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We have to build awareness through word of mouth.  And that's not about *Codidact* in general, and isn't always even about *specific Codidact communities* (though it can be).  Sometimes tweeting a link to a specific, interesting question will get people to take a look who wouldn't have come to the such-and-such site in general.

When a community here has a community-building or "fun" activity, like a photo contest or a writing challenge, share those too!  It's too early to say, but perhaps the photo challenges on Outdoors will draw in some people who didn't initially come for the Q&A (but who will look around once here for the contest).  Back on SE, Mi Yodeya got a spike of interest every year during the season of Purim Torah, when a certain type of humor was temporarily welcome.

For reaching people on Stack Exchange specifically, people can submit community-promotion ads on relevant sites.  For example, the Codidact Writing site advertises on the SE Writing site and the SE Worldbuilding site, and has submitted ads (with insufficient votes so far) on other sites.  Just today someone from Scientific Speculation submitted ads on [Writing](https://writing.meta.stackexchange.com/a/2319/1993) and [Worldbuilding](https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/a/7889/28).  Be sensitive to the moods of the SE communities; these two sites are known to have many users interested in our efforts, so advertising there makes sense.  Let's not be spammers, but it's fine to take advantage of the tools that are available.

I've been talking about advertising because that's what the question asked about, but even more important is *keeping* people once we get them to come take a look.  If visitors see a site that's well-maintained, active, and full of interesting content, they're more likely to stick around than if they see the inverse.  So yes, advertise our sites, by word of mouth or tweets or blog posts of SE ads, but invest even more energy in building the sites you want people to visit.

Even if we do all of that right, it's a slow, uphill process.  Communities are built one person at a time, so lend a helping hand, welcome people who are trying to engage, and keep an eye out for activity that's counter-productive.  Then, roll the dice...