What is Enterprise Social Networking?
An Enterprise Social Network is an internal social network that is used to aid communication within a business. Enterprise social networking is the way in which an organisation uses a network to cover a vast range of activities and operations. It is centred around the relationship between people with the same business interests and duties.
The key features of Enterprise Social
Think about the social media platforms you use daily, such as WhatsApp and Facebook for example, an Enterprise Social Network imitates the way these networks work, giving all employees a chance to be heard. Just as in their public social network counterparts, employees have the ability to follow colleagues and like and share content they’ve found useful or interesting. Other features include being able to add events to their calendars, update to-do lists and set up notifications for the things which matter to them the most.
What are the benefits of Enterprise Social?
So why should you seriously consider enterprise social networking?
One benefit is that by using Enterprise Social you can drastically reduce the clutter in email inboxes. Instead, employees can have a quick and clear discussion in real-time, in the public forum or in a private discussion. The increasing adoption of other communication platforms means the volume of emails being sent is starting to decline. This works particularly well for any public-facing employees, such as customer services roles. Often these employees are in need of a quick response, with a social platform answers come back almost instantly, providing crowd-sourced answers from various locations in their network.
When used internally within an organisation, Enterprise Social can greatly improve collaboration. With the ability to communicate in real-time, team members working on the same project can share documents and project progress with ease. They have quick access to knowledge from employees across the organisation, which allows them to solve business issues in a timely manner. This type of collaboration and communication is vastly improved by platforms such as Yammer, which can be built into a customised in-house intranet.
Enterprise Social Networking can have a positive impact on overall company culture too. Employees can use the groups and mini-communities made on your network to build better relationships. This will result not only in a more efficient workforce but a happier one too. Increased job satisfaction and morale will ultimately lead to lower staff turnover, which is something every organisation hopes to achieve.
Discussion of work topics, sharing content and collaborative working should all be taking place regularly in your organisation. If this isn’t the case, could it be that your traditional intranet needs an update? Learn more about the key difference between traditional and modern intranets.
How to overcome challenges with Enterprise Social?
When implementing an Enterprise Social network, you will be faced with a few challenges along the way. A good social network should be relatively simple to use, this doesn’t however mean it will be simple to get people engaged and making the best use of it.
This is why it’s crucial to understand early on what employees really need. Assess the ways in which people are working and ensure that a corporate social platform can improve them. The key to maximising employee engagement is to give them a reason, some motivation as to why their participation is for their benefit. If they clearly understand what the network should be used for, then engagement rates will soar.
Another key factor that is vital to overcoming any challenges is having the key stakeholders on board. When employees see top-level participation within a platform such as Yammer, it’s a good lead set for other employees to follow. Many employees want to hear more directly from the executive team. Communicating via social media is a simple way to do this, which in turn can lead to increased productivity.
The most effective way to show the benefits is by rooting the network into employee’s daily work life, making sure the tools help them get their daily tasks done. You don’t want the platform just sitting there as a destination site, it’s there to be interacted with and contributed to.
Overall, an effective Enterprise Social Network brings your organisation into the most modern way of working. It encourages employees to communicate and collaborate, increasing the productivity of your organisation.
Sound like something your organisation could benefit from? Learn the most important factors when putting together a successful business case which will have key stakeholders eating out of your hands.
