What are people looking for?
What are people looking for?
I am a member of the Grand Rapids subreddit. Yes, you'll find me there pestering people "Looking for Group" to give lookingforgroup.social a try. Here are a few titles of the people looking for connection:
- In search of singing group
- AKIRA!!! (an anime club looking for more members)
- Looking for New Friends:)
- How do you make friends in Grand Rapids at 20?
- Adult Ice Hockey Sundays 6p @ Patterson
My observations
What I notice is that these requests for connection and organization all came within a 24-hour period. There is a real longing for connection. There are other problems that I notice with this approach:
- Once the post leaves the 'Recent' or 'Best', it will not be discovered by anyone unless they are specifically looking to find that post again.
- There are a lot of different topics flying by on Reddit as it is not built specifically for social connections. It is a forum and does a fine job at that.
- Locality really doesn't come into play. Most people post looking for connection but you have no idea if they are on the West side or in East Grand Rapids or further out (like me!) and the distance between people matters.
How does lookingforgroup.social help?
I wanted to address each observation with how lookingforgroup.social is addressing the issue:
- Exploring for clubs is easy. Those clubs that are still looking for members show up as a marker on a map. You can easily filter clubs down to your neighborhood and interests. Your club stays discoverable no matter how much time passes.
- The website is focused on community building. Everyone is there for the same reason so you don't have to separate the recommendation for best breakfast in town (which is Lucy's by the way) from finding people to connect with.
- Locality is a top-tier consideration. Look at the clubs available in your neighborhood. If there isn't one, start one! I personally want to hang out with people that are near me and not a 20 minute drive away when I'm tired after work.
What next?
lookingforgroup.social was created to get people connected in the real world. We need community leaders (a.k.a. club managers) to form clubs and we need users to enable that 'Searchable' toggle. Let everyone know you're ready to be social!
Head over to lookingforgroup.social and check it out.
