Microblog within Your Organization to Enhance Productivity

There's little debate that tools like Twitter and Facebook can effectively enhance your company's relationship with customers. But what about inside your company?

The Harvard Business Review contends that micoblogging can enhance productivity by allowing employees to rapidly exchange information and drive solutions which would otherwise take much longer -- and be far more expensive to achieve.

Indeed, the Harvard Business Review chronicles a microblogging success story using sites like Yammer and Socialtext. The conclusion: microblogging is cheap (or even free), so there's no need to conduct lengthy ROI investigations before piloting a microblogging project. Instead, just dive in. Before you get started, though, you should consider a few best practices to make sure your microblogging experiment pays dividends:

• Identify business goals. Iidentify the key business goals that you want to achieve, such as increased brainstorming or greater ease in seeking feedback from employees.
• Integrate microblogging into your workflow. Ensure it's perceived as a productivity tool rather than "yet another thing" people are expected to do. And managers should lead by example so everyone else knows what successful microblogging looks like.
• Provide training. Train everyone in how to use microblogging effectively. You might consider webinars, online training, or face-to-face sessions. Don't just roll out the tool and hope for the best.