MICROSOFT'S YAMMER
Yammer (
/ˈjæm.ər/ (help·info)) is a freemium enterprise social networking service used for private communication within organizations. Access to a Yammer network is determined by a user's Internet domain so that only individuals with approved email addresses may join their respective networks.
Yammer is a social networking tool to openly connect and engage across your organization
Yammer helps you connect and engage across your organization, so you can discuss ideas, share updates, and network with others around the globe.
Yammer is a private platform for enterprise social networking. Originally developed as an internal communication system, the site allows for business users to easily collaborate with one another to meet business needs. Users are identified by their email domains and connected to others within a network.
Yammer made its debut appearance in 2008. Developed by a former PayPal executive, Yammer is a social networking solution for the workplace. Seeing the potential, Microsoft purchased Yammer in 2012 for a whopping $1.2 billion. Now the site boasts a clientele of more than 85 percent of Fortune 500 Companies.
Often referred to as the “Facebook for business,” Yammer offers you many familiar tools for collaborating with others in your company. This includes Suggested Groups, Suggested People, Networks, a Feed, and much more.
Yammer is a unique social networking service designed with enterprise communication in mind. Yammer was created by a company called Geni with the sole purpose of helping employees connect and communicate across their organization. It was hugely successful, and was later expanded to become both its own product and company that was launched in September of 2008.
Yammer quickly caught the eyes of many eager buyers before it was ultimately acquired by Microsoft in 2012. Microsoft rolled the new product into their Office 365 suite in 2014, and today it is used by 85% of fortune 500 companies worldwide.
Yammer is a great place for companies to showcase internal innovation and achievement.It allows teams to showcase departmental innovations and achievements. It helps departments react to and build on the latest achievements of others, and lets employees feel recognized for doing something good.
Yammer is an incredibly powerful and useful workplace tool and it’s been popping up in the news more and more with recent case studies around British Airways, Sainsbury’s and Tesco. We want to have a look at what it is, why it’s useful and share some tips to help you get the most from using Yammer effectively.
Yammer Tips & Uses
Post new business announcements – this can help share the positive feeling with the company and also prepare key team members about an upcoming client on boarding.
Post social invites – if a few of you plan to go out after work, or for lunch why not post it and extend the invite. You wouldn’t email the whole company but posting on Yammer lets people know they’re invited without putting yourself out of your comfort zone. This can help you get to know colleagues and encourage cross-department socializing.
Post interesting links – Found something you find interesting? Post it on Yammer! Whether its work related or more general, posting useful links is a great way to start a conversation and share ideas.
Use its powerful search – Yammer has powerful search capabilities built on Enterprise Graph, so anything posted on Yammer can easily be found. This also can allow Yammer to be used for ‘bookmarking’ by posting links and information in a Group that you can always go back and refer to.
Find the right person - If you ever need to find something out but have no idea where to start you can simply post it on Yammer. The right person can respond or people can help point you in the right direction faster.
Get people together - Do you have a group of colleagues who want to play basketball, or want to car share? Create a group and post all your updates there and even invite people to join. These could be after work sports events, a book club, anything!
Local information – Why not create a group for your local office or if you’re based in one office create a ‘Local’ group. This could be a place for sharing fun things you’ve found going on in the area, to giving everyone a traffic update.
Give feedback – If you have an idea, why not share it and receive feedback? It could come back with helpful ways to improve, or even be seen by the right person who wants to action it straight away!
Post fun things – post jokes or funny pictures that you think colleagues will find amusing to brighten their day.
Create a Group for anything – By creating groups you can target specific content, such as: HR group, Cycle to Work group, Christmas party group or New starter group. Be sure to check that there isn’t an existing group to avoid duplicates!
Reduce emails – As we strive towards ‘inbox zero’ think whether you really need to send the information by email, or if it could be posted on Yammer to help keep colleague inboxes cleaner.
Create your ideal notifications – You can customise whether you want to receive lots of emails notifications or few by changing your preference (see how to do this here).
Tag people and topics – to make sure certain people see messages or to include them in the conversation ‘tag’ them by putting @ before their name. Also tag topics using # to help improve search around these topics.
Start a poll – want to find out something? Why not create a poll and share this with your department or company. Results show anonymously and you can quickly find out where the majority vote lies.
Local information – Why not create a group for your local office or if you’re based in one office create a ‘Local’ group. This could be a place for sharing fun things you’ve found going on in the area, to giving everyone a traffic update.
Give feedback – If you have an idea, why not share it and receive feedback? It could come back with helpful ways to improve, or even be seen by the right person who wants to action it straight away!
Post fun things – post jokes or funny pictures that you think colleagues will find amusing to brighten their day.
Create a Group for anything – By creating groups you can target specific content, such as: HR group, Cycle to Work group, Christmas party group or New starter group. Be sure to check that there isn’t an existing group to avoid duplicates!
Reduce emails – As we strive towards ‘inbox zero’ think whether you really need to send the information by email, or if it could be posted on Yammer to help keep colleague inboxes cleaner.
Create your ideal notifications – You can customize whether you want to receive lots of emails notifications or few by changing your preference (see how to do this here).
Tag people and topics – to make sure certain people see messages or to include them in the conversation ‘tag’ them by putting @ before their name. Also tag topics using # to help improve search around these topics.
Start a poll – want to find out something? Why not create a poll and share this with your department or company. Results show anonymously and you can quickly find out where the majority vote lies.
