Social Proof: The Secret Weapon of High-Converting Coworking Websites

One of the big questions coworking spaces have is, “How are we going to attract more members to our community?”

You have an amazing space. You’ve got a website that showcases it well. Even your decor looks like it came out of an interior design magazine. All that being said, new members are looking for one other thing before they can commit to joining your community – what are other members saying about you?

This is called social proof – the concept that buyers are influenced by reviews and actions of other buyers. Recall the last time you purchased something online. It’s likely the product had some sort of review from others and that influenced your decision. If you had to choose between a book with no reviews, or one with dozens of five-star reviews, which would you pick?

Why is social proof so important?

Through working with hundreds of coworking spaces, we have seen success in leveraging the power of testimonials on coworking clients’ websites. Here are some reasons why you should be adding member testimonials to your marketing site:

• When collecting testimonials from your members, you show that you care about their experience
• Those testimonials add credibility to your coworking space and highlight the unique services you provide
• When prospective members research you online, they tend to trust these testimonials when making their decision
• There are also SEO benefits to adding more natural language to your site

How do you gather testimonials?

There are numerous ways to collect testimonials from your members. We’ve put together some ideas that have worked for some of our coworking clients:

• Leverage your reviews on ShareDesk: If you have a ShareDesk listing, you can capture and display your reviews on your own website as well
• Get feedback during live events: Hosting events is a great way to attract more attention to your coworking space, but you can also use this as an opportunity to connect with your members and collect testimonials as well. Be sure to bring a camera and catch the community in action
• Send a survey to your members: Once members have been in your space for a few weeks, send out an email asking them to give you feedback on their experience. If you use Optix, you can send out a poll directly in your community feed to maximize response rates

• Encourage them to post on Instagram: Instagram is particularly good social media platform for coworking spaces, because of the emphasis on visual content. Tell them to use a hashtag or tag your space so that you can track their posts. Instagram also allows you to embed these posts directly on your website
  
• Bring influencers to your space: Contact local bloggers and social media influencers to get them to visit your space or host an event, for free. In return, ask them to provide a video testimonial or post based on their experience. You can ask them to highlight the aspects of your space that you are most excited about promoting right now

All that being said, there are many ways to generate social proof. Your members probably love your space, so make it easy for them to give their feedback, and they’ll do it. Pick one of these strategies and start adding social proof to your coworking website today.

Do you want more tips on how to optimize your coworking website? Check out my previous post on creating high-impact CTAs. I also encourage you to take a look at our features page to get a better understanding of how to leverage social proof to communicate value to your audience.