How Coworking Spaces Can Make The Most Out Of Instagram
GuidesInstagram can be a very powerful marketing tool for businesses.
And for businesses like coworking spaces, the focus on images makes Instagram the perfect social media network to show off your workspace.
Coworking spaces are very Instagram-able – they tend to be individual in terms of architecture or interior design, they’ll often have unique artwork on the walls, they have a regularly updated base of members and they often host events and guest speakers.
That’s a whole lot of stuff you can take photos of. But even with that much variety, standing out on Instagram, and gaining new members on the back of your content can be tough.
Here are a few tips to help you make the most of your Instagram account:
Make sure your profile is filled out completely
This might sound obvious, but it can make a big difference if you haven’t done it. By adding a phone number and email address, potential customers can contact you directly from your Instagram profile. Add your address so people can easily find you.
Optimise your username
When you follow someone on Instagram, they’ll receive a notification saying “username started following you”. If your coworking space is called The Factory, and you manage to get that username, the notifications will therefore be “thefactory started following you”. Unless they already know the name of your coworking space, this notification might not be appealing enough for them to open. If your username is “thefactorycoworking”, then when they receive the notification, they’ll have a better idea about who followed them. If they’re interested in coworking, they might be more likely to open the notification.
Don’t neglect Instagram stories
With your Instagram Story, you can photos and videos, without filling up your followers’ feeds. The photos will disappear after 24 hours, so it’s a great tool to show off what a typical day looks like in your coworking space. You can still tag people, and add links to the pictures, but you get an extra level of creativity, being able to draw on the photos, add emojis or filters.
It should be used in conjunction with normal Instagram photos – share as much as you want in your story, and then choose 1 or 2 highlights that you can share as normal posts. This way if people are interested in your content that appears in their feed, they can watch your story to find out more.
Stories are getting more and more focus on Instagram – they’ll now appear not just at the top of the feed, but also in the middle. Push notifications are also sent out from time to time reminding your followers to check out your story before it disappears. If you’re regularly adding to it, it’s more likely to appear in front of your followers.
Think about which URL you want to display
When you’re adding your website, think about which page you want someone to land on if they click it. If you offer a free trial day, and you have a page for this on your website, it might be most beneficial to put that URL on your Instagram profile, rather than your homepage. Or if you have a blog that you regularly update, use the URL of your latest blog post. This way, each time someone visits your Instagram profile, the link will be different so they’re more likely to click through to your website.
Make the most of your members
Your members can provide a lot of content that you can fill your feed or your story with. Post about new members signing up, post about any special offers their business might be offering, post about events they’re taking part in or hosting, post mini-interviews with them. There are a lot of opportunities really.
This is not only a way of ensuring you’ve got a variety of content to share, but it’s also something that might make people consider signing up for your space. If you’ve got a large reach on your Instagram account, and they know that they’ll be featured from time to time, those marketing benefits for them will increase the value of a monthly membership at your space.
Bonus: Save time typing out hashtags
Hashtags will help your content reach more people. They will inevitably generate lots of likes from spammy bots, but for people genuinely interested in coworking spaces, using #coworkingspace will help make sure they see you.
If there are a lot of hashtags you use on every photo you share, for example, #coworking #coworkingspace #business etc. you can create a keyboard shortcut so you don’t have to type them out every single time. You can set it up so that when you type a word like “##instagram” (something you won’t type by accident), autocorrect will replace it with “#coworking #coworkingspace #business”
On iOS go to Settings > General > Keyboard > Text Replacement
On Android go to Settings > Language & Input > Keyboard > Personal Dictionary (this may vary depending on the Android phone you’re using)
Final Thoughts
There isn’t one single thing that will make your Instagram channel successful – there’s a whole heap of factors that will have an impact.
The key thing is to post a variety of content, regularly – try out different things and see what works for you.
