Internal communications have come a long way from monthlynewsletters and quarterly staff magazines that open with an upbeatcolumn from a suited president.

At their weakest, internal communications are justadministrative. At their best, they're also cultural andmeasurable.

Videos, infographics, live and interactive chat functionalityand news updates with comment features enabled are just some of themedia used to make communications faster-paced and moredynamic.

Studies show that creating interactions that engage employeesand provoke a response are valuable to everyone involved.

Businesses with high employee engagement have 28% less internaltheft or shrinkage, and 21% higher productivity than those in thebottom-quartile, according to Gallup research. Higher workplaceengagement also leads to lower absenteeism (37%).

Successful businesses don't just hire and retain, they turnemployees into brand ambassadors by engaging them fully in theirculture and values, and they find ways to track thatengagement.

The good news is credit unions, which often count employees asmembers, will find the foundations of engagement are already thereand ready to build on.

One incredibly effective way to engage employees is to“socialize” internal communications with employee-generated andbusiness-generated content in a live, rolling feed.

A McKinsey Global Institute study estimates suggest that byusing “social” technologies, companies can raise the productivityof high-skill knowledge workers – including managers andprofessionals – by 20-25%.

The MGI report also suggests how: “When companies use socialmedia internally, messages become content; a searchable record ofknowledge can reduce, by as much as 35%, the time employees spendsearching for company information.”

Clearly, social technologies are big time savers, but there's anarguably more important benefit, and that's one of trust. There isa risk that one-dimensional, non-interactive internalcommunications will be perceived at worst, as propagandist and, atbest, as opaque and unapproachable. Transparency breeds trust andloyalty, among staff as well as members.

By keeping company communications interactive and social,employees have a real opportunity to engage and credit unions cangarner response to company news. This might be especially valuableafter a bad performing quarter when organizations could issue arallying cry, and then measure if that message has energized ordemotivated based on the social response.

Here are seven tips for integrating social media into yourinternal communications:

1. Encourage employee-generated content.

To truly socialize and democratize internal communications,invite employees to create their own content. The beauty of this isthat your company news feed is continuously updated in real time,with posts that show off the culture you've worked so hard tocultivate. And, because this content is unfiltered, it sets aprecedent of trust.

Employees could be encouraged to post everything from photos oftraining days and client events to snaps of their home workingstations – if flexible working is one of your benefits – andteam nights out.

2. Create a usage policy.

Where there's social media, there is room for misinterpretationover tone or, simply, a clash of opinion. Encourage free speech anddebate, but make sure your people are clear on how your internalcommunications platform is to be used with some simple,readily-available guidelines. Managers should be prepared to stepin and suggest a conversation is continued offline.

3. Involve the whole company.

The senior management team should dip in regularly and getinvolved, either by kick-starting a topic of conversation, or bycommenting on employee-generated posts. Staff will feel incrediblyvalued when they gain recognition from the top for their enthusiasmand participation.

4. Filter discussions.

Not every discussion will be relevant or useful to every user ofyour internal communications platform. Use different discussion“rooms” to have focused chats for different subjects, with theright people invited to read and contribute their thoughts andideas. If you open every discussion to every member of staff you'lldisengage people quickly, because they will grow used to seeingcontent that doesn't apply to them and learn to click away.

By having focused discussions, different rooms can also beembedded on the relevant departmental landing pages within yourorganization's intranet for ease. For, example, the HR team canhave a discussion channel inviting comments about HR issues thatcan be accessed by selected teams across the organization, andanother closed room for their department only, with both beingaccessible through their team's main page.

5. Use storytelling.

The rules of engagement on social media also apply to internalcommunications. Only the very best content engages people. Postswith images or video do best, as do posts that invite comments byasking direct questions, or that make people laugh. If there's anevent coming up, encourage people to use a pre-agreed upon hashtagto make the post searchable at a later date.

Stories really do bring facts to life and make them memorable,so invite your teams to explain how they secured a new client,describe their career backgrounds when they first join the team, orget frontline member services' staff to post about interestinginteractions they learned from.

6. Make themes searchable.

Search functionality helps organizations measure levels ofengagement through – for example – an uplift in activity around aparticular event, or see which posts gain the most “likes” orcomments. Content should be searchable by user, keywords andhashtags.

7. Make content accessible.

There's no point having an internal social media feed that noone ever looks at. To work successfully, social apps need to be anintegrated part of your internal technology. Many organizations puttheir company feeds on the homepage of their intranet, which actsas a portal to all the apps and files used by their teams. Thisway, it can't be ignored and it becomes as accessible as email.

Nigel Davies is founder of digital workplace Claromentis. Hecan be reached at 0044-7771-776-454 [email protected].