It comes as no surprise that social media are used by almost everyone these days. According to Social Media Today, an average person spends almost two hours every day watching videos on YouTube, scrolling Facebook timelines, reading new tweets or sharing photographs and short clips via Snapchat.

It is generally thought that social media distract workers during the office hours. But if your intranet system becomes your workers’ social networking channel, why not notice the advantages that ESNs can bring? Below you will see some examples of just a few noteworthy social intranet features that the best intranet systems provide:

1. Interactions

In the age of Facebook and its omnipresent opportunities for people to comment on everything they can see on there, it is very important to give your office community a possibility of sharing their thoughts and feelings about posts and news. Comments and likes are must-have features of a modern internal communications software solution. A news module is no longer just a noticeboard. It is rather like a panel discussion centre where every colleague can share and express their attitude to a particular subject.

Your benefit: You can be sure that the information you posted has been read and better remembered thanks to contrasting opinions expressed in the comments below it. Interactions are a quick way to improve the flow of information in your company. By the way, it is good to know what your workers think about the news you are posting.

2. News feed

Usually, this feature works similarly to the news feeds from Twitter or Facebook. Short posts to motivate your colleagues, commenting the pay rise or just advertising a trumpet for sale are very common in the latest intranet systems. Workmates can follow the updates of each other and the most popular users will become company’s microcelebrities.

Your benefit: Thanks to news feed timelines, you can reckon the morale amongst your staff. Additionally, the updates are strong team spirit builders, which will help your team be motivated and leverage its potential.

3. Photo gallery

The social functionality of this feature is similar to Instagram or Snapchat. Teammates share pictures of their everyday (mostly funny) situations and prepare creative memes. The photographs can, of course, be commented on and liked. This is also a good way to communicate, as a picture can express much more than the written word.

Your benefit: A view on your company life ‘in lens’ enables you to take a look at your business from a different perspective – a viewpoint of your employee. Such an overview will help you better understand and manage your team.

4. Kudo box

Your workers will use it to share their appreciation and emotions with one another. It allows them to send colleagues a card expressing gratitude, congratulating on a good job they have done, or simply to say “Have a nice day!”.

Your benefit: Kudo box is a really strong team spirit driver. Your employees can feel appreciated and noticed, the company culture becomes higher and your office atmosphere – friendly and relaxed. As a result, your personnel simply works better, thanks to the motivation stimulated by team bonds.

Let’s sum it up!

Effective internal communication is one of the key factors of a company’s success. Unless you are an individual entrepreneur, you have to establish an efficient and smooth framework for the exchange of information across your organisation. It is much easier to do this with an enterprise social network. The motivation it strengthens and the positive culture it creates will make your employees more willing to come to the office every morning with a smile on their faces.

And here you have the most important benefit: happy workers are more productive. A sufficient reason to invest in an intranet solution with an ESN module.