10 ways to launch a social network employees will use

Remember the movie about a farmer building a baseball diamond in a cornfield and waiting for Shoeless Joe Jackson to show up?

Inspiring, maybe, if your cup of tea is Kevin Costner obsessing over a voice that tells him, “If you build it, he will come.”

But that’s not the way to launch an enterprise social network, an activity stream-based communication platform similar to Twitter and Facebook that have tools to help employees find and share knowledge within organizations.

“The thing about an enterprise social network is, if you build it, they will not come—necessarily,” says Toby Ward, chief executive of Prescient Digital Media.

You need to work to get employees involved, he explains. A minority of in-house “propeller heads” will always be eager to use any new gizmo. But to get the masses on board, organizations need a strategy.

1. Set your goals

Before you even begin to create an internal social platform, ask yourself why you’re doing it.