Quick question for anyone using Private Spaces.
I’m exploring how to onboard an external group (local community of professionals that currently meet in person) into a private space within my community platform, and I’m trying to better understand and sell the real value the online community can offer this group from a member’s perspective.
If you’ve done this before, I’d love to know:
- How are members using the private space day-to-day?
- What makes it compelling enough for them to engage beyond in-person events or Slack?
- What kind of content or interactions are working best (discussions, resources, events, etc.)?
- How do you position/market the value of the private space to the group?
- What outcomes have you seen (engagement, retention, collaboration)?
I’m especially interested in real examples or use cases that will help me frame the value prop and actual use case that will benefit the users.
Appreciate any insights you can share, thanks in advance.
We’ve seen Private Spaces work best when they’re positioned as the “between the meetups” (live or in-person) layer, not as a replacement for in-person events.
What usually makes them valuable is the continuity. Instead of conversations disappearing after an event (or getting buried in Slack), members have a dedicated place to keep discussions going, share resources, ask questions, post opportunities, and build relationships over time.
The interactions that seem to work best are usually pretty simple:
– follow-up discussions after events
– peer advice/recommendations
– curated resources/templates
– member wins & intros
– local opportunities/referrals
– smaller mastermind-style conversations
One thing we noticed: overly polished content tends to underperform. Members engage more when the space feels like an active professional network rather than a content hub.
The way we frame the value is usually: “this is the private home base for the community between meetups (live or in-person).”
That positioning tends to resonate more than “yet another platform.” My clients often say to me this is a safe space to them to come back to when needed.
One really good use case we saw was a local professional group using the space to extend speaker conversations after events. Speakers would share resources, answer follow-up questions, and members kept networking asynchronously afterward. It created way more ongoing engagement instead of conversations resetting every month.