Your employees’ inboxes continue to fill up. Electronic documents are being edited and saved and emailed internally. And, for those who work remotely or have a team member traveling, communication can be surprisingly difficult sometimes.

What if your team could use something like Facebook to streamline activity, house working files, and chat among themselves? Well, maybe it’s time to look into enterprise social networking (ESN) systems.

For those who work remotely or have a team member traveling, communication can be surprisingly difficult sometimes.

Most ESN tools are geared toward specific tasks. For example, a social media team may find HootSuite’s Socialcast the tool for handling customer service. If your team deals with cowritten documents, Evernote Business and Google+ have systems that allow several authors to be involved.

Have your staff try these platforms on for size:

HootSuite Socialcast: Already using HootSuite? Your team can easily integrate Socialcast into its communication system. The program is meant to serve as an internal social network for businesses. Comments posted on social networks such as Twitter and Facebook can be discussed privately among coworkers before giving a response, or team members can develop strategies for improving social media campaigns. Users can monitor and publish updates, build polls, share attachments, and engage via updates with other users.

Google+: A couple of months ago, Google added ESN features to Google+. One advantage it has is that most of your staff members are probably familiar with the Google interface. Google’s features are practical for collaboration and engagement. For example, up to 10 people can video-chat on Google+ Hangouts, it has calendar-syncing options, and documents can easily be shared.

Evernote Business: Sharing notes and building on existing documents are just a couple of highlights of Evernote Business. The best part: It’s available across mobile devices (a huge plus for travelers). It’s not a free service, but it’s easy to use and mobile-friendly.

Yammer: Yammer is a Microsoft Office ESN. It resembles the Facebook news feed and has chatting options. Teams can share documents and media with groups or the entire company.

With all ESNs, be mindful of how your team works, and make sure the tool you choose doesn’t end up being just another social network for staff to check during the day.

Has your association tried an enterprise social network? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

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