Most companies think of advertising when they think of social media. Usually their thoughts go straight to Facebook or Twitter, and the focus is on external audiences. Which begs the question, why ignore those closest to you: your employees?
In my experience, the “internal social” discussion usually starts when everyone agrees that the intranet is a mess. Many companies default to the path of least resistance, Microsoft SharePoint. According to intranet consultancy Prescient Digital Media, this may be a mistake. From her blog:
SharePoint is a fantastically powerful and complex solution that offers more features and accessories than almost any technology platform on the planet. However, it can’t be all things to all people all the time…it works well for some things like team and document collaboration, and not so well for personalization and enterprise content management.”
Take a look at single purpose software
As Prescient’s Jed Cawthorne writes: “(SharePoint) might be the product for you, but how do you know unless you look at your requirements?”
Sometimes a better option is single purpose software. It will do the one thing you want done very well. These tools are usually free or cheap.
Take blogs, for example. Just this week I helped a client set up an internal blog. Your intranet is overflowing and messy; navigating the maze is no longer satisfying, so users avoid it. Email just clogs inboxes. However, a recent employee survey specifically said that people wanted to know more about the CEO. Enter the internal blog.
We set up WordPress, the gold standard of blogging software, which is free. The IT department made available a small cheap Linux server. I guided the client to a site that sells premium WordPress themes (Woothemes.com) where you can buy pre-built templates for less than $200. The client will spend a little money to have a graphic designer create a custom header for the blog, and voila, they’re in publishing business! More importantly, employees will get what they want, regular updates from the CEO (assuming he keeps up with postings).
I had a client a couple of years ago that required employees to blog internally for six months before they were allowed to blog externally: a blog farm team! What a great way to learn those skills in comfort and safety.
My first experience with this kind of “internal social” concept was when a former employer of mine adopted Yammer, a sort of internal Twitter, for their sales team. Representatives from all over the country helped each other, solved problems and offered encouragement. Yammer helped us build a better sales team.
you’ll need a plan
Prescient Digital Media recently released the preliminary results of its 2011 Social Intranet Study. The report clearly shows that intranets and social networks are in a constant state of flux. For example, while “social networking tools such as blogs, wikis, and other vehicles are present on most corporate intranets” and “most organizations spend little or nothing on their enterprise social networking tools,” unfortunately” both executives and employees are less than enthusiastic about their social media company.”
The Prescient report goes on to note:
Without a proper plan and business case, many organizations will not be able to successfully implement Intranet 2.0 technologies.”
Even the best tools can fall victim to poor planning and publishing. Content is still king, even inside the firewall.
Doug Lacombe is president of the Calgary social media agency, communicatto. He’s currently looking for that document on the intranet and he swears he was here last week.
