Worldwide Membership

Hello. :slight_smile:

This question has probably already been asked more than once before, but does postcrossing actively try to promote itself in countries with lower membership? I tend to interact more frequently with members from certain areas/countries, and it would be great to interact with members from a wider range of countries. Is there anything I can personally do to help increase membership from countries with lower membership?

Thanks!

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Hi @ruchnrolla! Welcome aboard the new forum! :wave:

We welcome anyone’s enthusiasm in spreading the word! If you have some time in your hands, we would recommend getting in touch with members in countries with lower membership and brainstorming ideas of how to spread the word there. This might involve speaking to the media, schools, or maybe posting in some websites that are more used there. Often there might be constraints (poorly working post offices, or very high postage costs) that might make these efforts less efficient — coordinating them with a local person to understand the situation and the constraints of that country should help.

Maybe we can invite @rainerebert to this topic, to tell everyone about his experience spreading the word in countries like Bangladesh and Tanzania! :slight_smile:

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Hello, meiadeleite!

That’s a great idea. I will reach out to a few country members and see what I find out.

Thank you for the suggestion!

Actually, my husband brought up another couple interesting points.

Is postcrossing displayed in English in all countries?
Does the site have a pop-up that asks if the reader wants to translate the webpage to another language?
Does the postcrossing site have “postcard,” “pen pal,” etc. in other languages in the keyword settings?

English as the core language makes sense since it is, at least for now, a fairly universal language. Just curious how easy it is for people who speak other languages to discover the site online.

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Speaking to local media in underrepresented countries, organizing events, and posting on popular messaging boards are all great ideas! In my experience, newspapers are usually quite open to article suggestions, especially if you offer to write the article. You don’t have to be a professional journalist. Anybody can interview local Postcrossers and put together an article. It just takes a little effort. Maybe the Postcrossing community could help by putting together an article template or guidelines? The community could also put together an event kit to help Postcrossers in underrepresented countries organize events to spread the word about Postcrossing. That kit could contain flyers, posters (in different languages!), etc.

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