In 2018, I left home in Orlando to attend UNF in Jacksonville. I had never been to the area before so I felt a bit lost, both on campus and off. I had no idea where the local restaurants were so I could get something aside from cafeteria food, or which parks I could run in, or which shops I could get stuff I needed. A lot of these local places don’t have their own websites, and I was tired of digging around online trying to pull all the information together.

Then, one of my new friends who is from Jacksonville told me about the Relevnt app. She explained that there’s UNF Communities on the app, where you join communities of interest to you. In her case, she’s in the surf club that uses the app to stay connected, chat, and share fun stuff. They get together once a month and have events like surf contests and parties. Relevnt was the perfect place for them to grow their club on campus and build up anticipation for the next event.

Now that Relevnt’s been on my phone for some time, I know that it’s definitely a college student necessity. It completely immersed me into UNF, the area in general, and helped me get involved on campus.

In Campus Communities on Relevnt, you can find your school. Here at UNF, it’s UNFCommunities, and in that, there are communities specific to UNF, like UNFSurf, UNFFoodies, UNFRunners, and more. Say, if an incoming freshman to UNF is interested in dance, he or she could easily find more information about what’s happening with dance on campus and connect with other dancers by going to UNFDance on Relevnt.

The other great thing about Relevnt is that since I’ve downloaded it, I’ve found myself spending less time using the other apps. Relevnt combines pictures (like what you’d see on your Instagram feed), information (like what you’d see on your Twitter feed) and scheduled events (like what you’d see on your Facebook feed).

Simply put: Relevnt is a unique location-based social networking app. The app allows you to chat with the community around you and discover more about wherever you are in the world (think: study abroad! What a cool way to stay connected and get immersed in the local area you go to!). It allows you to set a pin and create a custom radius location for immediate local discovery.

Relevnt’s bottom navigation features two main pages: your feed and Around You. The Around You page shows you all the local chat rooms and local content types such as local headlines, podcasters, bloggers, etc. Once you’ve found chat rooms and Communities that interest you, you join them so that they’re added to your live feed as well as saved to your profile.

Relevnt is also unique because of how customizable it is. I can design my own feed unlike Facebook and other social media sites where my feed is based on my friends and their interests, which may not always align with my interests. In other words, your “circle of interests” is unique to you. For example, circles of interest can be campus communities, news & lifestyle publishers, fan & enthusiast communities, and independent voices (blogs/products).

The app already has a lot of activity on it. People have started creating local chat rooms on the app such as “JagChat,” “News4Jax,” and “SwoopTalk.” Local chat rooms such as “SwoopTalk” allows anyone on or near UNF’s campus to communicate and share events happening within the community. And it’s also a perfect platform to use if you want to be “discovered.” You’re an artist and just started selling cool tee-shirts with your artwork? People will find you easily if their interest is ‘art’. Relevnt was designed so that anyone can easily network and have their own voice and platform.

If you are interested in learning more about Relevnt, the company is currently searching for eight to ten UNF students who would be interested in becoming campus correspondents. Your task would be to create “buzz” around the app: get people talking about it and on it. This job will have a monetary incentive.

Relevnt has made my experience at UNF a totally different and better and more relevnt one so far!