AS you may have gathered from previous articles, I am a huge fan of utilising Facebook for Business. With the launch of Workplace, this “crush’ has increased beyond measure.
What is Workplace?
Most will already know the origins of Facebook, it was designed for use within Harvard University as an internal communications tool for students, this quickly spread to other campuses and grew until it became the social entity we know today. With Workplace, it seems Facebook are reverting to their roots. Take the best functions of Facebook and make it an internal tool for your business and voila you have Workplace!
Why you need Workplace
Workplace utilises groups to enable more effective internal communications, each group can be shared with select individuals, can be designated to teams or departments and can be open to all or closed off to all but a few selected participants, benefiting multi-site companies, global enterprises and even tiny businesses like our own. If you are familiar with Facebook, setting up Workplace is a walk in the park, especially as you can bulk upload all employees via a csv file.
But why should you bother? Let me explain the benefit we will be gaining from our new Workplace account: we have several “groups’ designed to smooth-out the running processes of the business. We have a group for HR – directly linked to our external provider, where employees can message privately or publicly the HR department with any burning questions. We have an IT group which also links to our IT support service. Again any issues can be publicly or privately conveyed. And we have an announcement section, able to deliver company news to all employees as quickly as you would normally post to Facebook. For us the cherry on the cake is the multi-company function, which allows us to communicate directly with our clients in what is essentially our own branded version of Facebook. Totally securely we can share files, videos and pictures with our clients and vice versa. Now, when a client posts to their Workplace group the whole team will see the request and can act on it.
Accessibility and Cost
Just like Facebook, Workplace has a desktop and mobile app allowing those out on the road to stay in touch with the current situation. Workplace is available for any company or organisation that wants to use it and boasts users like Starbucks, Danone and Oxfam. For small businesses, it gives access to an enterprise-class cloud software without the huge price tag, for up to 1,000 users it costs $3 per month per user and currently Facebook have a 3-month free trial so your initial investment is all in the time it takes to set up and see if this new solution works for your business. For us – it is a game changer!