Intranet Connections Blog

Posts Tagged ‘internal communication’

Managing Corporate Growth: An Intranet Case Study

Tuesday, February 1st, 2011

The landscape of web marketing is always changing and shifting so it’s no surprise that Fathom SEO, a leader in online marketing, was eager to put a new intranet in place to assist with knowledge management. Fathom SEO, understood the importance of a dynamic, scalable intranet as their previous intranet was static and required users to know HTML to update information. The company also faced the challenge of on-boarding and training new employees in a timely fashion.

The very first decision the company had to make was whether to build their own custom intranet or to buy out-of-the box software. After deeming SharePoint too labor intensive and not a good allocation of development resources, Fathom SEO ultimately decided that purchasing a packaged intranet solution was the most cost effective and timely route to set up their new site. With a very quick growth rate, the company knew they needed a solution that would be scalable and very quickly deployed so they decided to evaluate Intranet Connections.

Kurt Krejny, Director of SEM Best Practices, took the lead on the intranet evaluation and kicked things off with a web demo walk through of Intranet Connections. Following the demo, Kurt jumped right into his trial site, began to build a shell of their intranet and within a couple of days knew the software would fit their needs. The main factors that ultimately led Fathom SEO to their decision to select Intranet Connections were:

  • Flexibility of the software as regular updates and enhancements are provided
  • Low setup overhead
  • Ease of use
  • Deep functionality and applications
  • Scalability as licensing was one low price for unlimited administrators and end users

Using the pre-built applications available in Intranet Connections, Fathom SEO has been able to accomplish the following goals on their intranet:

Engaging Employees
By using Discussion Forms and weekly Quick Polls, users have a voice in the company to share their experiences and ideas for best practices. In turn, this helps Fathom SEO to refine their processes and procedures. Due to the open publishing model that Fathom SEO has adopted, the intranet has had great buy-in with employees as everyone can contribute to the site and share their knowledge.

Departmental Involvement
As Intranet Connections had a low learning curve, Kurt was able to hold a short training session with each department and within 2 months, all of the departmental sub-sites had been populated with all the relevant information users needed access to. A documents and policies area has also been set up within each department/service line’s sub-site so that all of the documents and best practices related to that product line are stored in one central location and are fully searchable.

On-boarding New Hires
The intranet has been invaluable with on-boarding new hires in a quick and efficient manner as all of the necessary new employee information and forms are stored on the intranet. New employees can easily find new coworkers’ contact information and learn about who they are working with through the Employee Directory.

Coordinating Business Objectives
Fathom SEO has set up an area on the intranet dedicated to the online promotion of the company. This area has helped them to set up a publishing schedule of blog posts and coordinate their social media presence.

Going forward, Fathom SEO plans to find ways to facilitate their company core values and corporate culture via their intranet. They see the intranet as playing a key role in supporting their company mission and value proposition and we are interested to see how they do so in the coming months.

About Fathom SEO:

Fathom SEO, based in Cleveland, Ohio, is a leader in online marketing, including Search Engine Optimization and Online PR/Link Building, Pay-Per-Click Management, Internet Video Marketing, and Opt-in Email Marketing programs. Fathom SEO is recognized as a leading search engine marketing firm with more than 10 years’ experience achieving high search engine rankings for clients across dozens of industries. Advertising Age has named Fathom SEO among the top 20 search engine marketing agencies since 2007. In 2010 Fathom SEO was recognized by Inc. Magazine as one of the fastest-growing companies in America. Visit http://www.fathomseo.com for more information.

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Posted in Customer Stories | 3 Comments »

5 Steps to Intranet Blog Success

Tuesday, January 11th, 2011

I am a Chris Brogan fan. If you are interested, check out his web site at www.chrisbrogan.com. He works with large and mid-sized companies to improve online business communications like marketing and PR through the use of social software, community platforms, and other emerging web and mobile technologies.  His blog is a goldmine of short, static bursts loaded with value-add.

Several months ago he wrote a blog post on “How to Grow Traffic to Your Blog”.  While the ideas are not directly related to an intranet, the concepts can be put towards how you blog to employees.

The link to the original post is below, but here a few points to ponder next time you gear up to blog on your intranet, in Chris’ own words:

  1. Great Titles Help
    “The first few seconds of someone’s attention are the hardest to pass. If you have a lame blog post title, no one is going to want to read the post. For whatever reason, we tend to react to ‘how to,’ and we react to ‘7 great,’ we react to all kinds of things.

    Go to the grocery store, buy some ladies’ magazines like Cosmopolitan, and learn how THEY write headlines on the front page.”

  2. Graphics Don’t Hurt
    “This entire series (and most of my blog posts) use graphics to catch your eye. It’s an easy way to get one’s attention. Screen captures help. Video helps.”
  3. Brevity Is the Game
    “Now that we’ve got a decent title, decent graphics, let’s be quick about your content. People don’t have all day to read. If you can keep your posts between 250-500 words, that’s in alignment with most people’s attention spans.”
  4. Consistency
    “This is one of those points where people disagree. I blog daily. Truth be told, I’m up to 2x a day most days. Why? Because the more I blog, the more people subscribe … That said, no matter which frequency you’ve chosen, stick to it”
  5. Market Your Blog
    “Often times, we sit around inside the fishbowl of social media and hope people from outside will find us. Here’s a hint: the people you need are out there wondering what they can do to learn more about the thing you’re talking about”

Final Thoughts

“I’m a big fan of the basics: write about what they need, make sure they see that you wrote about it, make it easy to carry on the relationship, make it easy for them to promote you to others. Seems like a simple formula, and yet, we go through all kinds of hoops to come up with trickier methods. Try this one first. What do you say?”

How to Grow Traffic to Your Blog

Subscribe to Chris Brogan’s Blog

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Posted in Best Practices | 1 Comment »

Is the Intranet Your Baby? Read On! (Part 3 of 3)

Wednesday, November 10th, 2010

One question that everyone seemed to have in common at the 16th Intranet for Corporate Communications course was “how do I increase employee buy-in on my intranet.”  Communicators today have learned that the old adage “if you build it, they will come” does not hold true for intranets.

Increasing Employee Engagement:

I think Robin Farr put it best when she stated that “an intranet should be a conversation; even better a dialogue; better than that, a community.” There are some simple tactics that you can implement to encourage employee engagement and build community on your site.

  • Create ways for employees to provide feedback about the intranet. Remember that your site is only as good as the feedback you get
  • Allow users to comment and rate site content. This gives users a voice and can help with content development and revision
  • Make sure that you are responsive to the feedback you receive
  • Push content out to end users by way of a weekly newsletter that summarizes the news from the week with links back to your site. Content can also be pushed to users through auto-generated alerts when new content is added to certain areas of the site
  • Allow users to personalize their intranet experience through personal bookmarks and building their own homepage so they can access the information that is important to them quickly and efficiently

A lot of organizations are wary about enabling social tools on their intranet however applications such as blogs, discussion forums and suggestion boxes have the potential to drive organizational change. A social intranet is not just about the tools and technology you provide but about empowering users and creating communities

There was an abundance of great information that was shared by the presenters and by all the course attendees; however I think the point that all of the above tips and tricks boil down to is that any decisions you make about your intranet should benefit your employees and help to achieve your business goals.

What are some of the tips that you recommend for building a great intranet?

Previously: User-centric Design and Writing for the Intranet

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Posted in Best Practices | 4 Comments »

Is the Intranet Your Baby? Read On! (Part 2 of 3)

Tuesday, November 9th, 2010

Building a successful intranet is not just about designing an effective information architecture for your site.  Another recurring theme that stood out across the presentations and intranet examples that I saw at the Intranets for Corporate Communications Course was the importance of developing content specifically for the web.

Writing for the Intranet:

The content that gets posted on your site can greatly affect users’ perceptions of the intranet and can also affect intranet buy-in. People consume information online differently than they do in print so it is important to keep the following points in mind when developing content for your intranet:

  • Tone matters! Try a casual, light-hearted, conversational voice when writing content for your site
  • Drop the corporate speak and use plain language in your intranet content.  Employees will find it easier to quickly extract the information they need if you keep it simple
  • Remember that people scan, rather than read, online. Put important information at the top of the page and at the start of sentences. Use the classic ‘F’ pattern to layout content on intranet pages
  • Develop a regular publishing schedule for intranet content. Also make sure that content gets reviewed frequently so that information can be kept up to date and relevant
  • Teach your content contributors how to develop content that is appropriate for the intranet. Educate them about publishing standards, guidelines and best practices
  • Use narrative for your intranet content. Story-telling is a great way to draw people in
  • Provide high-quality content that is free of errors (factual or grammatical)

Above all, include content on the site that employees are interested in. Highlighting employee achievements, featuring employee interviews and photos of coworkers or company events are all examples of content that will help draw readers to your intranet.

Up next: Increasing Employee Engagement

Previously: User-Centric Design

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Posted in Best Practices | 4 Comments »

In the Midst of Change: An Intranet Case Study

Wednesday, September 8th, 2010

What do you do when you find out that your staff will be divided between two locations during a major renovation period? How can you unify employees at the two locations and ensure that communication remains consistent?

If you are BC Place – the venue for the opening and closing ceremonies of the Vancouver 2010 Olympics – you decide that the best way to overcome the internal communication challenges is with an intranet.

BC Place launched their intranet, built on the Intranet Connections software, in July with the goal of improving communication, increasing employee involvement, and enhancing information sharing within the organization.

As this was BC Place’s first foray into an intranet project, the intranet roll-out had to focus on introducing the concept of an intranet.

BC Place wanted to ensure that their intranet caught on with all users and would become a dynamic and widely used resource for corporate information. User education was the way to do it. Their message included:

  • What the role of the intranet was to be within the organization
  • Intranet site usage policies
  • Content strategies
  • Boundaries to the type of content that should be included on the intranet

BC Place is currently undergoing major construction to revitalize and modernize the facilities, including the largest retractable roof of its kind in the world (!) so a lot of the information on the intranet is currently comprised of construction news. Other information and popular communities on the site include:

Live Construction Updates
A widget on the site Home Page that pulls a live web cam feed of BC Place so users can view the construction site in real time

Press Releases
An area for employees to see all the latest press updates about BC Place

Road Show Information
A central bulletin board for all the latest information and updates about the community tour going on throughout the province

Employee Directory
A central repository for employees to find contact and location information for their coworkers, across the different facilities. Particularly helpful now that many staff members have moved offices or been moved to the temporary offsite location because of the construction

E-Forms
Streamlines daily business processes as users can quickly find and complete popular forms right through the intranet

Department Sub-Sites
Provides each department with an area to store their dedicated departmental content. Granular access to department info

Job Centre
A central area for BC Place to post job opportunities for its large group of part-time, seasonal employees

Although the IT team at BC Place spearheaded the search for an intranet solution, an intranet development committee has since been set up to ensure that going forward the intranet keeps evolving. The committee plans to meet once a month to discuss content strategies, share ideas for the intranet and plan for ongoing development of the site.

For more information about the features mentioned above, check out Intranet Connections: Intranet 2.0 Software.

More about BC Place

BC Place is the largest sports, exhibition and entertainment venue of its kind in British Columbia, hosting the province’s most notable events, including the Opening and Closing Ceremonies of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games. Upon re-opening in 2011, BC Place will be the new home for the Vancouver MLS franchise, will continue to be home to the BC Lions Football Club, the 2011 Grey Cup and many other exhibitions, community and entertainment events. Visit http://www.bcplace.com for more info.

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Posted in Customer Stories | 3 Comments »