The Social Intranet Tipping Point

Two years ago, the social intranet did not exist. Social media tools on the intranet (intranet 2.0) have existed for a number of years, in fact, discussion groups and instant messaging first appeared on intranets in the late 1990s.

A social intranet has multiple social media tools that are integrated (in some manner) into the home page and available to most if not all employees.A number of examples of these social intranets were showcased in last week’s seminar:

A typical social intranet home page may have:

A listing of the most recent blog posts

• Recent wiki contribution
• Most commented on stories / content (or most recent)
• A tag cloud of the most hotly discussed topics
• Multimedia including video and/or podcast
• Twitter / Yammer or micro-blogging portlet (webpart)
• Links to social media properties
• Activity stream(s) of work colleagues / connections via social networking
• RSS feeds

Early adopters have learned thatВ developing a social intranet is about more than picking the right technology and making it available to all employees. While intuitive tools encourage usage, motivating employees to participate in the social intranet requires identifying the groups that will benefit from the new generation of technology, determining the tasks that can be improved with the tools and addressing organizational issues that can work discourage usage. The success of these leaders also demonstrate the importance of earning executive support and buy-in and having a plan to introduce the technology in a manner that aligns with the unique requirements of the individual organization.

The Social Intranet Tipping Point: incorporation of social media into the intranet home page. If you adopt social media, then adopt it whole-heartedly; don’t hide your social media in far-flung corners of the intranet, integrate intranet 2.0 into your home page.

Download a free copy of The Social Intranet white paper.