Social Intranets lay the foundation for an open company culture. With optimal structuring, every employee should receive relevant information as early as possible. Furthermore, a basic idea of social networking is that all employees participate and provide input. In this way, management not only receives valuable feedback, but is also relieved of some of its management work: Thanks to social intranets taking initiative, the various teams can organise themselves. At the same time, the practical network platforms can also provide access to necessary work materials.
Even though the individual solutions are strongly tailored to the requirements of the respective company and are therefore often different, there are still some elements that can be found with almost every social intranet. The most important are:
- Newsfeed: Newsfeeds, often referred to as activity streams, are often the central component of a social intranet. They ensure that all employees are provided with up-to-date information about the company and its departments. The articles in the newsfeeds are sorted by date and the messaging history can be retrieved at any time. Activity streams are often realised in the form of a blog, although there is no need for a fixed editorial team to be responsible for writing articles. Unlike traditional intranets, employees can react directly to new messages e.g. through the comment function.
- User profiles and groups: One component that is best known from social networks is the ability to create and manage user profiles. These help to assign contributions and comments and make it easier for individual employees to find the right contact person for the respective issue. The profiles also allow users to be added to specific groups, such as a certain department or project. In a small circle, it’s easier to discuss topics and announce news that would be irrelevant for other employees. Groups often have their own newsfeed in addition to the company’s main feed.
- Messenger: In addition to messaging platforms for the company and individual teams, social intranets usually also offer their own chat messaging system, which is primarily intended to act as a dynamic alternative to traditional e-mail traffic by enabling communication in real-time. Therefore, it doesn’t matter how many contacts take part in a conversation. As with the structuring of the intranet in general, it is common to set up different chats such as a general chat and different group chats.
- Calendar: Despite all communication channels offered by a good corporate social network, a simple, classic calendar function should always be included. Calendars help you to keep track of all important appointments – whether it’s a team meeting, a business lunch, or a deadline. Thanks to the company’s networking, you can also keep track of colleagues’ calendars if they’ve given you access to them.
- Central file storage: For digital collaboration to work in a company, it is not only important to have a good exchange of information; good document management is just as important. A central file storage is therefore an integral part of many social intranets and is accessible to all employees. Documents can be stored or retrieved here. Version management ensures that the selected file is up-to-date.
- Search functions: By definition, a social intranet is intended to promote communication and cooperation between network participants. Even though these network components form the best possible basis for this, it is not always easy to keep track of things, especially in large companies: extensive contact lists, seemingly endless news stories, and a huge range of documents make the search for certain information a tedious task. Search functions for various features should therefore be a standard part of the social intranet structure. This means that certain content or contacts can be found at any time by simply entering a keyword.
Appropriate software is required to implement the various components of a social intranet. To do this, individual programs can be purchased for the various purposes and be coordinated with each other, or complete solutions such as Jive-n can be used, which integrate a complete social platform into the business structure. In both cases, it is important to decide whether the new networking structure will be introduced in a single step or whether it will be introduced gradually. The former option means that the intranet can be used by all employees straightaway, but of course it requires some effort. The step-by-step variant takes several days or weeks, depending on the planning, but has the advantage that day-to-day business is guaranteed at all times (with minimal restrictions).