Anyone on Fishbowl can create a bowl. If you have a niche interest and want to find people you can nerd out with, here’s an opportunity to bring your community together.

And, just like anything that grows, a bowl requires a little attention and nurturing in order to build that community.

A) Create a bowl

1. At the bottom navigation of the Fishbowl app, select ‘Bowls.’

2. Select ‘Create Bowl’ after scrolling down the screen in the Bowls section.

3. Select the type of bowl you’d like to create. If you can’t find the category, select “Custom Bowl.”

4. Now you can set up your bowl! Here are pointers:

• Give the bowl a name that summarizes its purpose. Think SEO—the clearer the title, the easier your community can find it and WOM it.
• Add a description that explains who the bowl is for, and what you’re there to do.
• Upload a photo that provides some context and excitement on what the bowl is about. 
• You have the option to require approval for members if you want to view and approve every member into the group. This is useful for groups that want to remain private, such as the Women of Color, the Pastors or the Bourbon & Cigars bowls . Keep your personal bandwidth in mind, since you’ll have to regularly review your queue of folks joining.

• You’ll want to generally keep “Include in Industry Directory” set to ON to ensure that your bowl is listed in your industry and can be found easily.

Congrats, you’ve created your bowl. Take some time to get a lay of the land and familiarize yourself with your Bowl Settings.

B) Useful tools in Bowl Settings

1. Selecting the gear icon will take you to Bowl Settings, where you can share the bowl link, invite people, and make posts. 

2. Setting push notifications to ‘On’ will help you stay aware when anyone posts, comments, or joins/requests to join your bowl.

3. You’ll have the opportunity to make your profile visible in the About tab. This helps your community know who’s behind the bowl they are excited about. Select the gear icon, then ‘Bowl Leader Settings’ to toggle ‘Display Leader Profile.’ You can remove it any time.

C) Activate your community

When you’re done setting up, we recommend sharing with your network. A community is considered “activated” when it has 100+ members and 10+ posts per week. Invite anyone and everyone you know who might be interested through your social media platforms, email, or word of mouth. You can also share your bowl within the greater Fishbowl community by cross-posting it intentionally in relevant groups or comment threads.

1. Start the conversation with a welcome post

Post in your bowl so that when folks join, they’re not entering an empty space. It’s like hosting a party—make it welcoming. You have total freedom to get creative! (Within Community Guidelines of course, which, in a nutshell, are about staying respectful and relevant to your audience.)

Here are some ideas to get you started: 

• Explain why you started the bowl
• Share some interesting facts
• Ask where people are from or a simple personal question that is relevant to your community
• Link to a resource you find interesting that’s related

2. Keep feeding and keep the bowl alive

Don’t get discouraged if your bowl may be slow to grow at the start. It’s totally normal. Keep starting conversations and posting!

• Ask relevant questions (eg. opinions on the latest news)
• Share interesting news or articles
• Post photos to capture attention.

Consistently showing up in your bowl and taking action will help the space grow, and eventually your bowl will build momentum of its own.

On average, a good benchmark is 3-5x/week. But whatever you can do is already awesome!

3. Create a ritual

One way you can keep your bowl alive is by starting a ritual. Is there something you want to ask on a weekly basis? Maybe it’s a self-care thread for working moms, or a resource thread for equestrians, or a job listing and collaboration thread for freelancers. 

4. Pin your posts

When you pin a post, the members of your bowl will get a notification to engage them in the bowl conversation. You can pin posts or any other important or highly active posts to spotlight a conversation and encourage dialogue. We recommend doing this regularly and frequently. You can pin posts for 1 week, 2 weeks, or 4 weeks. 

5. Appreciate your community

Make sure to engage when folks post in your bowl by reacting and commenting. It really helps them feel welcome and a part of the community.

6. Raise awareness about your bowl

The main industry bowl has the most traffic. Letting the relevant people regularly know about your bowl helps them find people they can relate to.

Make it easy for others like you to find your community. Share posts you care about outside of Fishbowl.

We appreciate you.

Growing a community is no small feat. Give yourself a pat on the back as we crown you with the achievement of creating community on Fishbowl. We’ll do our best to support the growth and nurturing of your new space, and of course feel free to reach out with any questions, comments, or feedback at community@fishbowlapp.com

You’ll be hearing from us along your bowl creation journey. Thanks so much for being a part of Fishbowl, and for creating an opportunity for like minded folks to have open dialogue around things they collectively care about. 

Good luck!

Sincerely, 

🐠 The Fishbowl Team 

Other resources

• How a bowl creator grew her bowl from 0 to 11,000 members: How Heather Baldock Grew The Women In Advertising Bowl
• Interested in becoming a Community Leader? It’s a program that highlights already engaged users in bowls that are already quite active. It helps provide support to existing bowl creators and to the community. Read more about Fishbowl Community Leaders here.