Brand New “Neighborhoods” Is Facebook’s Answer to NextDoor
On May 5th, Facebook started testing a new destination where people can interact with and build local communities. Facebook Neighborhoods is a product with the Facebook app that facilitates closer connections with community members and finds nearby places that your local community favors. The goal of Facebook Neighborhoods is to bring a more localized experience to Facebook where people can offer recommendations or meet and support their neighbors in one dedicated place.
How is it different from the normal Facebook experience?
Facebook Neighborhoods will have its own dedicated section of the Facebook app where you’ll be able to create a Neighborhoods profile. That profile is separate from your main Facebook profile that already exists. In order to join a Neighborhood, Facebook will require you to be 18 years of age or older and confirm which neighborhood you choose. You will be able to join multiple neighborhoods, as long as they are nearby.
Why would someone join a Neighborhood?
Even though the main Facebook experience seems to have a lot of similar features as the new “Neighborhoods” product, Facebook is hoping to make it easier to use some of those features in one dedicated place
Here are a few examples of what Neighborhoods will offer:
Learn about Local Groups
Neighborhoods will offer the ability for Local Groups that exist to categorize themselves within specific Neighborhoods. If users create a new group, they can also connect that group to a Neighborhood!
This will allow admins of Local Groups to more easily get in front of a local, relevant audience. Neighborhood members will also have a much better experience searching for Local Groups since groups outside of the Neighborhood will not be featured.
Find new businesses nearby and get recommendations
Recommendations and polls will exist within Neighborhoods, so if you’re wondering who has the best french fries or which barber gives the best beard trim, your Neighborhood members can help point you in the right direction.
Build specific guidelines for interaction
Neighborhoods will have a moderator or group of moderators whose job it is to review posts and comments in the Neighborhoods feed. Moderators will be able to hide inappropriate posts and submit them to the Facebook team, who can remove that post from Neighborhoods. Neighborhood members can also tag a moderator of a post or comment violates Facebook’s Community Standards.
Users can block other users in Facebook Neighborhoods, so even if you are part of the same Neighborhood, that person won’t be able to find you in the Neighborhoods directory.
Choose to opt-in on privacy
Since your Neighborhoods profile is separate from your user profile, it will have separate information. Neighbors will see information like name, cover photo and bio along with any posts in a Neighborhood profile. If you don’t want to join a Neighborhood, you can simply choose not to and your info won’t be shared within Neighborhoods.
Users will also be able to make a Neighborhood private, open or hidden depending on what your Neighborhood members prefer.
Engage with your neighbors
Your Neighborhood profile contains information like interests, favorite places and a short bio so that people will get to know you a bit better. Within Neighborhoods, you can see other users interests and make new friends by posting or taking part in discussions.
There will also be dedicated “roles” within each Neighborhood, but we know little about those specific roles. One Facebook post hinted at a “socializer” role, where that specific user is known for generating friendly conversations.
Just as a reminder, “Neighborhoods” is currently being tested in Canada only, but we’ll continue to post more as Facebook announces more details!
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