Social media for internal communications

Some people said online that the smartest thing about Facebook and Twitter is not how effectively they work; rather, it is they fitting in our life so well that people don’t even feel strange when they use them.

Now, we have thousands of social networking web sites and related applications, many of which are for everyone, whereas some of them are more exclusive than the other. Applications such as Yammer, is an application for enterprise internal communications. It allows employees to update their status, including what news they are reading, what project they are working on, what questions they have and what kind of topic they want to discuss.

This kind of internal communication tools seem to be very similar to other social media in general. However, they are more exclusive because the network is determined by net users’ Internet domain.

But people may still wonder – what’s the point of using these tools for internal communications when everyone is using some more popular or inclusive social media like Facebook and Twitter?

One reason that I come up with is many companies do not allow employees to use social media such as Facebook or Twitter on the companies’ computers, because it will be very distracting to use these while working, especially most of the contents are irrelevant with work.

Nonetheless, a company may still need internal interactivities. Therefore, an exclusive tool is the best choice.

The above is just one example of an exclusive communication tool for internal use. Many other social media applications are not necessarily designed for internal use only, but still facilitate communications within an organization.

Digsby, Skype, wikis, podcasts, Slideshare and many others have their specific functions that foster conversations, help distribute information and encourage interactivities amongst employees in an organization. People don’t have to go to their colleagues’ desk say, “hi, I just saw a great piece of news,” or “look at my slideshow, how is it?” Nor do they need to email one by one anything they want to share with others. When they upload a slideshow or share a link through social media, others are able to see them.

Despite the fact that social media enable information to distribute fast and employees to interact, there are some factors that may hinder the communications.

Firstly, there are so many social media tools for people to use. They are not effective unless people who use them make them effectively. And that will cost a great deal of time and energy. Some people may have already felt an overwhelming impact of social media or simply emails on their daily life. The use of social media may cause stress and thus ineffective use of these tools.

Moreover, while handling a heavy job workload, an employee may feel social media giving too much information. People need to scan and find what is most important information that relevant to what they are working on. This process can sometimes be very distracting.

When searching for social media tools on the Internet, some introduction will inform people that how many of Fortune 500 (what is this?) companies are using the particular application. They seem to tell others that by using this tool, your company is going to be successful as these Fortune 500 giants.

But is that really the case?

Perhaps a company may need to experience itself to know the answer.