Facebook for a long time now has been the most popular place on the Internet to share cat photos, YouTube videos, and long political diatribes. Now, Facebook is making its strongest move into the corporate space with Facebook at Work, an app designed to facilitate communication between employees at… well… work. Facebook is entering a space already saturated with competing products including Yammer, Socialcast, and many others. So why might a workplace choose Facebook at Work over these other apps?
Important Details About Facebook at Work
We don’t know all of the details about Work yet, but here are some things we do know:
Work is Facebook… but for Work
This might sound obvious, but the biggest advantage of Facebook at Work might just be the fact that Work uses the features of Facebook, adapted for the workplace. When businesses look to purchase a social app, Facebook at Work will have an advantage over the others in that nearly everyone already uses Facebook and training on Work will be minimal.
Integration With Facebook
Work will allow users to either set up unique accounts, or create accounts that are directly integrated with their existing Facebook accounts. While the products will be integrated, they will also allow you to keep personal and professional content separate. If content is posted on work, it won’t necessarily be visible on regular Facebook and vice versa. And if your employees are frequently active on Instagram or other social platforms, Facebook can be a great way to activate employees as influencers for a brand.
Intra-Office Viral Content
Just like content can go viral on a public social network, private networks set up through Facebook at Work would have viral content. Posts, files, and other content would be pushed to the top of various workers’ feeds based on the number of likes, shares, and comments that they accumulated from other workers. In this way, the best ideas, and content that a company generated would be brought to the most peoples’ attention.
These recent changes may also make you cautious. If more employers are using this system for work, you may want to delete a Facebook page that doesn’t conform to company standards or portrays employees in a potentially negative light. After all, the reputation management stakes can be a lot higher when mixing personal and business content.
