Instagram is hot right now. A reported one billion people use the platform every month, with 38% of people using it several times per day.
As a coworking space operator, you’d be wise to leverage the popularity and reach of Instagram. But coming up with original content to share, day after day, week after week, isn’t always easy. If you’re overly promotional, Instagram users tune you out, but if you’re not promotional enough, you may not get the marketing impact you desire. The CloudVO marketing team rounded up our favorite types of content to post on Instagram, specifically with coworking space operators in mind. Here are our top eight.
Highlight Community Members (and Their Brands)
When you highlight your members, their companies, their projects and their brands, you support them in growing their business. You also establish your space as a place and resource for other business owners and can showcase your brand values and vision.
A couple of things to keep in mind when highlighting members:
- How long have they been a member?
- What are some fun facts about them and/or their brand?
Quick win:
Create a member profile email template—say five questions—that you can easily send out to members. This is the basis of your content. Ask them to stop by the front reception or connect with the community manager so a team member can take a photo of them using the space. This way, you can control the colors and composition of the photo, as opposed to them sending in a headshot. Then schedule the content into your calendar. It’s an easy way to create content to post on Instagram without having to do much work.
Suggested hashtag: #featurefridays
Spotlight Team Members
Team members are an integral part of your workspace. They quietly do a lot behind the scenes and, without them, things in your space would quickly fall apart. Put a face to your community and brand by spotlighting the people running your workspace. This way, your external community knows who to contact when they have questions about space rental, membership, events, etc., and you let your new and existing community members know who runs the space and who to turn to with questions.
Suggested hashtag: #teamtuesdays.
External Events in Your Local Community
One of the smartest things a coworking space operator can do is to connect with—and support—other organizations and businesses in your community, especially those that are aligned with your space, community and target market.
By promoting, sharing and mentioning events and news from your extended community, you show members, potential members and neighbors that your space is not just for members—that it’s a resource for the local community.
Create Instagram posts about events that benefit the entire community. Include the topics, speakers, panelists, venue, etc and tag them all. Tagging local partners and businesses is key to boosting engagement and reach.
Showcase Guests and Members Utilizing the Space
Do you feel like you have nothing to post on Instagram? You have the best content right in front of you: your members working in your space.
Time and time again, we find that simple posts of members working or collaborating in a coworking space gets, not only a high amount of likes, but great engagement. People want to see themselves working in your space, so Instagram posts that reflect your members working and your community in action are great go-to’s.
Awesome Reviews
Customer reviews are an important piece of marketing your coworking space, so leverage your great reviews into Instagram content.
Third-party review sites like Trustpilot make things easy with built-in Image Generator tools that allow you to pick quotes from specific reviews and choose a background image. The Image Generator will also size your graphic for the specific social media platform you intend to use. Once you have the quote and preferred graphic, you can simply download and share.
Reviews serve as testimonials that strengthen members’ bond with your space and community, and demonstrate social proof to people who may be interested in learning more about becoming a member. People put a lot of weight on reviews. One great review can drive far more attention, interest and word-of-mouth marketing than you talking about the benefits and features of your space.
Share Space Refreshes
Keeping your coworking space interesting, useful and visually fresh shows that you take pride in it and are constantly maintaining it.
Sharing space refreshes on Instagram gives people an insider’s look at what it’s like in your space. Whether it’s something small like a new coffee maker, or something large, like a space remodel, keep people in-the-loop about changes, improvements and enhancements in the space.
Members appreciate when the space is well-kept, and they are inclined to take more photos within the space and post. Encourage user generated content and people sharing that they are working from your space by liking, engaging, commenting and sharing their posts. And remember, anytime you update or add something cool or new to your space, share it.
Promote Blog Posts
Each time you publish a new blog post you should promote it on Instagram (as well as the other social platforms). Social media is a great way to drive people to your blog content. If you have a featured image you use for a specific blog article, just take that same image and post to Instagram with a caption that draws people to want to read your blog.
ProTip: Make sure the link to your latest article is in your bio. The less work people have to do to get to your post (or website), the more likely they are to actually click through to it.
Show Decor and Workspace Set-up
Each coworking community has members who “nest” or take the time to make their workspace their own. Capture some of these fun and interesting workspace areas and share them.
Whether it involves someone working amongst plants, flowers, artwork, or gizmos and gadgets, snap a photo of someone’s work set-up for the day and share it around. These types of posts are very humanizing and relatable—they let people see what it’s like to work a day in your space.
Bonus: Popular Instagram Daily Hashtags
Find ways to incorporate Instagram daily hashtags into your post. Remember to also keep an eye out for hashtags around holidays, theme months or seasons, news, events, and more. Here are some of the most popular daily hashtags on Instagram:
MONDAY
#mondaymotivation
TUESDAY
#teamtuesday
WEDNESDAY
#wednesdaywisdom
THURSDAY
#throwbackthursday
#tbt
FRIDAY
#flashbackfriday
#fbf
#featurefriday
Cat Johnson is a content strategist and storyteller for the coworking movement.
