom one, UK Politics, Casual UK, and the various location-specific ones. Trying to make sure that Feddit UK's equivalents to these communities are popular and become the main Lemmy successors to these subs (as opposed to similar communities on the giant Lemmy instances) is the challenge.

Not that I have any answers on "how", though. Keep posting content, participating in discussions, and upvoting. Also, if you have an account on one of the big instances too, make sure to subscribe to your Feddit UK communities on those accounts to make sure those servers are pulling the data accross, improving visibility for other users on those instances.

Pretty much this ^^^^

If we build it, they will come but we all need to help build it:

If you think there's a need for a community then start it - you can always pass on the reins later on.

If you see something interesting then post, don't wait for someone else to do it - numbers are still relatively low so there isn't usually the scramble to post something there might be on Reddit.

If you have an account on another instance then subscribe to communities on here - it improves discoverability and drags the content over to that instance. I had to ask if a specific but niche community existed because search wasn't showing it and it did exist, I just had to use the URL to drag it over here. So this is key.

If you see an opportunity to mention a community, them throw a link in.

If you start a new community post it here: [email protected] as it announces it to the wider Lemmiverse and should get subscribers from elsewhere.

There are various community directories that I list here, if a Feddit.uk community meets the criteria for inclusion (some are focused on Reddit equivalents to help migration) then add it. Again, don't wait for someone else to do it as they might not.

On Atlas of the Fediverse I run self-promotion Sunday, so anyone can throw links in there old or new.

I advertise Lemmy in general as a content aggregator that isn't trying to sell you stuff, with an early net small community do it yourself feel. I advertise Feddit-uk by saying that I'm here ;)

It can be a bit of a double-edged sword.

The communities here aren't amazingly busy here yet, but the signal to noise ratio is good, a bit like Usenet before The September that Never Ended. More people involved would be nice, but quality should trump quantity. Unfortunately, in reality it's terribly hard to do - if the communities here start getting as popular as the ones on Reddit, the problems the Reddit ones also come. Sorry, no, I don't have a solution to that...

It's a great idea having the UK based communities on this instance. But if people on other instances don't subscribe then other users on that instance won't be able to find the communities here in their search bar.

I do worry the large instances will end up being where all the communities are and people will just have accounts on the smaller ones

One of the things that gets people to reddit is that posts often end up being indexed on google, so one way to improve pickup is just making sure there is also good content here.

I'm trying to setup on feddit.uk but still waiting for my account to be verified!

See this post by @Tom in case your email disappeared into the void

Now is a good time to preach the good news of the fediverse. Bug your friends and link to feddit.uk on socials.