Brainstorm: What can mediabistro.com do to develop community in smaller media markets?

One of the most common complaints we hear at mediabistro.com is about the lack of resources available to cities that are not major media markets. Some of this is simply due to the fact that the smaller markets are, in fact, smaller: there are simply fewer media professionals, fewer jobs, etc. Some of this is also due to the structure of our company: we have a small staff, based almost exclusively in New York, and can only be in so many places at once.

One way we have attempted to address this problem has been by rolling out resources that our users can take advantage of regardless of where they live, such as online classes and On Demand videos. But another way would be to provide members in those cities with the tools they need to help build their community from the bottom up.

To that end, we'd love to hear suggestions as to what mediabistro.com can do to cultivate local media communities. That could be anything from allowing you to organize your own events to increasing awareness of the site among local employers so they know to post jobs on the site, sponsor events or hire freelancers via the Freelance Marketplace.

Looking forward to hearing everyone's thoughts.