I am not in marketing, and neither is my degree.
But this sticks out to me as something interesting, mostly because I am not religious. But I am interested in what religious texts actually say, and not what is said/repeated in religious ceremonies.
To market your community to the correct audience (I.e. not internet trolls) you’d need some statements if you don’t already have them. Like what is your intended purpose, what are your goals/vision. From there, you can tease out your audience. This will help you decide how to increase visibility of your community. You can advertise to your audience through ads, email lists, other social media. Your strategy, is really dependent on defining these things. Every cybersecurity tech startup has the same playbook: start company, establish a blog. Publish a ton of blogs/articles with appropriate keywords/hashtags all over LinkedIn, twitter, whatever, then get visibility and eventually customers.
Example; If you’re focused on being more academic, I’d imagine you’d target universities or colleges, start regional clubs, or put up fliers with a QR code for people to find you. My university is heavy on using Discord as a communication tool. Every community, club, and even individual classes has a discord channel. Many people dislike discord from a privacy perspective, but many people enjoy it too. There’s QR code fliers all over campus advertising clubs, tutoring, etc.