Highlighting Community to Help Your Space Stand Out From the Coworking Crowd
In order to know how to get guests to choose your space, you need to understand what they’re looking for when they search. We asked people to rank what they looked for when trying to find coworking spaces and the results are in!
We wanted to understand what coworkers found most important when they were on the hunt for a new space so that we could improve the hierarchy of information on our platform, and provide some insight for our hosts. To do this, we started a poll on twitter, asking people to rank community & people, price, location, amenities and anything else they wanted to add. Here are the results:
41% Community & People
29% Price
24% Location
6% Amenities
It’s pretty clear to see that most people value the community and people in a space over everything else when searching for somewhere to work. Price and location are still pretty important factors to consider, while the amenities and services seem almost irrelevant.
Let’s dive into each of these things, what it means that people look for them, and how you can utilise each one to stand out in their search for a space.
Community & People
People crave comfort, people crave connection, people crave community. — Marianne Williamson
When looking for a coworking space, the most important thing to people is the community. Is there one? Does it look like one that suits me? What kind of things do they do together? Where do they hang out? These are the questions that they are asking when viewing your space.
The most obvious way to show your community and in turn get more people interested in your space is to visually show them. A picture is worth a thousand words, so get that camera out and get snap happy. Capture your people and what they’re up to together. Photograph your space and most importantly, the people in it. You can use these images on both your website and your CoLo listing!
You can also use photos like these on your social media. Keeping your Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, Facebook or whatever channels you use up to date with the latest community happenings will give people a genuine understanding of what your community is like. Tell your story, and when people click through to your profiles and see events, gatherings, activities, conversations, laughs and more, they’ll have a better understanding about who you are and what they can expect from your community if they join.
The same can also be said for any blog articles, videos or other content created about your space. Remember to highlight your community and share the amazing things that your people do together.
Not only will this help encourage people to choose your space in the search amongst many others, but it will help you to attract and retain members organically elsewhere.
Price
It’s no real surprise that people take price into consideration when looking for a coworking space. Since 40% of the workforce will be freelancers, temps, independent contractors and solopreneurs by 2020, it’s important to take note of your price and what that says to this growing audience.
These people, alongside startups, small businesses, digital nomads and remote workers are on the lookout for cost-effective workspaces to kickstart their business and support their journey.
It’s important to try and strike a balance between price and quality. Too expensive and your potential guests won’t be able to afford it. Too cheap and it might turn people away out of fear for the potential lack of quality.
Take a look at other coworking spaces — what are they charging? Position yourself within the market, evaluate whether you should be cheaper or more expensive than those around you, and you’ll find that healthy balance.
You also could try offering a discount to your audience, giving them an incentive to give your space a go at a cheaper rate and helping your space stand out in the crowd.
Location
Obviously it’s important to know that the workplace you’re heading to isn’t on the other side of the city, country or the world. People need to make sure that where they’ll be heading everyday is easy to find and commute to and from.
Luckily for you, CoLo is currently in the process of making this even easier for guests when they are searching for spaces, but there are still some things that you can do to help them out too!
Firstly, make sure your space’s location is up to date on CoLo, Google Maps and your own website. It’s important that when people search for you, they’re being sent in the right direction.
You can also take a photo of your front door for your listing or website to show people what your space actually looks like from the outside. This means that when they walk past, they know that they’re in the right place, especially if your space is a little hard to get to.
Maybe even include some tips and tricks in your description about where you are and the best ways to get there! Including nearby landmarks and local transport options will not only convince people of all the cool things around you and how easy it is to get there, but help them to get there so that you don’t lose a potential community member!
Amenities
If the community is right, people don’t really care what facilities and/or services you may have in your space. Yes it’s still handy to know, but unless your community hangs out at the coffee machine, has conversations at the printer, or laughs together in the line for the bathroom, it’s not going to convince people to join your space.
Focus less on what amenities you have, and more on how they are integral to your community. Share photos of people chatting as they make coffee, tell stories of community members making new connections as they scan documents, and tweet funny convos had when you’re next in line.
These community-building moments will tell your story in a much more compelling way than a list of facilities you do or don’t have.
Improving the way that you present your community, location and price to potential guests is a sure-fire way to stand out in their search for a workspace. We’d love to see how you are doing this already, so let us know what your tips and tricks are! We’re also always on a mission to make this easier through CoLo, so if there’s any features you’d like to see that will help you out, fire them our way!
