We have Facebook for sharing adorable cat videos, Twitter for cyberbullying, and LinkedIn for working out math problems from the second grade. Yammer has since been added. What is Yammer, and does your business need it?
A business social network called Yammer is a feature of Microsoft 365’s enterprise editions. Yammer enables office chat, file sharing, survey creation, and more—just like a private version of Facebook. Users read conversations on Yammer, post to them, and respond to them. In addition, Yammer posts can all be searched, making it easy to find what you need.
Please continue reading for more details if Yammer is of interest to you.
Table of Contents
What Is Yammer?
A unique social networking platform called Yammer was created with business communication in mind. Geni, a business, developed Yammer specifically to foster employee interaction and communication throughout the company. It was extremely popular and later developed into its own brand, which debuted in September 2008 as a company.
Before being eventually purchased by Microsoft in 2012, Yammer quickly attracted the attention of many eager buyers. 85% of Fortune 500 companies use the new product, which Microsoft integrated into their Office 365 suite in 2014 and is now available globally.
Yammer can be compared to Facebook in the business world. A Facebook that is incredibly inclusive, with updates about events, questions, and issues that coworkers are attempting to solve in place of friends, ads in place of corporate reminders, and friends replaced with coworkers.
What Does Yammer Do?
Many people compare Yammer to Facebook for companies. It has features found in social networks and can be accessed through a browser or as a standalone mobile app.
For instance, a news feed displays the most recent posts made by coworkers and corporate divisions. Employees can follow certain topics within the company through Groups, where they can post feedback immediately in the form of comments and inquiries. Another tool for direct communication with coworkers is instant messaging.
Advantages Of Yammer
Here are some of the ways Yammer can be used:
- Yammer can be used by an organization to communicate news, alerts, policies, and procedures directly to staff members.
- Without knowing exactly who to ask, employees can find answers by searching Yammer groups.
- Yammer works with additional Microsoft 365 applications. For instance, SharePoint pages can be updated with Yammer feeds. Furthermore, because of its compatibility with Salesforce, businesses can instantly transfer Salesforce CRM activity to Yammer. Just the tip of the iceberg; Yammer can also be accessed from within Microsoft Teams and a variety of other apps, depending on where staff members need to find and use it.
- In a setting similar to Facebook, managers and staff members can celebrate victories and acknowledge accomplishments.
- With coworkers and groups, media (such as pictures and videos) can be shared.
- Yammer enables businesses to conduct polls and surveys.
Why Is It Popular With Companies?
Companies prefer Yammer because it is simple to set up and benefits businesses. Here are a few examples of the value that Yammer provides.
Yammer Helps Employees Get Answers Fast Even When They Don’t Know Who To Ask
Yammer makes it possible for businesses to collaborate across locations, especially those with multiple offices. You can now simply post a question in a Yammer Group rather than sending out an email to ask who to contact about X. The leaders of each department monitor their Yammer groups and respond to inquiries accordingly.
As a result, more work gets done more quickly for everyone. At AvePoint, we’ve taken the proactive step of creating entire Yammer groups solely for asking and responding to questions, which has significantly increased our responsiveness.
Yammer Enables Informal Employee Training
Have you ever watched National Geographic and learned twenty tidbits about lizards as a result? You probably had no idea you were learning. Yammer is somewhat comparable. Over time, you learn about a specialized industry you never intended to know about as a result of reading updates and posting updates. It makes it possible for people to learn even when they may be operating automatically.
Yammer Offers A Platform To Showcase Internal Achievement And Helps Departments Build On The Work Of Others
Did someone just develop a ground-breaking feature or tool that could hasten product adoption or sales? Yammer should have that. Did sales just close one of their biggest deals of the year? Yammer is where that should be.
Teams can display the accomplishments and innovations of their respective departments. It enables departments to respond to and build upon the most recent successes of others and gives workers a sense of accomplishment. What could be unappealing about that?
Yammer Keeps Workers Connected And Entertained
If you gather a sizable enough group, there will undoubtedly be amusement. Yammer is both casual enough for posting gifs, and jokes, and having fun and formal enough to be ideal for the office. It’s a fantastic way for each office to interact with one another internally while letting other offices participate through comments and learn more about the work environment of their coworkers. It can also be configured so that you can work safely with clients, customers, and sister businesses.
Yammer Fosters Transparency
The ability of open chat tools like Microsoft Teams and Yammer to promote honesty and transparency within an organization is one of my all-time favorite advantages. Companies and department heads can easily create simple protocols for accomplishments and updates that their departments oversee with Yammer.
This makes sure that everyone is aware of the projects that the teams are working on, who is advancing initiatives, and what will happen next.
Yammer Is Perfect For Enterprise-wide Communication
The leadership of an organization can post updates, requests for feedback, announcements, and more in an open and transparent manner on Yammer. Employees can respond, offer suggestions, and ask questions more easily thanks to an interface that gives priority to file previews like photos and documents. Leadership may also host town hall meetings on Yammer for the entire organization.
Yammer Integrates Other Office 365 Apps & Makes The Workplace More Social
Microsoft began integrating apps and services as part of its effort to make Office 365 more social. At present, Yammer has integrated with Office 365 Groups, which is integrated with Outlook, which integrated with a number of other Office 365 applications.
Although this has brought the Office 365 suite together in a way that prevents users from missing or overlooking important updates, it has also created some issues regarding which tool people should use and when.
Customize Yammer To Meet Your Security And Compliance Needs
Yammer, a social media platform for business, is secure. Short answer: Yes. Here are several security-related features of the enterprise/subscription Yammer service:
- Privacy: All information on a Yammer network is kept private to that network’s organization and is not shared with Yammer networks belonging to other users.
- All data is always encrypted and has a secure (HTTPS) URL. No matter how a user accesses Yammer—on the web, through a desktop application, or through a mobile device—this applies to them.
- Security: Access to other Yammer networks is restricted to users with active email addresses. Both invited guests and employees from the network are included in this.
- Yammer offers administrative tools so users can abide by regional laws and regulations.
- At the enterprise level, all data is under the control and ownership of your company. Data and metadata can be exported.
- You can choose to integrate Yammer with other security services. As an illustration, consider Active Directory, SharePoint, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Salesforce, etc.
Despite the fact that the Yammer framework is secure and safe, what happens if your users post confidential, offensive, or restricted information to Yammer? To stop users from abusing Yammer, some guidance can go a long way. Inform your workforce of the expectations and conduct that your company will not tolerate.
Administrators have additional options for managing or modifying enterprise Yammer than just training. This includes limiting or prohibiting file uploads. Additionally, administrators can monitor keywords for objectionable or inappropriate content.
