When considering an internal social network for your agency, understand that it could:
- Consolidate communications to save time, support collaboration and build a strong culture, OR
- Serve as an ultimate time waster and productivity distraction.
By defining and expressing the goals of the network upfront, and setting the standards through initial engagements with your agency or partners, you can employ a time-saving communications tool at a relatively low cost compared to other infrastructure needs.
If you are not familiar with Yammer (@Yammer), or competing solutions, it is basically like Facebook for enterprise, with features like threaded and searchable conversations, file sharing, group management, outside partner collaboration, alerts and much more.
Below are five ways that an internal social network can make your agency more efficient, effective and productive:
- Streamline Agency Communications: Even for smaller agencies, large workloads and tight deadlines can mean that employees aren’t able to regularly communicate with each other. An internal network enables ongoing communications, notes, news and advice, either broadcast to the full network, or organized within strategic agency groups.
- Facilitate Partner Collaboration: Yammer offers the ability to create outside networks through your main account to create collaboration portals for outside partners, which centralizes and archives communications.
- Keep the Mobile Workforce Connected: For mobile employees and virtual teams, an internal social network keeps staff members engaged and up-to-date.
- Perpetuate Culture: A strong culture is essential for successful agencies, and a social network that is uniquely yours can build stronger personal relationships, encourage peer-to-peer communications and add fun to the workday.
- Nurture Career Growth & Development: With a private network, your agency has the ability to share knowledge, conduct internal training exercises, support peer mentorship, and connect employees with the resources to read and influencers to follow.
Do you use an internal social network for your agency, and if so, what are the key benefits you have experienced?
