Exploring the social and interactive components of an
intranet and the advantages these features have for productivity, engagement,
and the bottom line for the majority of the time. The intranet must continue to
serve as a productive document management system and a repository for all of
your processes, policies, and procedures, of course.
Recent studies show that having a balanced site is
beneficial because, when compared to collaborative sole sites, intranet sites
with a mix of collaboration, communication, and business process saw an
increase in collaboration by 11%.
Here are some straightforward steps to make sure that
happens since, of course, for this success to occur, you need to make sure your
staff members use the solutions you offer.
1. Recognize the Intranet Content Lifecycle
Learning about the content lifecycle and the collaboration
tools used to create it should be your primary concern before even starting to
tackle an intranet content management system. There's a significant likelihood
that the path your intranet material takes will be the same or comparable,
regardless of the type of content you're producing.
- The planning, writing, and approval processes that are
familiar to most people come first, along with creation.
- Your content is then published once it has been updated to
make it more thorough, managed versions, added metadata, and optimized.
- Management is the last step, where you will analyze the
content, publicize it, and archive or delete any information that is no longer
pertinent.
- Knowing the lifecycle of intranet content might be very
beneficial if you're intending to develop your social intranet. It acts as a
constant reminder that after content is published, adequate maintenance must
take place.
Depending on the circumstance, you may update, delete, or
archive the content in question; these are but a few instances of the options
available to you.
2. Establish a Content Creation Strategy and General Guidelines
The creation of intranet content should be considered a
campaign in and of itself. If you don't have a solid plan in place before you
begin, problems are likely to arise sooner rather than later. Although developing an
intranet content strategy might be easy or challenging, it is crucial to
the smooth operation of the intranet.
Your intranet content production strategy should be centered
on the precise objectives you have in mind. Some businesses use their social
intranets expressly to foster employee cooperation, lower email volume, and
speed up information retrieval and access.
Others produce content with external objectives in mind,
such as offering self-service help, marketing, and boosting ROI. The plan you
develop for your content campaign will be totally based on the goals you have
for it.
It's critical to maintain your goals and objectives
reasonable when developing any strategy. You and your staff will only
experience headaches as a result of your attempt to do the impossible, and you
will waste time and energy in the process. Set high standards for yourself, but
never so high that you risk disappointing yourself.
3. Employ Community Coordinators
Even if you spend hours every day trying to manage the
information on your intranet, if you don't ask community managers for help,
you'll still fall behind.
Everyone should control the content of the intranet because
it is a full-time job. To accomplish the same goal, fundamental content
management tasks can be distributed across numerous people, which is where
community managers come in.
They should be proficient in using social intranet software
to quickly and effectively manage material, as this will be a significant
portion of their role. When selecting a team of workers to oversee the content
creation for your virtual community, be selective.
4. Communicate Frequently
Poor intranet content management is frequently the result of
a breakdown in internal communication between staff members, community
managers, and management.
Every social intranet is built on communication, and this
principle applies equally to all aspects of content creation.
One of the greatest ways to ensure that nothing is being
ignored is to communicate the state of your intranet material regularly. If
possible, you might decide to convene a group meeting in the workplace, or you
might decide to interact via the discussion board on your intranet.
In either case, regularly communicating with the people
responsible for developing and managing the information on your intranet can
make all the difference in the world.
5. Provide Staff with Content Creation Training
It is quite simple to create content using intranet
software, but only if you know what you're doing. Although folks who are
unfamiliar with intuitive social intranets may find them puzzling at first, a
brief training session can prevent a lot of future annoyance.
Your community content managers should ideally become
well-versed in the social intranet content creation process. They can plan
one-on-one or group training sessions with those who will be utilizing the
intranet to develop content after they have a working grasp of it.
All those who generate, publish and manage material will be
more confident and aware of the intranet by going over the fundamentals with
them and answering any questions they may have.
Although in-person training sessions are preferred, you can
train distant personnel using the software itself via phone, web conferencing,
and screen sharing.
6. Understand Tag Content
Software for social intranets is distinctive in that it
enables users to tag contributed material. In the end, this turns out to be a
really practical way to arrange the information on your intranet.
You can use tags like "communication,"
"tech," "cloud," or "telephone" to categorize
posts regarding cloud-based telephone services, for instance.
Never ignore these categories because they will be crucial
for future information access and retrieval.
If there is one issue with intranet content tagging, it is
that users frequently forget to do it. It's simple to spend a lot of time
working on a page and become so relieved when you're done that you forget to
complete it. Do everything you can to remember to tag each piece of material
that you, your community managers, and others who are developing content for
your intranet complete. You can also help out with other people's articles by
adding tags as necessary.
7. Assess What's Effective and What Isn't
You'll have the chance to assess what's working and what
isn't once the content generation wheel in your social intranet has been
turning for a while. This covers a large portion of the creation, publication,
and management of material, including internal operations and how external
content functions on websites.
The best way to make sure your intranet is developing
correctly, especially if your company has recently deployed it, is to review
your progress.
You can go in a number of various routes after examining the
existing state of your intranet material. You can archive or delete content
that hasn't received positive feedback from either internal or external
audiences, or you can decide to repeat a blogging technique that has proven
successful in the past.
You'll at the very least get a better understanding of the
condition of your intranet and have the chance to make any adjustments required
to maintain its development.
8. Choose the right plan
There are a wide variety of pre-built intranet options
available nowadays. Each one gives your company access to a different suite of
collaborative and communication capabilities. There may not be a
"perfect" intranet content management solution, but your business
still needs to carefully weigh its options to discover the one that works best
for it.
Limit your options by tailoring your search to the specific
requirements of your company. Think about the mission, values, and methods of
your business. You must find a way to blend your company's unique culture into
your virtual office.
Exploring the internal network
The intranet has the potential to become a useful tool for
improving internal interactions including communication, teamwork, and data
exchange. A successful intranet, however, requires careful planning and the
correct set of tools.
The intranet of today facilitates top-down communication,
engages employees, boosts productivity, monitors projects, promotes
collaboration, and does much more. Additionally, you need a solution that is
intuitive, simple to use, and can smoothly interact with your existing systems
when creating a modern intranet for your business. Since its introduction,
SharePoint has been a pioneer in documentation & collaboration,
revolutionizing how businesses run. Having an experienced SharePoint
support and maintenance team & upgrades on functionalities help boost
internal communications, content management, and collaborations that make it
the best choice for any organization globally.
