How to Find the Best Community Groups on Facebook

I’ve found local Facebook groups to be very helpful to be a part of over the years. It might be one of the reasons why it has kept me on the platform over some of the trendier platforms such as Instagram and TikTok. There are a lot of these local groups that are full of local information that you just won’t hear about elsewhere. Being a millennial, I don’t subscribe to any newspapers or their online counterparts, it just isn’t part of my lifestyle. However, I do enjoy reading my local news and discussing it when shared within a local community group.

This is how I found out about a local Werribee restaurant, DiCaprio having to close down after over 20 years as their landlord sold the land to be redeveloped into a service station. I wouldn’t have noticed it missing for months, as I’d been in lockdown for much of the year. I also never would have heard that the owners of this restaurant would later find a new home to open their new venture, Brothers on K, which was a good news story for the community. It also led to a lot of jokes about it sounding like these brothers are using ketamine and that their Bonk logo is kind of funny too.

So yeah, since you probably don’t live in the same town as me, there’s not much point in discussing the specific local groups that I like, but you should be able to find similarly named groups for Facebook groups in your town.

How to Search Local Community Groups on Facebook

This is probably pretty obvious, but the search function in Facebook is a good place to start. Simply search your suburb name, municipality or council area to get started, then click into groups. You might also want to try neighbouring suburbs as well.

Types of Community Groups

Here are the types of community groups I’ve come across.

Community Update and News Groups

Local community groups are one of the most general and broad types of Facebook community groups. By joining a community newsgroup on Facebook you will be able to keep up with the latest news in your area.

It is a great way to discover news that you may not see on TV or on major news websites. These groups can be used to share information about local events, businesses, weather occurrences, job vacancies, power outages, traffic jams and crime in the area. These groups may also be used to find lost items or pets. If you like to stay updated about what is going on in your community or would like to get to know people in your area joining a community group is a great place to start.

Local Buy, Swap, Sell Groups

Local Buy, Swap and Sell Groups can be used as a platform to buy, swap or sell goods to people in your area. These Facebook groups have started to overtake websites such as eBay and Gumtree as it is free to sell things and is a great way to reach thousands of potential buyers.

A Buy, Swap and Sell group is a great group to join whether you’re looking for a bargain or just want to get rid of some old furniture. You can pretty much sell or buy anything in one of these groups.

Just note there are some unspoken rules. If you buy something you are usually expected to pick it up yourself. You should not request the seller to deliver the item to you. Also, people who haggle too much are seen as rude so be respectful and remember to make reasonable offers!

Local Thumbs Up / Thumbs Down Groups

In these groups, people leave mini-reviews of places in their local area. People may leave reviews for anything from restaurants, local events, pubs, shops, schools and attractions.

Local Ethnic Facebook Groups

These groups can be used by people from the same country to help find people from the same cultural backgrounds in their community.  Within these groups, they can share information about where they can find their favourite imported groceries, discuss politics from their home country, local religious events and just a lot of other general local information.