Like me, you probably share content with your friends on Facebook. For example, when you just have discovered a delicious recipe on Ricardo’s website and after trying it, you decided to share it on Facebook with your friends and family. With social networks, the Internet is now no longer only a source of commercial content no more a source of commercial content only, but a tool to enrich our interactions. Facebook is just one of the many options that we have to share and you probably know others. That being said, besides sharing with our friends, are there other communities of interest with whom you can share and how to find them?
Whether it’s by using social networks, taking part in discussion groups or creating your own blog, you can find people with the same interests and share content with them. If you don’t know where to start, here are some tips that will help you find communities that you can rely to and with whom you will enjoy sharing content.
Social networks are useful platforms for finding communities. In particular, Facebook facilitates this research with its option “discover” groups. What is interesting about it, is that it allows you to search through several categories: sports, food, arts and culture, travel and places, home and garden, etc., making sure there is one to suit every taste, and then explore the groups associated with each of them. You can also see how many members are part of a specific group and see what is posted on ts page, which will help you to know right away if you are interested in its content. If it’s a closed group, you can send a request to join it and once it’s accepted, you will have access to the page. That’s what I did by joining the group “Bon … On Mange Quoi?!?!” which is a group dedicated to recipe sharing in Quebec. Thus, through groups you can easily benefit from the content shared by other members, but also publish your own.
Pinterest is one of the richest network in content shared by its members. It makes it easy to discover and share web content related to our interests. If you are not familiar with this platform, you should know that it allows you to search through the categories of your choice or use keywords to find content proposed by other members. Being myself interested in physical activity, I often use this platform to discover new workouts. For example, to find a Pilates session, I write “Pilates” in the search tab and then explore whether the pins -which is the term used to define the content that was shared- the people or the boards related to this category. For me, it’s mostly the content pinned by other members that allows me to find what I specifically look for and that leads me to discover who is at its origin. I then decide if I want to subscribe to this person or to one of its board in order to take advantage of its contents later. What’s interesting with Pinterest is that you also have the opportunity to create your own boards and pin the content you like in it. Whether it comes from another member, a website or yourself.
Websites and mobile applications
Social networks are not the only way of interacting with communities of interest. Several websites and applications are entirely dedicated to this practice while other have sections specifically devoted to members. In any case, the shared content is rich and can be used to feed and share your content. To give you an idea, Domozoom is a website that allows passionate of decoration, layout and renovations to ask their questions and share their achievements. This type of platform is very useful for gathering the opinion of experts, but also to help others and share the creations that we are proud of. To find this type of website, you can simply start a search on Google with the term “community” followed by your interest. For example, by typing “communauté décoration” (in french in this example) you will see that Domozoom is the second result that appears.
Finally, there are many platforms you can use to share your content and by doing some research on the web, you will be able to reach out to the communities you like. We hope you will find that exchanging with people who have the same interests is rewarding and allows us to develop our knowledge and expertise in what we care about.