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Whether you're looking for parenting tips or the best new restaurants in your neighborhood, Facebook Groups is useful for finding virtual communities around various topics.

Now Facebook is testing a dedicated "Discover" feature within the Groups section, making it easier to join conversations.

A new tab will let you browse public and closed Facebook Groups by category, including Groups your friends are in and local Groups. You can see what's gaining traction in your circle, and in your city.

As a randomly-selected Facebook user in the test group, I can confirm the Discover feature is easy and intuitive to use. Indeed, it's a surprise it's taken this long to roll out something like this. 

But the effort makes sense: it's not unlike Twitter and Instagram's new discovery efforts.

Discover offers 25 different categories such as parenting, sports, food, buy & sell, networking, animals & pets, hobby & leisure, support & comfort and travel. Each topic page highlights the top suggested Groups based on popularity and who you may already know that's a member. 

Previously, you'd have to type keywords into the search bar to find related Groups or wait until you were invited to join one by a friend.

While only a select group of people have the feature right now, Facebook told Mashable it will roll out more broadly in the near future.

Beyond Facebook's news feed, Groups is the most-used feature within the app. About one billion people use Groups each month.

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