π Just released: Guidelines and Policies for Optimizing Your Hybrid Workplace
Download nowBuilding and keeping a strong community is not a one-time project. And it’s now even harder in times of the COVID-19 crisis. But technology like social media, chats, and coworking apps can help you improve engagement in your coworking community. Check the post to find more.
And although it’s extremely challenging now, when the majority (or all) of your community is working from home, it’s not yet impossible. You just need the right tools and the proper approach.
In this post, weβll focus on how technology can help you with 2 main aspects of online community engagement:
But before we jump into specific tools and platforms, letβs take a look at the 3 most important engagement aspects youβll want to cover:
To identify the best suggestions for a technology that can help with the above, we have to better understand those 3 aspects (let’s call them engagement mechanisms).
So, we did a bit of historical research on how online communities developed over time (you wonβt believe it, online communities have their roots in the 70s!). We also came up with a few criteria to help us narrow down our research based on whatβs important for coworking communities.
Long-story-short, we ended up with 3 βtypesβ of online communities that developed the most important engagement aspects for coworking communities.
Hereβs the gist of it:
We outlined 2 important notes as a conclusion from our research:
To successfully engage your coworking community, youβll need to use multiple tools.
Below weβve listed the 3 online engagement tools that are essential. Also, weβve pointed out some things to have in mind when choosing a specific vendor platform.
*Weβre not mentioning email anywhere, as we assume itβs a channel that every business nowadays uses to contact, nurture and notify its customers and prospects.
Youβll probably want to use a single social media platform, so you donβt spend tons of time managing multiple.
How to choose the one that will work best for you and your coworking community?
Thereβs one single fundamental requirement that can help – you should be able to create Groups. Groups allow you to gather people together in one online place, where they can see other members and interact with each other.
This basically narrows down the list to Facebook and LinkedIn. Both score high in member visibility, messaging and notification options. However, each of them has some specifics that should be considered:
LinkedIn allows you to find professionals easily. You can search by name, job title or company (which is probably something you know since youβre coworkers), which comes handy when you have a group with 100+ community members. However, have in mind that LinkedIn is primarily used by people in the B2B sector. If the bigger part of your audience is not B2B, thereβs a high chance theyβre not using it very often (or may not have a profile at all).
Messaging is restricted by connections: LinkedIn allows members to exchange personal messages. Also, even though theyβve switched to real-time messages as well, people still regard a LinkedIn message as something more official (i.e. an βInMailβ), which is very helpful when youβre messaging someone at (co)work. But if you donβt have a β1st connectionβ with a person, you’ll have to connect with them first to be able to exchange messages (for free).
Notifications are in-app, push and email. Have in mind that people spend less time on LinkedIn than on Facebook. Thereβs a higher chance they wonβt have the LinkedIn app to receive messages from coworkers and push notifications. Also, most LinkedIn users are sensitive about the type of notifications they receive. They donβt tolerate notifications that are not related to professional topics and donβt bring value.
Member visibility might be limited by profile privacy (some people choose to expose only their names and profile pictures). This might make it hard to find someone youβve had a talk within the hallways if you donβt remember their name. But on the other hand, thereβs a higher chance youβll be able to add more people from your community in the group, as (almost) everybody has a Facebook profile.
You can message anybody, which makes connecting with people easy and fast. Something to have in mind though is that if youβre not friends, your messages might end up in the βOtherβ inbox, which people rarely (or never) check. Although Facebook sends notifications when someone wants to connect with you that way, itβs still possible to miss them.
Notifications are in-app, push and email. People usually spend a lot of time on Facebook as it touches upon many aspects of their life (personal, social, professional), unlike LinkedIn which is focused only on the professional aspect. This generally means that the chances of people seeing your notifications are higher. In addition, almost everybody has the Facebook and Messenger app installed, which means that your push notifications have a higher chance of notifying people about important updates, news, and events. Also, Facebook users tolerate any type of notifications, meaning youβll be OK with sending notifications about anything.
Extra bonus: Facebook allows you to create events. Itβs an awesome mechanism to inform your members about an upcoming workshop or a happy hour gathering in the space. Itβs cool that only people who have marked themselves as interested or going will receive notifications and updates about it, so you can be sure you do not bother all other members who are not interested in the event.
Although social media provides a lot of communication opportunities, introducing an additional chat app can boost engagement by offering one-to-many communication in real-time. You can create channels based on interests, where people can discuss and share information.
There are a number of chat tools that can do the job, but itβs best to choose the one that your coworkers are already using. Example: given that the biggest audience of coworking spaces is still IT/Technology and Freelancers, choosing Slack might be a good bet. Itβs best to run a survey and double-check though.
You can also think about a coworking management software that’s tailored to the communication needs of coworking spaces.
Its purpose is NOT to replace the 2 tools above, but to enhance them by:
If youβre curious about the nitty-gritty details on how OfficeRnD helps with the above you can check out our Mobile coworking app page or our post that outlines how OfficeRnD can help you deal with certain challenges due to the COVID-19 crisis.Β
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