In case you missed it..... we had a vibrant conversation with Microsoft Yammer MVPs, Amy Dolzine and Melanie Hohertz, and other customers on ways to build engagement in your Yammer networks. This was an interactive discussion with over 45 folks from across the globe.
Here’s the recording.
We’ve pulled together some highlights and best practices that’s shared below.
Leadership engagement
We’ve shared previously how important leaders are to the community and the Yammer network. We started by discussing the merits of the upcoming Post on Behalf of (POBO) feature, authenticity, and how to use it to get your leaders involved.
- How to think about using “Post on Behalf of” (POBO) with leaders
- Find their passion – maybe its less about the business and more about their personality, like post what they are watching on Netflix with their kids, or what music they are playing/listening to, what they are baking, whatever they are passionate about
- Can't fake passion
- Build authenticity
- Push vs pull communications
- Use POBO as training wheels or a starting point for getting leaders involved in Yammer. You won’t be able to “react” on behalf of others at this time.
- Leaders are creating a digital footprint on inside the community
- A few customers shared how they get leaders on board when the org has a “protect the quarterback" mentality - meaning they protect the Executives from anyone besides their own leadership teams
- Work with their support systems, like exec admins, internal comms teams
- Executive assistants hold time and space in the execs calendar and can help give reminders
- Find a willing member of the herd and have them set the example to win over the herd
Related resources for Leadership Engagement
Can you use products like TikTok for user generated content and inspiration for campaigns in your Yammer network?
Use other social media platforms to harvest new ideas! There’s something about how and why things are viral, how can you adapt it to your community and culture. It’s easier to contribute to the familiar, so take cues from the social networks around you and see what resonates with you.
- An example would be “Tell me you’re ______ without telling me you’re a ______”
- You can do this for specific communities or the organization as a whole.
Related Resource:
How can you use All Company more strategically?
You can set up All Company to be a strategic tool for your organization! Make a stand. Either restrict it or don’t but come up with some governance.
- Doesn’t have to be complicated, just communicate the expectations of All Company
- Decide who can post, who can reply,
- How many posts a day/week/month
- What are the boundaries for what gets posted, announced
- Partner with Internal Comms as an offer of reach
- Can offer reach, exclusivity,
- Conversation insights provide first level analytics to use as leverage
Related resources:
What are the Success Metrics in your organization?
- Measure trends for your org over time – its hard to compare apples to oranges
- Try to find stories and build a library of success stories that you can pull out for different parts of the business
- Tracking unknown expertise throughout your org
- Giving numbers beyond reach to stories, vs something you’d see in other tools
- Tracking praise, recognition, the word thank you
- How can you show people are coming back
- Best answer compared to questions asked
- People are coming back to the community, sustained visits, posts
Related resource:
How can we use system of records and Yammer better together?
- Use Yammer to compliment the service of record – like Service Now
- Yammer provides context and conversation and searchable around a topic
- Creating topics around Frequently asked questions
- Helps to create knowledge for future content/support needed from the System of Record/processes/support teams
- If someone is willing to go out of their way to ask a question about a topic, help them find the answer, even if its “not the right place”
- Don’t leave a question unanswered in community
- If it’s a question that already been answered, link back to that one!
- Someone shared that Yammer is the place to go for answers and find experts because the SLA has become faster!
- If users aren’t finding information, there may be a bigger reason why!
- Helping others helps bring additional talent and expertise to the surface
- Communities admins should build out info box, cover photos to use for the purpose of the community, hyperlink to common topics in the info box, and tag the experts in the info box
- Make this space count, beyond just beautiful!
- Use emoji’s in the info box to create a visual distinction
Related Resources:
Some of your fun campaigns and favored communities!
- Strategic Selfie campaigns - everyone know how to do a selfie!
- You can send around a cut out of historical figure or product – encourage people to take pictures and post
- An idea would be “Healthy - Selfie Campaign”
- Mug Shot Mondays – sharing a picture of the coffee cup on Monday morning
- “Zoom out” campaign – photo one is what everyone sees, photo two the same picture zoomed out -- the reality
- Our customers shared that they have a community for…
- Birth announcements
- Marketplace - buy/sell/trade
- Stock trading
- Question of the day
- Working apart, together
- Book clubs
- Inspirational quote
- Jokes
- O365, Microsoft Teams, other software products
- Your organization’s product/service in the “wild”
- Pandemic potluck – cooking ideas!
Thanks for joining us!
Stay tuned for more customer conversations in the upcoming months.
